19/365: skating + other things

silhouttes of branches on the ice.

hello all, happy friday!
i had such a great evening!
last night we had a small team building activity and went skating at the harbourfront. for those who live in toronto and haven't skated there yet, you should! it overlooks the lake and at night it is just the most romantic place to be in. but being an outdoor rink there was nothing to hold on to for support and this almost kept me from going on the ice.
i think i am the clumsiest person i know when it comes to all things sporty. i started off very wobbly and very scared, but by the end of the night i was skating by myself and picking up some speed!
and this is all with the help of my boss.
can you imagine your boss teaching you how to skate? following your orders to skate on your right side as opposed to your left so that just in case you trip you can easily grab onto his coat?

afterwards i met up with my best friend in the old mall that we used to hang out in as kids. for those who lived in scarborough, you would know bridlewood mall. this is where we wolfed down onion rings, drank lots of bubble tea and bought bags of salty peas from the bulk store.

i thought about all this and realized that i really shouldn't be so down and blue when there is so much to be thankful for:
* working where i am right now with kickass bosses (all 6 of them!) and co-workers
* my lovely best friend
* my family
* john, who is just so awesome
* go transit so that i can get from markham to downtown easily
* ikea for its cheap and yummy breakfast
* being able to take courses that i really enjoy
* the lake as the backyard
* being able to sit and sleep comfortably every morning on the subway
* sunny days, like today

so if you're feeling blue on this beautiful friday, hug your mom. hug your boyfriend. hug your best friend. or your boss. or whoever. because you're luckier than you think!

have a wonderful weekend everybody.

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A's birthday + potluck food

A turned 24 yesterday!
for the potluck, i decided to make croque monsieurs, veggie panini sandwiches and brie+cranberry puffs. they turned out great, if i may so myself...but the events that preceded A's party were pretty much like a cross between an episode from bridezilla (or insert show with crazy women here) and the breakup, where vince vaughan comes home with three lemons instead of twelve (without the fighting of course!).
at 10:00 am i thought i had everything under control. at 11:30 john got me cooking arugula instead of baby arugula. at 11:35 he was on his way back to longo's. 12:00 john comes back with the right arugula. by 1:00 i was burning things trying to multi task, looking for tape, yelling at no one in particular and drying my hair.
i relinquished everything to john, being the calmer and more patient one (and the sweetest thing in the world), and when i came down, the kitchen was spotless.
hardeehar.
and i say i work best under pressure.
in the end, everything turned out great and we got to A's house all in one piece. there was LOTS of karaoke, board games and fun.
(but of course i forgot her gift)

just in case you needed something for your next holiday potluck, here are the links/recipes. i thought that the brie+cranberry puffs are great to bring for work, instead of your typical box of chocolates or candy canes. :)

croque monsieur
my friend virginie says that croque monsieurs are the parisiens' version of street meat. can you imagine?
*instead of coating it with egg, i grilled the sandwiches and topped it with bechamel sauce with gruyere cheese and broiled it in the oven. make sure to watch over the oven. i burnt four yesterday and set off the smoke alarm.

veggie paninis
no recipe link. i made it vegetarian for A...this is how i normally like my sandwiches made from fast fresh foods. in this sandwich i had sundried pesto spread, baby arugula, goat cheese, roasted red peppers. i brushed both sides of the baguette slices with olive oil and grilled them.

cranberry+brie puffs
these are really yummy! no need to slice that cheese up and place it on some type of cracker, nosiree! all you need to do is pick one little puff up and gobble it.
* when making these, you don't need to get rid of the skin, just in case you didn't know. because i didn't. :)

have a great week, all! three more days before christmas!

pearl and A.

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boulangerie of macarons + brunch

today was such a beautiful day. spring weather in the morning and summer weather in the afternoon.
perfect day to go a-brunching and exploring downtown with alice.
alice and i make quite a clumsy pair (more so for her though. harhar) and normally go into uncontrollable fits of laughter.


