Leap

 

My word for 2010 is LEAP. I wasn’t sure I could come up with one because there are so many perfect words out there that could each set a different tone for the year. But the second this one popped into my head, I knew it was right.

I am going to revisit my birthday wishes here because they directly impacted my resolutions for 2010. I like to see the big picture whenever possible and didn’t want to create a laundry list of expectations that couldn’t possibly be fulfilled. These were my birthday wishes…

• Wish #1: More Joy
• Wish #2: Sweet Dreams
• Wish #3: Kindness
• Wish #4: Presence
• Wish #5: Pink hair
• Wish #6: Look good naked
• Wish #7: Step forward

And this is how they fit with my resolutions.

#1: Connect.

As much as I do quite well on my own, I am a social creature. I love gathering people together to connect and share and celebrate. No occasion required. This brings me great joy and I feel extraordinarily lucky to have started 2010 amongst friends and family. (Oh and truly delicious food!) For this year I have made a deep commitment to connect.  More get-togethers, more laughter, more glass-clinking, more noshing, more games, more chatter, more stories. I have already started the year off by connecting with over 30 new contacts on Facebook (I love being able to hear about the lives of others.) and I can’t wait to entertain friends and family in this beautiful home we have.

#2: Balance.

Ok so this is a loaded resolution that probably tops everyone’s list. Striking a balance in terms of energy is still a huge challenge for me. It is impossible to establish a routine when every month or so I find myself keeping a different pace in a different place. So the most I can hope for is BALANCE. (An earlier bedtime would also be helpful.)

#3: Let go.

I am notorious for taking things personally. Stupid comments people make. Someone else’s pettiness directed toward me or mine. Anger or impatience that I witness only because I am in the wrong place at the wrong time. These moments leave a little bruise and sometimes stick far too long in my mind. I like to think that I experience happiness with equal intensity but that’s just a silly rationalization. The truth is: I would like to let go of the bad much more quickly than I do. I think that if I can let go of these negative viruses, I will make room for true kindness and bliss. So I commit to giving my heart a bit of a firewall upgrade.

#4: Be present.

I am already conscious of being present in my daily life and I started the year off on the right foot. There is nothing like getting married on the first day of the year to teach you about being present. I will admit that the day began stressful but once I moved over to a quieter, more serene environment, I was able to totally eliminate my anxiety and come back to the moment. Awesome. I am adding another condition to this resolution: be present in photos. I am notorious for travelling to beautiful places or having wonderful experiences with friends, colleagues, etc… and yet there are NO photos with me in them. Quelle probleme! This year, I say “More photos of me!” And I have already started. See?

#5: Test limits.

I have realized that sometimes I am far more capable than what I give myself credit for. I am sure we are all guilty of that from time to time. I was perusing a fellow entrepreneur and former high school classmate’s blog a month ago or so and was in such awe of her willingness to leap into the uncomfortable fray in order to test her limits. To try something new by pushing past fear and leaping. It was inspiring and a good reminder to me of how much I cling to my FIXED mindset. Testing limits is my PINK hair. It starts right now!

#6: Live like a goddess.

I was flipping through some of the wedding photos taken by family and friends, and about 5 minutes into this process I realized that those horrible words we sometimes use to describe our appearance either in photos or in the mirror were no longer in my vocabulary. 2009 was a big year for me. I made a commitment to getting myself in shape and better liking the reflection in the mirror. And I did it! I lost a significant amount of weight but more importantly, I started to re-programme my brain. I would change nothing about the way I looked in my wedding photos and for the first time in many years, “losing weight” is NOT on my list of resolutions. But what is on the list, is living like a goddess. I want to take what I have accomplished to the next level. The GODDESS level.

#7: Start now.

Spontaneity can’t be planned, I’m told. And neither can life. I haven’t included specifics in my resolutions because these are really designed to be intentions and commitments – not tasks. The underlying intention for all of these resolutions is to “start now”. Perfection is highly overrated and my quest to attain it has often led to procrastination and a general lack of movement. I resolve to step forward. To start now.

29 + snow dogs

 

We are all back at home now and it’s time for the Great 2010 Clean-Up. I have laundry, dusting, vacuuming, bathroom cleaning, dishwashing and more to get done and I can’t stop there. Everything is getting cleaned TOP to BOTTOM. I want to start the year off without clutter as well so we will be undertaking a whole purging process this afternoon. This is good. (I already started this on the train ride yesterday by cleaning out my INBOX. Whoo hoo!) When you start a new chapter, it is always good to let go of the things you don’t need around anymore to make room for new and exciting things to surface. This is one of my new year’s resolutions along with a number of others. I will share more later this week.

In the meantime, I am catching you up on a special adventure that helped Mike and I kick off the New Year.  Mike turned 29 on December 29, 2009 and it was so important to me to honour his birthday especially amidst the crazy holiday and wedding stuff. Everyone’s birthday is special and distinct. Wedding or no wedding – he was going to have his day! So this year,  I put up his birthday banner, I inventoried the 29 things I love about him (all of them different from last year) and I made him the yummiest dinner I could imagine if I were Mike. It was a bit of a first in our friendship and relationship – I made him roasted potatoes and balsamic marinated chicken. I have never before cooked meat for him but I feel that on your birthday you should get to have everything you want. The results were fantastic. He had a huge appetite for the meal and that made me extremely happy.

