Weekend Love: Condo, Dresses, Wine & Dallas

Winter weekends have been a bit blah lately. There's the whole crappy weather thing, then there's the whole we just bought a house and therefore should not spend too much money thing, and then there's the laziness let's just watch a movie and go to bed thing. That being said, this weekend was super fun.

Friday night, I went for sushi with my friends J and Nicky. I love sushi, but seriously what is with these places that make the GIANT rolls? It's like twice as much rice and filling as normal sushi. We had a great night though, always great to catch up with my girls!

Saturday, I woke up early (to snow!) and had a client at 8am. Believe it or not, Saturday's are my "early" mornings. My clients during the week start at 930 or 10. Everyone prefers to train after work. I only had one client Saturday somehow, so I finished early and went through the Starbucks drive through for a coffee. Heaven. When I got back home, I realised I was supposed to return something at the mall, so I somehow managed to talk Leigh into going to the mall. So that was kind of nice! I bought him a Booster Juice so it was sort of even. But then we went out to Langley and went to Holeshot and the Harley Davidson dealerships to look around. There's also a couple surf/skateboard type clothing stores out there, so we went into them and I found a ridiculously cute dress and Leigh bought it for me. Even though we're married so we share our money, I still count it as Leigh buying it because he insisted. He knows even if  love something I'll hum and haw for 500 years about it and then go back to buy it only to have it sold out. I'm glad he made me buy it, it's the perfect spring/summer dress. I'm sure it'll be making a blog appearance soon as soon as the sun comes out! Which judging from the weather does not look like anytime soon.

We went to our friend Hilary's for snacks/wine on Saturday night. We'd only been there for a few minutes when the fire alarm went off throughout the building. We looked at each other, grabbed the cat/dog and our wine and bundled up outside. Everyone was a little bit jealous we thought to bring our beverages with us. Hilary also gave me her old iphone! My phone has been driving me insane so I'm excited to have a different one. I definitely see the benefits of both android/iphones but sometimes it's nice for a change. Especially when your phone likes to autocorrect everything and mess up your life and you can't figure out a way to turn it off. Yeah, goodbye Samsung!

This weekend we also checked on our apartment building. You know, just to make sure they're still working away. They're making good progress! 

We also went into the show suites. Again. For the bajillionth time. I like to just go and visualise what ours will look like. And maybe just pretend I live there for a few minutes. It's crazy, I know. I also had forgotten to check out the bathtubs, so I wanted to see what they looked like.

Yup, that'll do.

We are now snuggled up at home, trying to fit in a Dallas marathon before the third season premiere tomorrow.

Things I Wouldn't Recommend

So the other day I was scrolling through my Facebook wall and saw some pretty interesting posts. I've done a lot of...slightly silly things in my life. Therefore, I am giving you my tips for life based on my top facepalm moments.

(source: pinterest) this was the only photo that seemed appropriate for this post

Things I would not recommend:

Making a chipotle sauce with Greek yoghurt and canned chipotles before work and immediately touching up your under eye concealer with your fingers afterwards. Although it did kind of give me that wide-eye look I was going for.


Using an immersion blender to make cookie dough. Probably the least funny mistake I've ever made. But the bandages were pretty amusing. How? What? You don't even want to know.


Swinging a La Senza bag with unmentionables in it while walking downtown on a windy day. You may end up with said unmentionables in the middle of the crosswalk and having a stranger hand them back to you. You may nearly die of laughter for the rest of the day if this happens.


Getting lost on your way home from the furthest point of Vancouver possible with a dead without a cell phone charger. You may end up having to ask the lady in London Drugs what city you are in, Home Alone style.


Getting a job at one of the fanciest restaurants in one of the fanciest hotels in Vancouver, and breaking every single glass they own. It will probably NOT get you a job in another part of the hotel, because they do not want you to touch anything in their hotel ever again. Don't worry, this was like 10 years ago. I can totally carry glassware. Most of the time I can carry two at once!


Not checking your emails before sending when you update your phone and your auto correct goes all funny. Definitely called my new business contact Dad instead of Dan.


Slamming your finger in a cab door. You will spend the rest of the summer with zero fingernail and a zillion Dora band-aids.


Speeding in the United States. If you do get pulled over, apparently saying that you couldn't read the miles on your dashboard (it WAS really small) so you didn't realise you were speeding works. Also twirling your hair.


Writing your Christmas list in code in case your husband decides to go through your Christmas themed notebooks for some bizarre reason. You will probably not be able to understand the code and have to buy everyone non genius Christmas presents.