1. first stop was la bamboche - a cute little french bakery

i love the striped awning.

olive baguettes

freshly baked madeleines

our main reason for going though was to finally get a taste of those delectable macarons! i thought i had to wait until my paris vacation to be able to taste these beautiful (but very delicate) pastel-colored gems. you can buy them in toronto! they are a bit pricey, but they are very worth it. i loved green tea and lavender.

macarons à porter: for dessert after brunch!

la bamboche
4 manor road east
416-481-6735

2. next stop was le petit dejeuner (yes we had a french theme going on. alice and i both majored in études françaises).
it was quite busy when we got there but we didn't have to wait long for our food.
i had a croque madame.

it was quite good. although i had expected it to be drenched in sauce. harhar. i guess it was just as well. it came with a side of salad.

i ordered a plate of rosti. my croque madame was too healthy.

next time i come back i'll order a benny.

le petit dejeuner
191 king street east
416-703-1560

and two h&m tops (me), american apparel dress (her), italian soda and a latte (yes, on a hot day!), three macarons at dundas square later, we parted ways. i had to go for the monthly TRENDS event. where i actually did the introduction. that was quite an accomplishment. :)

anyhoo, i hope you are all having a good weekend! :)

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a summary of 2008

anti-val celebration and dinners with les filles

winterlicious

spice girls world tour

late night timmy's runs

salsa dancing

last exams and essays

convocation

twenty 101

"catering" for TRENDS events

discovering my inner craftiness (still in the works though)

formals & dances

packages and love letters

california trip avec la famille

expensive splurge at the paper rabbit

first sewing machine

classes at the workroom

piano lessons

the big move

ballet & interpretive dancing
misery with A

lots of soul searching. hardeehar.

meeting wonderful online, blog friends

impromptu dinners

realizing who your real friends are...

...and who are not-so-real.

dinners+game nights with the three

ottawa/montreal/quebec city trip

awful haircut

i [heart] my new job

canoe

gossip girl nights

a lovely thanksgiving

a lovelier christmas

happy new year everyone :)

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it rained the whole day.
and OMG. there's frost on the ground.
that telltale bite in the air is definitely a sign of winter's close arrival.
so adieu, fall.


i had such a lovely day with la meilleure amie today:
- breakfast drivethru at mcdonald's
- humanae vitae at st. mike's (so empowering)
- yummy bento box at avocado for dinner (i want to buy a bento box to use for lunches, instead of tupperware. their gyoza was very tasty.)
- a nice, chilly walk in yorkville
- rigmarole on the train (check little women)
- singing disney songs at the top of our lungs (we grew up on disney). oh and fiddler on the roof.


i'm working on my backtack...oh, kirsty! i hope you like them...i've never made anything like this before but i am thoroughly enjoying myself! :)

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c'etait l'halloween!

yesterday was an awesome halloween!
after several difficulties with the fit of the hood, i finally finished it at midnight.
thank you so much for your encouraging words :)
i did as you said, took a bit of a break, and finished it off.

today i woke up at noon for the first time since christmas 5 years ago.
i have a splitting headache.
but yesterday was good and so much fun.

it was my last day at work yesterday.
(i'll save my last day at work for another post. )
and halloween+last day = no work done at all.

i went as little red. i wore my sleeveless old navy ruffled blouse, the black skirt that i made, and heeled peep toed patent mary janes. instead of carrying a picnic basket, i borrowed my sister's woven baskety looking bag (i don't know what else to call it). i wanted to put some fake blood around my neck, to show that i was eaten by the wolf, but opted against it.
so without further ado, here are the pictures!

doesn't brandon look great? i made his superman logo out of felt and sewed it onto his shirt. and to give him the "windswept" look, i stitched his tie onto his shirt in different places. his glasses used to be shades from the dollar store and he taped a piece of white paper to make it look nerdier.

robbie is a scaryass clown. he used face paint to get the bloody look on his chin. and his shoes were so clunky that you could hear him coming from a mile away. the flower squirts out water too (not shown)!
julie is a "medicine chest". hardeehar. it was a last minute brilliant idea!

after work, i met up with les amis at the grocery store to buy food. we were going to have a soup party but nixed the idea because i had no time to cook. so we bought chicken and wedges and pizzas. yuuuum. and leslie bought bubbly apple cider (to celebrate my new job. harhar. no alcohol.) and an ice cream cake from dq. we were going to watch a scary movie but we ended up talking our heads off until 1 in the morning (some of the topics included canadian and american politics, religion, astrology and horoscopes, dream interpretations, the canadian educational system and gossip girl. hardeeharhar).

i must go as i'm taking my little sister to see high school musical. teehee.
have a great saturday everyone! it's so nice and sunny out!

