ostracized

Ok - for those of you on the "new" blogger pages...YOU SUCK! :-) Just kidding...or maybe not...haven't decided yet. I tried to switch to the new fancy features but was unable to. Problem with my blog content - story of my life. Now my window of opportunity has passed and I will remain in the blog-dark-ages till another beta version appears. There is fleeting hope though. Apparently those of us with content problems will see light at the end of the tunnel. I'm talking way down the road here folks. I'm sure no one will really care if there are pretty labels on my blogs anyways. I'm always surprised on how many people read my daily nonsense (ahem...I mean meaningful) thoughts. :-) Now it's your turn to update your blogs! As I religiously check them all daily too!

accessorize

It's all about the accessories. What it looks like, how it feels, how many colors are available and how much it costs. I've spent the afternoon looking at accessories for my iPod. There are so many things available for it that I don't know where to start! I think I'll start with the basics. A case so it won't get scratched (I'm a bit anal about stuff like that). A USB power adaptor so that I don't have to plug it into a computer to charge. Other than that everything else can wait. Now the question is who to buy from. The Apple Store, Ebay or BestBuy. Hmmm...I haven't boycotted any of those stores in the last year so they're still on my "A-Ok list".

keeping busy

It's boxing day. I didn't line up for any door crasher deals. Nothing really intrigues me. Though Chicky and I did debate about purchasing a new camera. We've been playing with the thought of an dSLR or just go with the Canon S3. Neither camera was on sale for super cheap. So we ended up just sleeping in till 11am. We spent the last couple of nights watching movies till day break. Some movies were good - other ones were full out "rental" quality.

I finally woke up and then realized that I had to work. Bummer. I was really lazy and didn't feel like going into the office. I would rather load my new Ipod with audiobooks then travel into North Van for a few hours. I'm at work right now. I missed the big rush at work - thank god! What have I accomplished at work? So far I've cleaned up the buffet table that we left behind on friday. I see that no one else has tried to help with the clean up since then. Just finished doing dishes. Now I might do some real work - after I finish this blog first. :-)

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a wonder Christmas with their friends and family. I had a great time with mine. We celebrated Christmas on Christmas eve. Had finder food and ham this year instead of the traditional turkey. This was good since I get tired of many days of turkey.

What's Christmas without presents? Angelina scored the most as always. Santa is always good to her. The theme around the gifts this year appeared to be health and wellness. People got gifts from personal hygene to magazine subscriptions to excercise props. :-) Santa brought me a few new gadgets! Chicky got me an Ipod video (30GB). It's so cool! Now I can add another device into my bag. Actually it's good as I think I'll take the Ipod to asia this year instead of the laptop. I also got a programable coffee maker. :-) It's for those mornings that I wake up and fly out of the house in a mad panic to get to work on time. For my health and wellness gifts - they were centered around yoga. Is that a hint?! Lol...just kidding. I needed a new yoga mat and bag anyways.

a fuzzy christmas

On Saturday night Chicky and I participated in his cousin's 5th annual "Fuzzies Christmas". It was basically a get together of some of the cousins. What does fuzzies mean? I was baffled at first. I thought it meant that we had to bring stuffed animals for the kids. I was close. We were suppose to bring stuffed animals that we had as kids. Apparently the cousins all have these MGM lions from when they were kids. Some of the lions were lost in the great flood of 2000.

We played games and enjoyed each other's company. It was nice to just hang out with the cousins. Chick and I had a great time. I took some pictures too. We found out that another one of the cousins is expecting next year. Which makes the baby count to 7 for my friends. That's wonderful.

One of the games that we played had challenges. Mary danced with Brandon for one of the challenges and Avery (this 2 year old) was the judge. The whole room burst out laughing when Avery gave the thumbs down to the dance - poor Mary. :-)

stories to remember

Today I was out shopping for a present for Angelina. For the last couple of weeks I've been looking for books for her. She likes to read. But I'm not familiar with what's hot and not for a 7 year old. What I ideally want to buy her is a subscription to a book club or something like that. I remember as a child, my parents had bought this package where each month we received Dr. Seuss or Mickey Mouse books. They weren't thick books but by the end of 3 years we had a whole bookcase full of books. Plus it was fun waiting for the next book to come in the mail. I went to Scholastic's website - as they seem to be the leader in children's books. I ended up getting a book each from 3 different series to test with Angelina - to see if she likes them. Any of you teacher-folk out there have any recommendations on children's book clubs or books in general?

presenting the BlackBerry 7130e

This morning I had do a presentation on a BlackBerry product for my job promotion. Being the slacker, I left the assignment and presentation till the night before. I was up till 1:30am working on it. It turned out to be a much harder task then I had originally envisioned. I discovered that I didn't know much about the topic.