Borrowing your mom's truck to go buy a bookcase off Craigslist in the middle of the day and then getting it home only to realise you have no way of getting it inside the house and your mom needs her truck back. Oh, and then if you go to someone's house in a borrowed vehicle to pick up a Craigslist find, then take your OWN keys as well. Then you won't have to climb through your own bedroom window and land in your dog's bed.


I have a feeling this will only be part one of this post...so until next time.

Love and Friday

I have been floating on cloud nine since Wednesday due to our future home currently being built and everyone's sweet comments and messages. We are so excited! I had the day off today, so in between daydream decorating I decided to do a random post:

First off, Happy Valentine's Day! Leigh and I are not huge Valentine's Day people but I did leave him a caramel apple in his car for a treat this morning. And I told him he's off the hook for me, I've got everything I want mostly because...

I kind of bought a little Valentine's present for myself...these wedges. When I cleaned out my closet in January, I got rid of a lot of older worn out shoes and black wedges were missing from my wardrobe. I decided to scoop these up while they still had sizes.

                           

Sooo kind of a funny story, I was walking downtown yesterday, wearing my typical cute trainer outfit (see above pic). I had some running around to do for work I was going to meet up with my friend Nicky for lunch (Chipotle, obviously) and I guess I looked a little confused when I got off the skytrain because this guy in a suit asked if I needed help, then introduced himself, then proceeded to ask me out on a date. I told him I was married, and he was very nice, but as I was walking away, I was trying not to burst out laughing. I seriously think I haven't been asked on a date in like 10 years! I always tell Leigh, I don't get hit on because I have a "resting bitchy face" which means when my face is neutral, I just look unfriendly and unapproachable. So, single ladies, apparently the damsel in distress thing still works?!

Anyways, I finished up with my clients last night, checked my phone and I had a zillion notifications due to this status, which caused me to burst out laughing: 

That guy makes me laugh. Don't worry, he's definitely kidding about the guns. ;-)

I hope I'm not the only one that's super excited about this...at least my Dad and sister are on board with me. Love love love this show.

In other fun news, my sweet cousin Shelby had the idea to run a 5K in June in honour of my Grandmother with our family. It's the Scotiabank Half Marathon and 5K. I am NOT a runner, I would prefer to do pretty much anything else for cardio but I am excited for a new challenge and it's only 5K so how bad can it be? I will probably have to invest in a new pair of running shoes though. More shoe shopping, I guess.

Happy Friday everyone! 

So...Today We Bought A Condo

I've been keeping a big secret. Today, on the 5 year anniversary of the day we got engaged, Leigh and I signed on the dotted line to purchase a pre-sale apartment! Our first real home together.

This place is pretty much our dream apartment, brand new, customized to what we like, top floor, huge windows, heated bathroom floors, air conditioning...and all in our favourite little town, Pitt Meadows.

the display suite kitchen, my dream: white cabinets

Oddly enough, I never wanted to come back to Pitt Meadows but after living at Meadow Gardens for two years, we both agreed that it feels like home.

As usual, Leigh declined to be in the picture, but you can kinda see him in the reflection of the front door taking the picture. You can see more details about the project development here.

Our place will be ready January 15, 2015 and we can't wait to move in and make it our own real home! Until then, I will be pinning my ideas on a daily basis and staring at our floor plan figuring out where everything is going to go.

Family Day, Red Velvet and Kittens

Life has been a little crazy lately, which is why my posting has been sporadic at best. This weekend was a long weekend in BC, so that was fun. I had clients on Saturday and Monday, so it wasn't a work free weekend for me, but I adore all my clients so I didn't mind one bit! I actually love starting my days with training.

This weekend was a fun one, sprinkled with time with lots of friends and family. We spent some time with our friend Hilary who has an adorable kitten named Earl, him and Layla are BFFs. They seriously chase each other around for HOURS. Sidenote, this conversation happened the other day: Leigh keeps asking Layla (because we talk to our dog, of course) if she wants a kitten for Christmas. I said to Leigh "I thought you weren't a cat person, do you actually want a cat?" to which he replied "I'm not, I don't really want one, but I want to get one for Layla, she would love it."

My husband wants to buy our dog her own pet.

Moving on, we had a family dinner on Saturday for my Mom, because she's gone on another missions trip with our church, this time to South Africa. I'm so proud of her for all her hard work. Read more about the mission here if you like.

Sunday, I got a little visit with Nicky and J but it was only for an hour or so. Need more girl time, always.

I also worked on the blog a little, you might notice you can now pin directly from my blog!