The last thing I did was arrange a dog sledding adventure through Aventure Inukshuk to take place in Sainte-Catherine-de-la-Jacques-Cartier about 45 minutes outside of Quebec City. We headed out there on January 2 and it was truly a WINTER WONDERLAND. Here is a sample of the memories we made with the snow dogs.

Childhood dreams

(Photo by Andrew Ash via Flickr)

I am currently enroute to Toronto via train and have had several hours to reflect on the last few days and the beautiful memories created with family, friends and especially, my HUSBAND. Before I overwhelm the blog with wedding photos, details and stories, I really wanted to share something that has been marinating in my brain for some time.

On many occasions, I have recalled, the summer of 2007.  Mike and his family were digging through bins and boxes of old stuff in the basement at Pearson in an effort to tidy it up. Through this process, Mike uncovered a prized possession from his childhood. He was really moved to be reunited with this long lost toy which he held out to me and said, “If you touch my action figure, then we’ll be married.”

This is not a euphemism. It really was an action figure. And I really did touch it.  It was at that moment – as I looked at Mike that I really stood outside of myself watching the rest unfold. We might as well have been two kids on a playground – the childhood versions of ourselves. A look came over him – the kind of look that you get when you are totally fulfilled by something seemingly small but so significant. And he smiled at me – and to himself at the same time. It was as though he knew that I was the little girl made for him in the stars. It was a secret wish. A childhood dream. That would be realized.

It was a toy. But to the child he was, it was a treasure – the value of which could only be determined by what’s in his heart. This moment in our shared history left a mark. And to be truthful, I don’t find it entirely surprising that the first symbol of our marriage (for play or for real) and incidentally, our life together, is a SUPERHERO. We are nothing, if not, action figures.

This is a somewhat belated wedding toast but serves well as a daily one and longs to be shared.  The photo above – in a small yet significant way – captures the essence of what my life with Mike is like…

To my darling husband - life with you is like a dream.  And yet, you are the realest thing I know. Thank you for choosing me. Wishing for me. And waiting for me. You are the greatest fellow adventurer for any trail blazer …the bravest superhero for any wonder woman…and the most noble Queen for any Prime Minister.  Together we will slide on the rainbows of our childhood dreams. I love you.

Bonne Année

Wishing you all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2010! Here’s how we spent the last hours of 2009 and the first few minutes of 2010.

Wedding SOS

If you are a glass half-full kinda gal like me, you might imagine that the adage - ”What can go wrong, will go wrong. ” – doesn’t really apply. Nope. My motto is really: “If it gets scewed up, I will make it right.” But sometimes, we aren’t meant to have things our way. And that just has to be ok.

Tuesday was an extraordinary day. It was the day before we travelled to Quebec City, three days before the wedding and most importantly, Mike’s Birthday. As I was frantically running around packing up boxes with candleholders, welcome bag contents, baking banana bread, cooking up a birthday dinner and (sort of) tidying up the house, I was also ON A MISSION.

The mission was – at the eleventh hour – to exchange a 40R tuxedo jacket wrongly supplied to Mike and two pewter coloured vest/tie/pocket squares wrongly supplied to Peter and Andy. I don’t want to go into every little detail but let’s just say that the impetus for this was that I hated the idea that we spent so much money on these tuxedos which are to be worn on a pretty important day that will forever be captured on camera and that we would have to “live with” somebody else’s error. The wrong sized jacket meant that Mike would be wearing an ill-fitting jacket or it would have to be switched with one of his brother’s (closer to the correct size but shorter in the sleeve). The wrong coloured vest/tie/pocket square meant that Mike and his two brothers would be wearing identical tuxedos rendering them all groomsmen rather than two best men and one groom.

I tried my best which meant calling the Assistant Manager at Tip Top Yorkdale, rushing a new jacket and what I thought were two black vests/ties/pocket squares. Wrong. I arrived to exchange the jacket and she had misunderstood that the black vest-tie combo was for Mike and not for the best men. So back we went placing another rush order to then be picked up several hours later at Tip Tip Dufferin Mall. An hour before closing Freeman’s finally dropped off the vests, etc… Victory! I fixed it! I battled the universe and I won!

Wrong again. As we were packing up the tuxedos, Peter decided to try his on (finally!). The jacket was swimming on him. How could this be? Well it was the 40R. Unbeknownst to me, Mike had attempted to “fix” the situation too. His solution was to stick Peter with the oversized jacket and take Peter’s 38R instead. I never checked the label inside the jacket when I went to exchange them. I only checked the ticket order on the pocket. I grabbed the one that was for Mike and away I went. What I had in effect done was exchanged a perfectly good 38R for another 38R. Universe-1. Kristle-O.