I chose to present on the BlackBerry 7130e because it's one of the 3 corporate models. I basically went to the BlackBerry website and tried to absorb as much information as I could. I was going to be tested not only on presentation content, style and product knowledge but also on "tips & tricks". Since I don't know one and realistically have very minimal exposure to BlackBerrys in general I was nervous.

It was a sleepless night. Slept for about 4 hours but none of it was peaceful. Had dreams of being late for the presentation, it not working and my audience being bored out of their minds by the content (tech specs can get a bit dry). I always have sleepless nights when I have something to do the next day that I didn't prepare for. It's the dread of having people find out that I didn't put effort into this.

I got up, took a shower, put on a suit and packed my laptop. The paper assignment and presentation had to be copied from the laptop to a USB - I didn't have time to do it the night before. I thought I looked very professional - if nothing else I should earn some self presentation points! Look confident = feel confident. People at work asked if I had an interview - that's what we ask of anyone in our group that comes to work in a suit. The whole process of testing for this position has secretive. There are 4 people in my group all competing for the same thing so everyone is tight on what we say to each other.

The meeting started horribly. I was asked to send a Net Meeting invite to some people in Victoria (so that they could also see the laptop/projector screens from their meeting rooms). I haven't done that many net meetings so I fumbled through the software - wasting precious time. The laptop that they had set up only had one USB port. I had to sacrifice the mouse for my USB key. Then my USB key failed. I had to excuse everyone and rush the USB key back to my desk to load the presentation onto a network drive. All the while earning demerit points (we're also being marked on organization). When I finally pulled myself together, I felt like I flew through the slides. People asked questions during the presentation which threw me for a loop as I wasn't prepared to speak on topics such as architecture. Lol...what am I doing in the tech field? I should really be wearing a suit and asking people if they want a chocolate or white wedding cake! Not wearing a suit and pretending to be a RIM salsperson.

So now is the wait. There are 10 other candidates. Only 4 positions though so it's a going to be interesting what happens next. The last stage of testing is the interview. I'm not worried about that - use to panel interviews and am almost comfortable speaking to one.

having a happy anniversary

It's my anniversary today and I didn't even know it! With who?!? Telus! Lol...I got a package in the mail today. They sent me a thank you letter and a handsfree headset for my phone (free of charge). Michael was pretty jealous of my stuff. :-) Telus has earned 2 brownie points. First with the 5 bucks they gave me for my first fight with them a couple of months ago and now the handsfree headset. Ah...it's all good. This only reinforces my opinion that tough customers get better care. But I already have a bluetooth headset that Chicky got for my birthday. Hmm...do I hear re-gifting?! Lol - I think Santa is going to stuff the kids stockings full of ICBC-logoed products this year.

Now I'm giddy with getting a new gadget - even if I don't want/need it. Getting my second wind to finish my presentation and paper. Both are due tomorrow so it looks like I'll be burning the midnight oil tonight and crashing into cars on the way home tomorrow (due to lack of sleep). I'd stay off the roads if I were you...

how dense can you be?

I went to Lions Gate Hospital this morning for my bone density exam. My doctors insists that I get one. She's being overly paranoid.

Hospitals are so scary looking! I had some problems finding it - thank goodness I left really early from home! Got there and the information lady wasn't in yet. Probably because it was pretty early in the morning. I had called the hospital the day before to find out which ward I'm suppose to go to. Nuclear medicine. I checked the wall map and found out that it's located in the basement (next to emergency and cardiology). Found my way down there. Had some time before my appointment so I diddled and dawdled. I took a picture of the sign. I was a bit hesitant about it doing because I feared a big-burly-hospital-attendant would come up and take the camera away. More fear for my camera's safety then for my own. There were various signs stating that all electrical equipment must be turned off. Does that apply to cameras?! So I depended on the 9X digital zoom to get me that image - not a clear image but you get the point.