Monday was Family Day, which is an interesting holiday, mostly because I kept forgetting it was a holiday. I had a client in the morning, then I went to Walmart with my mother-in-law. We wandered around and pretty much came to the usual conclusion that Walmart is better in the states, along with every other store. So we just bought groceries.

I made a delicious lasagna dinner for Leigh and my in-laws (if I do say so myself) and then Leigh and I made a little ice cream run. I am not a fan of Dairy Queen, I rarely get anything there but they just to happened to have RED VELVET blizzards. I had to try them, so I got a mini size, which was perfect.

After our ice cream run, we watched this totally random movie:

I actually enjoyed it for a romantic (but not really till the end) movie that was also funny. It was shown at the Toronto Film Festival, and obviously people liked it so they marketed it as a typical chick flick type of movie, hence cover above with the bride and pink bridesmaids. I enjoyed it though, and Leigh didn't hate it so bonus.

Getting Organized: Erin Condren Planner

So I bought an Erin Condren planner for my birthday last year and somehow I never posted on it. I finally took some pictures of it to show you guys. Every year my goal is to be more organized.I definitely think I"m getting better. For instance, I was looking for my fitness certifications and workshops I've taken and I couldn't think of where I would put them. I looked through my bookcase and found a HFA folder so I checked there. Would you believe every single one was in there, with the receipts? I was shocked. I must be getting more smart in the organizational department.

When it comes to my work, there's no one else to tell me what to do or how to do it, so I needed a place to write down everything I needed to do. I also keep track of bill payments, workouts, my to do list, my client appointments, social events, blog posts and pretty much everything else in here. I also use it to break up projects. Say I have something I'm working on that's looming over me, I will write down "Work on Project ___ for 30 minutes in the morning column. It works pretty well, solely because I deeply enjoy crossing things off my list. It helps me have a sense of accomplishment, because when you are self employed you just want to do more and more, and it never feels like you've done enough!

I took some pictures of my planner so you can see what they're like. I will warn you ahead of time, these babies are pricey. They start at 50 dollars. That being said they sometimes have coupon codes and things like that. I will admit, I was a bit of a sucker for the personalized cover. My name is TAREN, you guys. Do you know how many things I had growing up with my name on them? No cute pens/barrettes/cute things you can buy at the dollarstore when your name is Jessica or Karen. I did have a few things, but I'm sure someone made them or ordered them that way. So having things with my name on them is such a novelty. Behold, I give you, my name in print:

I have some tips for you just in case you ever decide to order one of these:

• Don't get a black cover, you can see scratches too easily.
• Don't try to ship it to Canada directly, it's ridiculously expensive. Either ship it to a post office box in the US, or get it from Tiny Prints.
• Use a referral link for me or someone else you know that has bought one: Mine is here. It means if you order one, we both get a $10 coupon code. Then you can invite friends, and you'll both get $10.

Trying New Things

I'm all about trying new things. Yesterday I had an appointment in downtown Vancouver and I met up with my friend Nicole afterwards for lunch. I did NOT try a new restaurant, because I was right next to Chipotle and it seemed wrong to not go there for lunch. I should have taken a picture of my lunch but I devoured it without even thinking about it. That place is so delish! Everything is so fresh, and obviously it's doing well because there was a line-up almost out the door and apparently that's a daily occurrence.

I guess I haven't been downtown in awhile because I totally went the wrong way of the direction of my appointment and then I had difficulty finding the skytrain station to go home! But on my way to the skytrain, I decided to stop into a place called the Urban Tea Merchant. See, I have never eaten a macaron before, I have gotten them for people as gifts but never even tried one myself. I am famous for doing this. I didn't have sushi or Chinese food until 2012, seriously. The other day I had a dream that I had a macaron and it was so amazing. But then I woke up and it hadn't actually happened and I got bummed out. So I went into this tea shop that I knew sold macarons, and I bought one that was the exact colour of the one in my dream.

I finally got to actually try my macaron and it. was. AMAZING. HOW have I never tried these before. I'm in love. They're like flaky on the outside and chewy on the inside and have sooo much flavour. This one was blackcurrant. I thought maybe I wouldn't like it because it was tea flavoured (they all were at this shop) but it was SO GOOD.

Anyways, my point is that it's just so cool to try new things. I love that in the last few years, I've gone out on a limb and tried things: sushi, chinese food, macarons, parasailing, paddleboarding, becoming a trainer, becoming self employed, competing...every experience we have just shapes who we are and makes us excited for what else is out there to try. I used to be afraid of everything and now I am excited and intrigued about trying new things and for me, it's just a really good place to be in.