In the midst of the tuxedo debacle, I was also trying to track down my candles. It turns out that after some hunting around, we found out the reason they had not been delivered by noon on Tuesday was because they never left BC. Poor Jessica at Beelites went around in circles with UPS in the hope there was some better news. Nope. Universe-2. Kristle-O.

Throughout the entire day, I maintained composure in a way I have never before. I was calm. I was polite. I wasn’t freaking out. I wasn’t pissed off. If anything, I was constantly trying to figure out my next move. There was a moment when clearly the frustration of both situations began to overwhelm me and for 2 minutes my eyes welled up and tears streamed down my face. But then the 2 minutes were over and I was done. I let go of it as soon as I could. And I am so glad I did. By the time I arrived in Quebec City and things started to gel – particularly with Melanie (our day of wedding coordinator) and Isabelle (the site coordinator for the Frontenac) – I realized that once you are here, all of the things that went wrong don’t matter anymore. And trying to fix them can be futile and certainly isn’t as important as being present.

Gâteau au chocolat, framboise et noisette

Although I am caught in a last-minute-everything frenzy before Mike and I leave for QC, I wanted to post a decadent recipe. I discovered Chocolate Raspberry Hazelnut Cake when I was in New York and it became a staple cake. The cake isn’t french but everything sounds better in french and it will be the language du jour for the next few days. So get used to it!

A few notes about the recipe. I have adapted this recipe which was originally published in Fresh and Fast Vegan Pleasures because as written it doesn’t work. You can use the sugar and flour of your choice but you may have to adapt the recipe based on those choices. So beware.

Chocolate Raspberry Hazelnut Cake

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup hazelnuts (In your grocery store, you will find them as whole filiberts in the baking section.)
• 2 cups self-rising flour (I used all-purpose and added the necessary parts of salt and baking powder. See here.)
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 cups turbinado sugar (This is the best sugar for the cake but if you wanted to use refined white sugar, that would work too.)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract (optional)
• 4 fl. ozs. corn oil
• 16 fl. ozs. soy milk
• 1/2 cup frozen raspberries
• confectioners’ sugar

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spread the hazelnuts on a baking tray. Toast them in the oven for 5 minutes or so. You will know they are ready when the skin on the hazelnut can be rubbed off. BE CAREFUL in touching them though. I burn my fingers everytime! Let the hazelnuts cool, then chop. Grease an 8″ cake pan. I used a springform pan. But if you don’t the original recipe suggests lining the base of the pan you use with greaseproof paper.

Sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder into a bowl. Mix in the sugar, then add the vanilla extract, if using, oil and soy milk. Beat the mixture until the batter develops a thick consistency. You can also use an electric mixer, if you have one. Stir in the raspberries and hazelnuts. Pour into the pan, and bake for 40 minutes, until the outside of the cake is cooked and the center is still a bit gooey. Dust the top of the cake with confectioners’ sugar. Then serve the cake warm.

Although you can eat the cake with anything, I personally enjoyed it with a cup of coffee from the-little-french-press-that-could (secretly named Lulu).

Bon appetit!

OMG

(Photo via Google)

OMG. Mike and I went to see the movie It’s Complicated on Friday night. So funny! I laughed so hard at times that I was practically suffocating. In a good way of course. I highly recommend the movie. Nancy Meyers is a genius!

Each day I get to meet some pretty extraordinary people. Saturday was no exception. I had the loveliest time with Sonya – my esthetician at Elixir Spa. I have to give a shout out to her because she was just so wonderfully kind. In a matter of minutes, she and I were trading life stories. I was learning about her and her two kids and their plans for Ukrainian Christmas and she was hearing about the upcoming wedding. She was over the moon for Mike and I. Gave me a big hug when I left and told me to bring pictures next time I come in. How sweet!

After my little spa morning, Mike and I attempted to brave the Boxing Day madness. OMG. Some stores were total zoos. (It never fails.) Mike walked away with some pretty nice shirts which he later proceeded to model in a fashion show. Once he pulled out his Michael Bublé-look, I started to feel a bit left out so I got dressed up too and we danced the night away in our living room. Cheers to that!

Off to start yet another beautiful winter day (in this snowless place) and start packing for the wedding! Whoo hoo!

Me and Winnie

Every year for as long as I can remember, my mom and dad have given me a special Christmas ornament. Last and this year have been no exception. This year I unwrapped an extraordinary little piece of personal history – a Winnie the Pooh ornament. Winnie the Pooh was a fixture in my childhood. He was the star of a famous photo taken at Disneyland in 1981 of my mom while pregnant with me. He was reproduced on the wallpaper of my nursery and was the muse for a mural that my dad hand painted on the wall of my childhood bedroom. He was in the stories I had read to me by my parents and later the stories I learned to read on my own. He was everywhere. Even in the name of the city that I called home.  (Which incidentally he was named after.)

Thank you Mom & Dad for a wonderful surprise!

Hope you have a honey-filled Christmas day!

White Christmas

 

It was a white christmas after all. Mike and I had a lovely night - a beautiful hike through High Park, yummy Christmas fettucine and a near-private screening of Invictus. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Joyeux Noel

Wishing you all a magical Christmas!