Happy Belated Birthday (to me!)

In between jobs and sleep I somehow found time to plan my birthday.  This year I decided to keep it simple by just going out for a lovely dinner with my sweetie, then having some friends over for a few drinks and some cake.

Oh and no birthday is complete without a Sweet 16 from Cupcakes!

This year’s birthday dinner took place at Brasserie L’ecole.  We tried to go last year but the wait list was an hour and a half long.  We managed to sneak some seats at the bar right at the start of the dinner hour this time.

French onion soup, mussels with fancy frites, warm lemon pudding cake, and perfect white wine chosen by the bartender for me.  It was all exactly what I wanted, and exactly as delicious as I had envisioned.

On Saturday night we invited some folks out to the ‘burbs, where we enjoyed too many appetizers, a homemade cake built almost entirely of buttercream, and my own personal bottle of pink bubbly.

My birthday prezzie to myself?  A fresh new do!  A little Autumn ombre to mix things up in my 37th year. 

Oh hello bangs.  Happy birthday to me! :)

Purse Food and Other Eats

How’s that for a new head shot?  Nothing says sexy like getting a brand new set of highlights.  Especially when lunch is being consumed at the same time.

What?  You don’t think I was going to try to buy lunch downtown and waste money and calories did you? :)  Purse salad for the win.

This is the longest I have ever gone without getting my hair coloured in one variation or another.  My boring natural brown hair growing in was making me sad so today we welcomed back the blonde. 

Blonde hair, white pants, preeeetty new purse. NOW it feels like Summer.

1. Coffee with almond milk.  (note the missing water…doh)

2. Overnight oats with local raspberries.

3. Purse salad: red leaf lettuce, cucumber, raspberries, chicken breast, avocado, mango salsa with olive oil and sea salt.

4. Freeeeeee Starbucks Triple Grande Non-Fat 1/2 Sweet Hazelnut Latte.

5. 1/2 Pecan Pie Larabar.

6. Baby carrots.

7. Wee glass of white sangria.

8. Dinner out with the ladies: Polenta cake with black beans, rice, salsa and sour cream.

9. BC cherries.

Pretty good day if I do say so.  Hope yours was too!

Twas Fate

You guys…I don’t believe in signs…except when I do.  Someone out there was definitely on my side today!

1) The original winning bidders (yes, plural…who bids for charity and doesn’t follow through?!) didn’t come through with their donation for Angela’s Shop-4-a-Cause-II…so she reissued the auction and I won this time! 

Twas fate.  My fabulous cherry print apron made by KatieJoSews is on it’s way!

Plus it was a donation to my favourite charity…Canadian Cancer Society.

I drank coffee, ate yogurt with blueberries and a toasted sandwich thin with almond butter & honey…

2) I gots my hair did.  A final cut and colour with my great stylist here in Halifax.  I’m dreading having to find someone new in Victoria.  My old stylist had quit the biz right before I moved away and I had trouble finding someone to replace her.

I broke down and finally asked for bangs.  I heart them.  Twas fate.

I munched down some leftover Tuna Noodle Surprise and few bites of Asian Slaw before my appointment…

And some grapes I carried along in my purse…

(I also had a Tim Horton’s tea to tide me through my 3 hour appt).

3) Tiffaney viewed my potential condo and called with a resounding YES YES YES – BUY IT!  eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!

There was just something about this unit that I felt the minute I saw the listing…and to have both my fabulous realtor and one of my best friends give it two thumbs up just proves to me that my gut reaction was right.  This is my home.

Twas fate.

My Mom did say that the reason I didn’t find anything when I was there in person was because my condo wasn’t ready for me yet…and apparently she was right!

I’ll be putting an offer in tomorrow morning. 

(A few of you have asked for photos…don’t despair, when this becomes official I’ll be sure to say more about it and post a couple of before photos.)

I was so worked up making phone calls and um, maybe dancing around my house that I didn’t realize I was starving until I calmed down.  At 9:30pm I was tempted to eat cereal for dinner, but all of my fresh veggies called my name and I made a salad…

Spinach, cucumbers, grape tomatoes, celery, radishes, yellow pepper…

With herby goat cheese and Fig Balsamic drizzle…

Things are sooooo coming together!!