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i am excited for two things
1. mini family trips.
2. him.

lovely day today:
driving lesson.
big breakfast.
bike ride around town.
pattern cutting.
hanging out with A while she makes ratatouille
loblaws with the three.
chicken and wedges and pizza and a movie.
cranium triumph.
dessert and more games.

ps. the nines sucks.
pps. ryan reynolds is cute. but james mcavoy is still cuter.
ppps. i want to see southland tales. and dark knight.

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the dizzy dancing way you feel

everything's been great great, despite a few clashes and conflicts i've been having with people. but it's only a few.

just a reminder for those who love clinique, it's clinique bonus time at sears :) i got one today and i am mighty pleased with eye shadow duo that came with it. spend $26.50 and you can also get two lipsticks, zero gravity repairwear lift firming cream (but this is for older people), liquid facial soap in travel size, mascara and an elle canada magazine subscription offer (12 months for $6.00), and a choice between a pink or purple zippered pouch (i chose the pink one).

i am pmsing big time. i am cranky and i feel huge and bloated all over and i'm ALWAYS hungry. this week i craved a cookies, cookies, cookies (especially felix&norton and triple chocolate ones) thai mango salad, panini and salmon. augh. i wonder how it'll be like when i am actually pregnant with my future baby.
speaking of babies, i went to see hershey and her cutest and most adorable baby, ellexis mia. she is the prettiest baby i have seen so far and she has the most beautiful eyelashes. hersch calls me tita...hahaha. i'm a tita now :) and man, it just goes to show how much older we're getting. it was a really good visit and it was nice to see hersch too...after all i did consider her my best friend in elementary :)
anyway, i can't wait to buy mia cute little dresses for the summer. baby girls are always the best to shop for! jewlz looks so cute with the bottle in her hand. and herschelle, so smiley and CHARMING as ever! :)

i look funny here (yeah well mel you look funny all the time). haha.

before that i went out with jewlz, which was really nice. i had a monstruous dessert that night- they call it a chocomisu - which is tiramisu topped with ice cream, whipped cream and chocolate syrup. yum-o! as rachael ray says (who i now detest, btw- i used to love love her and then she got annoying. EVOO is actually harder to say than extra virgin olive oil. it was also annoying how she used to say EVOO as a shortcut and then she would go "which is extra virgin olive oil". augh rachael. waste of air. argh). anyway, it was an awesome concoction.

i'm improving with my piano playing. i can read notes now! hehe. i'm still playing dinky songs, but they're getting harder. it gets a bit boring sometimes and i'm dying to play henry mancini and james horner and hans zimmer and jewel songs, but basics and foundations first!
i also signed up for a one time 3-hour sewing class at the workroom. it's soooo adorable...it's absolutely girly and they sell the most beautiful fabric. it's toronto's first sew by the hour space - meaning if you don't have a sewing machine at home, you can come and sew there at a nominal fee. i want to learn how to use a sewing machine so in the future i can make my own clothes and homemade presents (this freaks angela out. she thinks i'm going to turn into those weirdo bloggers who stay indoors all day and make arts&crafts).

i hate the weather right now. i've packed away my sweaters but it's back to 10 degrees.

i'm getting a haircut tonight...it's going to be like posh's...i know it's really passé, but that's all i can do with my hair right now, since its still too short (but really shapeless and flat.)

anyhoo, back to work. have a beeyootiful sunshiney day :)

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fahlala.

augh. cnn is on 24-7 at home. haven 't been able to watch a bit of food network. my parents are so interested in american politics. ack.
voila, mes filles, the pho-toes from yesterday. one hour with you girls is not enough at all. :(
please note that these pictures were taken by an old filipino waitress at richtree that had extremely shaky hands. she was really cute though and had to know what our nationalities were. haha.

yeah, im trying not to laugh at her hands.
this is a way better one!
yay! twins! my cookie partner! :)

today was an awesome catechism class. i heart my students.

