Happy Mother's day to all the proud moms out there!

Mother's day is not only a special day to take mom out for dinner but it's a special day when Moms can proudly show their Mom status without any reservation. I love this photo and I feel it represents well the type of mom-pride I'm talking about.

It's my mom and my best friend's mom, taking pictures of us caught on camera. Just look at their faces! You can tell right away that they are moms taking pictures of their kids... even though we were in our twenties. I'm pretty sure this same scenario played when we left for summer camp or on our high school graduation - actually I know it did.

Here's to moms all over the world, may you show your mom-pride to your hearts content today and every day of the year!

Spending mother's day 3000kms away from my mom is not ideal but we learn to make the most of it.

Last year, I created a little video to one of her favorite songs of a ton of family photos, pics of her and I and her and my dad. It was good for both of us because it allowed me to go down memory lane and hunt for all the best shots and also for her to show it off to all her friends because I posted it on YouTube for a short while. I had to remove it in case curious eyes lingered - there were photos in there of our wedding gown shopping adventures. I sent it to her on a CD she can watch in any DVD player or on any computer so needless to say, she's shown it to everyone.

This year, with a tighter budget than usual due to the wedding and my non-work-ness, I sent her a home made card and I'll be sending her flowers on Thursday with a little note to say that she's just as special any day of the week. :)

I'm lucky to have my mom!

Band-Aid Friendship

To add to my redefinition of friendship, I present to you : Band-Aid Friendship

The Band-Aid Friendship is a healthy blend of the Situational Friendship, the Occasional Friendship and the Now Friendship.

The Band-Aid friend is the friend who's only there for a short period of time in your life similar to the Situational friend. They can be a co-worker at a contract job or a temporary neighbor with whom you get along wonderfully but you know that when their time is up, it'll be over very much like the Now friend.

What makes the Band-Aid friend unique is that they are there to tide you over until the next one comes along. They are the friends you need in order to make it through life without hating everyone. You care, they care... just not enough to pursue this when it gets too complicated or time consuming. What's so wrong with that?!

Going through life without any Band-Aid friends or even refusing to make Band-Aid friends for fear of getting hurt is like asking to be miserable. It astounds me that some people don't seem to grasp the importance of this kind of relationship.

They are kind of like the lifeboats in relationships. Between two serious boyfriends, the Lifeboat Guy is the one who'll keep you entertained but you don't necessarily want to commit to. He's the guy who's cell phone number you keep just in case the new Relationship Potential Guy you're seeing doesn't quite work out. A safety net of sorts.

No-Eating-Out Dealio - Week 1 down!

It wasn't easy to kick the habit of eating out but we're 1/4 of the way to our goal. Oh man!

This week was good because I was able to make a ton of food - I made a huge lasagna (even made a smaller batch for friends), banana bread with chocolate chunks, chicken fajitas and a whole ton of delicious stuff. Luckily, I'm off work right now so I had plenty of time to figure out meals and actually prepare them. I enjoy cooking and baking so I didn't have a problem with that.

Today it's the weekend and there isn't much to do. Js is a tad hungover, he had drinks with friends last night so he doesn't want to go anywhere. I'm itching to get out of the house though so we're trying to find inexpensive things to do in town. Normally, on a day like today, we'd do stuff around the house or take the dog to the park and then go somewhere for a nice dinner. No dice. Not this weekend - and not for the rest of the month. It's not going to be easy!

I would kill for lemon grass chicken vermicelli right now. Kill.

To top it all, our worst fear and biggest challenge we'd envisioned came true. Last year, we were ADDICTED to the Angry Whopper from Burker King. It's a limited time thing and they normally only have it during the summer. As we predicted, it's back this summer and we have to wait a WHOLE month to get one. Oh hell.


You'll know where to find us at 12:01am on June 1st. ;)

Deposit Down

I've put down a deposit and finally decided on my next tattoo. Squee!

I can't even show you a photo of what it's going to look like. The artist is going to draw it directly on my skin which fits my whole unique criteria. I'm so excited about this, it's impossible.

It's going to hurt like a bitch though but I'll be worth the pain and it's simple and small enough that it won't be that long. Suck it up, princess!

I'm getting it in June *far* because I wanted to get it around the same time Js is getting his. His will take the whole day so that was the soonest we could book the guy for a sitting that long.

It's totally worth the wait and I'm really comfortable with the artist and the parlor.

Stay tuned...

No-Eating-Out Dealio

In our efforts to save some money considering the upcoming wedding and my non-working for a month, we have made a deal with ourselves not to eat out at the restaurant at all for the whole month of May. Oh my, it won't be easy.

We're on day 5 now and so far things are going good. We're trying to stay positive and here's what we're doing to keep sane :

- We're keeping our weekly junk food nights but having frozen pizza or Qing up some burgers. This way, we're not craving junk food as we normally would if we cut it all out of our meal planning.

- Bringing some variety to the mix. Trying new recipes is *almost* as exciting as eating out.

- Making huge batches of freezer friendly foods for the lazy nights.

- Inviting friends over instead of meeting them at the restaurant.

With our action plan in mind, I'm sure we'll be able to stick to it. :)

Happy Anniversary!

Happy anniversary to great friends, wonderful people of the I-don't-know-what-I'd-do-without-you kind!


To many many more years of happiness, success and love!

Wedding update : Invites almost ready to go!

I have been slaving all week (and Js has been putting up with me - patient man!) at our invites and I must say they look absolutely awesome. Even better than what I had pictured so it's a good surprise!

We can't wait to mail them out to everyone and get our first RSVP card back! :) Hurray!

When it's all said and done, I'll post some pics on here and maybe even a little DIY-how-to. They are quite simple and don't really look all that weddingy so I'm sure they could work for a baby shower or an anniversary party or something.

So this week, we're expecting our DJ to be picked and booked and our invites to be mailed out. Stay tuned for more updates...

3 months, 1 week and 5 days... eeek!