Oh, and here’s that cereal for dessert.  Once I started thinking about it…salad just wasn’t enough!  Special K Vanilla Almond with vanilla soy milk…

Wish me luck with my new home!! (ooooh, did I just say HOME?!)

Oh ya! The new hair.

Right.  A few of you left comments wanting pics of the new hair. 

I didn’t really change the cut…just cleaned it up because it had grown A LOT and completely lost it’s shape over the last two months.

The photos don’t do the massive amount of blonde highlights any justice.  In person, it is a whole lot lighter in the front. 

I like me blonde.  :)  (Remind me of this the next time I’m blathering on about wanting to go dark again!)

This is Thursday immediately after my appointment…not a fan of how my stylist does my hair…but she likes it straight to do the finishing trim.

 

This is Friday…I’m on a wispy ponytail kick right now…probably because it’s been over a year since I actually had anything resembling a ponytail.

Carb Loading

Not that I needed to carb load…that’s just what we did!  haha.  oooops.  That’s what happens when you wait until it’s 9pm and you are very cranky when you finally decide to go for dinner.

I spent a good part of the afternoon out getting my hair done, so I had to catch up on work in the early evening.  I also really wanted to head to the mall tonight so when we agreed to do that dinner kind of got pushed to the side.

By the time we got to the mall I was cranky and hungry!  I checked the two stores I wanted to check and then we headed straight back out to find some dinner.  For the sake of time and ease we chose Jack Astors.  (I really need to find a better “last minute” choice!…it would help if we didn’t live in suburbia with few non-chain restaurant choices.)

We opted for Astor Blastors to drink.  WooT!  Gotta love some coconutty kids drinks. :)

For dinner we shared two entrees:  the Honey Sesame Chicken Stirfy thingy and the Parmesan Chicken Pasta thingy.  :)

I ate too fast because I was starving and wound up stuffed!!

However, the good news is I have absolutely no desire for a treat in front of the TV tonight!!  haha, silver lining!

The rest of the day was just a mish-mosh of meals thrown together.  Carby carby carby.

Coffee and blueberry scone for breakfast.

 

Strawberry yogurt with thawed frozen blueberries and raspberries for a snack.

Peanut butter and banana sammich for lunch on the run to the hair dresser.  (I ate the other half of the banana after my appointment).

There was a tiny reheated bowl of leftover potatoes when I got home too, but I ate em so fast I didn’t take a picture for you all. nom nom nom.  :)

What a mish-mosh of unhealthy crap.  Geeeeeeze.

A Lovely Friday

This afternoon I discovered that my hair has grown out enough to finally get into a french braid again.  Not enough to stay there through any major activity, but it’s getting there!

For lunch I put together a cold snack plate: carrots, yellow peppers, tomatoes, marble cheddar, deli turkey, some new crackers, and the last of the spicy hummus on the side.

After work, which I promptly finished right at 5pm tonight I went downstairs to see if I could help FH out.  He had spent the afternoon cleaning and scrubbing the back deck, and had moved on to sanding.  He had it all under control though, and was heading out front to start sanding the porch and railings.  I wanted to help but we only have one sander. :(  Seemed like a fun job for such a beautiful evening!

So I mowed the lawn instead.  And weed wacked.  And cursed the number of freaking weeds in the yard again.  Can’t keep up!

Before I went out I had a little snacky of cherries…

After sweating up a storm in the yard, I had a glorious shower, then made dinner.  Super easy…leftovers and homemade potato salad!  Deeeelish and Summery.

Leftover grilled turkey sausage and steamed green beans…

To finish up such a hot and lovely day, we decided to go for ice cream.  Unfortunately we waited too late and when we got to Pinky’s at Dingle Park they had just closed.  Booooo.  So instead we had to settle for Dairy Queen.  It’s yummy but it’s just not the same!  (small Smarties Blizzard)