The exam itself was really short - approximately 10 minutes. I got to wear a hospital gown. Whoohoo!!! Not the paper but the cloth kind. Now that's more classy. I didn't get to drink any radioactive substances or get injected with super powers. Too bad! It would have been a good excuse to take the day off from work. "Ahem...I can't come to work. They injected me with radioactive stuff and I can't be exposed to other people". Computer geeks probably don't know much about biology. :-) Except for our pal - Shannan...computer geek with a deadly bio edge!

The machine must not be that dangerous as the tech-lady sat at a computer next to the scan bed and talked to me during the whole thing. I got my hips and spine scanned. It's an interesting procedure. :-) I wouldn't rate it under the "10 things I MUST do before I die" category but it would probably fit under the "10 things I SHOULD do if I want complete the 10 things I must do before I die" list.

going bananas

On Monday night I went out for dinner with Tanya, Shannan and Kenny. All 3 of them will be away for Christmas. We went down to Kitsilano and ate at Banana Leaf. The restaurant is nice but a bit far away. It's close to Shannan though! Eating out with just a few friends is good because you can actually talk to each other instead of trying to entertain masses of people. Plus the conversation is more intimate. Kenny got to listen to a lot of girl talk. He's a great guy though and gave the "man's perspective" whenever it was appropriate. :-)

The traffic was horrible (for me anyways). Getting off the North Shore proved to be a challenge. I vote that they expand the Lions Gate Bridge. It's in deperate need of work as with the wind storms - it's proved to be a disadvantage to live in the westend and have to cross that bridge. Yet there was a silver lining to all of this road rage. In an attempt to escape it - after sitting in traffic for an hour and not moving anywhere - I turned into my gym and went for a swim in the pool. An hour later I walked out of the gym and the traffic still hadn't moved. I opted to turn around and cross the Second Narrows - that was MUCH faster.

I really like Malaysian food. Roti canai...can't get enough of that. Lol - good thing that Chicky and I are heading to Malaysia in a couple of months. I'm so looking forward to the scrumptious food we can get our hands onto. :-) Going to need to bring my stretchy clothes!

annual potluck

On Saturday night was our annual potluck Xmas party with our friends. The Mackey's hosted this year. Very nice of Josie and Jonathan to share their new home with us. I think it's becoming a tradition for those that have the newest home to host the Xmas potluck.

We all had a great time catching up with everyone. It was nice to see people that I haven't seen in a long time - such as Billy, Kim and their son London. The last time I saw London was when he was born. Now he's 18 months old and so cute. We took pictures and had dinner. Tanya proved to be the only chef. The rest of us are devoted patrons of Hon's.

As we grow older it's harder to stay in touch. I find that everyone's lives are changing at a fast rate. In the last year the lives of Josie/Jonathan, Chris/Cindy and Charlene/Scott have changed dramatically. A baby was born, a couple got pregnant and another couple is getting married. When I think of other friends who's lives are rapidly changing as well, I can't help but think of how it was just yesterday that I was hanging out with them and discussing important things as cute guys and what's in to wear, going hiking or enjoying a day window shopping. I think I'll have to start up the dim sum thing again next year. I miss just hanging out with the girls and catching up on their lives. As mentioned at the party, we seem to stay in touch with those that have blog sites. It's funny how communication styles have changed over time.

the pastry chef

On Friday night I attempted to make some cookies for Josie's Christmas cookie exchange. She wanted everyone to make cookies to swap this year - instead of gifts. It's a novel idea. I didn't realize what magnitude it was until the task was upon me.

Josie had initially stated that a cookie exchange is for a person to make a dozen cookies for EACH of the guests coming to the party. So our party of 10 people meant that I needed 10 dozen cookies!! That was a crazy amount so Josie cut it back to half a dozen for every person coming. So I thought to myself 'doesn't sound that hard'. I was mistaken. As you all know - I rarely cook at home. My mom is the primary chef and if left to my own vices, the dinner menu would consist of a bowl of cereal and a bag of chips. Satisfying but of no nutritional value. That said I was all gung ho into the adventure. I did the research - found a few easy receipes on the net. Printed the ones that I wanted. I might create a binder do as to not kill more trees in my cooking adventures. That or purchase a dessert cookbook. While surfing - I did discover the Cookie Swap Party planner, maybe this is where Josie got her idea from.