RIP: the polaroid camera. :( polaroid announced today that it will no longer be making its signature camera and film.

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"if you've got five real friends, you've lead a good life"

according to ralph waldo emerson, "it is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them". and i've got just that, old friends because i've known them for quite a while, and friends that i haven't known long but feel as if we are the oldest and dearest of friends. and mind you, i've had my share of "mel moments", infamously pegged as "stupid thing mel said/did #___".
but since the summer's coming to an end and school has begun, i felt the need to look back on the summer that just passed and reflect on it...as nerdy as that sounds. i must declare this summer as the bestest one so far. i must admit that it came to a rocky and doubtful beginning, but as the summer progressed it became better and better, and it became necessary to capture them all. in society's present standards (and i say this with much sarcasm), my friends and i must be boring and so loser-ish, as what we do when we get together has been called before.
but our methods of "partying it up" are quite different from those of our contemporaries. sure we get drunk and high, but au naturel. conversations on the ttc, walks to the center, cranium, phone conversations, sit down dinners, interesting and mind-boggling conversations, movie themed nights, late night movies, the perusing of chapters, starbucks runs, timmy's runs, seeing friends from school, to name a few, are just some of my summer's highlights. yes, i've stared out the window oftentimes and wish i was somewhere else, basking underneath another country's sun, but in an instant, it would fleet away. home is what you make of it, and my friends have become the intricate stitches that have kept me grounded and sane. one doesn't realize the importance of friendship once it's gone, but i'm glad i never had to go through that. i guess what really made this summer more special and the best ever was because i realized over and over again how empowering and beautiful true friendship is.

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wallmarkers and growth charts.

my parents were never really into marking how tall my siblings and i have gotten, because making marks on a wall was unthinkable. it was usually pants or shirts that were tell-tale signs that we were physically growing; they would be too tight or too short.
but that other kind of growing up, usually takes a bunch of tiny realizations or gatherings with people to see how "tall" you have become...or how stunted you are.
why such pensiveness? i guess it's because, apart from my siblings and high school friends, i've grown up with another set of family...the st. cinn girls. this afternoon we held our first ever st. cinn bbq/potluck at terri's house and as always, it was fun and with lots of maniacal laughter. but it was different from the other ones we've had since i felt, and im sure the other girls felt it too, a sense of an end.
it's awesome to think that it was because of this parttime job that we are all close like sisters, and that is why i came home feeling weirdly sad...we were all getting old and it is unstoppable- it has begun; we are all moving forward.i know that growth and change happen everyday, but it was so much more imminent and obvious tonight, what with one of us going off to university to live on her own, and another who's going to have her own classroom and reading corner. through their changes in their lives, it made me think of my own future-my excitement to have my own classroom as well and to have in my hands the tiny minds of the grown-ups of tomorrow. and to think that when i first came i was in gr 11: bumbly, stupid and clumsy with the buns, very much slow with the dishes, still wary of others, sort of foolish, not a lot of wisdom just yet, and still need to see a lot of the world- and by world i mean the awaiting experiences. so much have changed and a bit has remained the same: i am now quite an expert with the buns, i now hold, and at times begrudgingly, the key to the store and the responsibility to count cash, but still a bit stupid, a bit clumsy, and i could never have enough wisdom. as well, i have made some of the greatest friends i could ever have. despite the very rude customers and the gruelling clean up (haha), we saw each other through our highs and lows: getting into university and college, falling in love, break-ups, our successes and failures in school, and much more. we are a unique set: some crazier than others, some much more talkative, some quite violent (ahem belinda). we've had so many memorable moments. there was a lot of talking, blasting music, popcorn snacks, christmas dinners, birthday cards, racing to the back away from the penny lady, etc. and now, i'm saying good bye to one of the girls who trained me when i first came, and another to a girl that i've trained myself.
one by one we have begun the trek on our own stretch of road. we are in a sense growing taller, and unlike our growth spurt, this spiritual and interior growth will never stop. our wall markers and growth charts will keep surpassing, and although it's never easy to welcome change, the bond between us girls that grew stronger over the years, will definitely be hard to break.
i love you girls.

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