I sought out Superstore. Purchased all the supplies and ingredients. When the cashier rang everything in and gave me the final amount. I cringed. It would have been much cheaper to just cheat and buy cookies for everyone. Who even knows if mine will come out right?!!

So at 9pm I started the baking. Chicky came over from work and helped with the shortbread cookies. I had a bit of trial and error runs. Discovered that having one tray of cookies in the oven works best (so as not to burn the whole batch). We baked a couple of batches, taste tested and modified the receipe. Chicky tried putting the dough onto the trays with teaspoons (so that they'd be the same size). We totally forgot that my mom has a cake piping bag. That would have made things go by so much faster. During the baking - I thought about various gadgets that would have speeded up the process. Always thinking about gadgets. Nice to have items would have been: kitchenaid blender, cookie press, silicone molds and 2 layer cooling rack. :-) So for the party I ended up packaging brownies, melt-in-your-mouth shortbread cookies and loaded oatmeal-raisin cookies (for those that don't want sweet stuff). I'll have to make more desserts when there's less pressure and more time to enjoy it.

food bank fill up

On Friday I brought the donations that my department collected for the food bank from our breakfast party. We had hosted and served breakfast to a few departments at work. In turn people who came brought non-perishable goods. Those that weren't able to dig up a can or two offered cash donations. It was a success. We got a full box of food and $63 in cash.

I lost power to my house Friday as well so it was a bit of a struggle trying to figure out how to get the donations to Z95.3's Food Bank Fill Up at the Safeway on Hastings and Willingdon. Michael was my hero in shining armour. He responded to my desperate pleas and brought my car to me after work. I had this vision of pulling up to Z95.3 while they were broadcasting and be able to say something about ICBC's Help Desk. You know...do some PR work as well. Kill 2 birds with one stone. In reality - Micheal and I rushed to the Safeway (as it was nearing their 6pm cut off) and some kids unloaded the car. There was no fanfare. No appreciated thanks. I felt jipped. I even wrote a nice envelope with how much we raised and from who the cash donations were from (ICBC's Help Desk). One kid grapped the envelope, said "thanks lady", ripped it open without looking at it and dumped the contents into the big donation box that they have there. Shaking my head in dismay, I asked for my box back (as it's a nice box from Ikea and I can still use it to gather more food donations at work) and drove away.

holiday blues

I'm feeling tired and sad tonight. I went to Chicky's dragon boat team dinner thing. Unfortunately I chose the wrong route to Richmond from North Van. I went over the Lion's Gate bridge and through the downtown core. Factoring in the rain, Canucks game and holiday shopping - it took me 2 hours to get to his workplace. During my drive I developed road rage. This lead to more a foul mood. I had plenty of time to think about how many times I've shown my support for Chicky over the years and how many times he's supported me. I'm not suppose to keep tab but it's not an even mix. That train of thought just lead down a dark road of where and what Chicky and I have been through the last 4 or 5 years. By the time I reached his office I was not feeling social. The dinner lasted 1/2 hour. I wasn't going to drive home right away as it took me so long to get there so I told Chicky that I wanted to go to the mall. He didn't want to go - that annoyed me. He had picked up on my foul mood so he eventually agreed. So I dragged him to Daiso - I wanted to get some wrapping paper. Didn't see anything at Daiso so we went home. Took me an hour to drive home. I told him that he has to help me bake for Josie's cookie-exchange party on Saturday. I'm not going to let him off so easy.

I think most of my foul mood stems from my family. We've been having wars at home. Same old issues between my parents for the last 20 years. They can never resolve it and end up ignoring it. Now it's reached a point where KA and I can't take it anymore (Carol is lucky - she's lived on her own for nearly 8 years now and doesn't have to deal with this crap). The family is all broken up but we live behind a visage of happiness. It gets really tiring trying to pretend that everything is ok. Our house is like a hotel. Everyone has their separate rooms. No one really talks to each other. KA and I are eating less and less at home, in feeble attempts to escape having to deal with the issues. We feel sorry for our mom and have reached the conclusion that we will do what it takes to make her happy. If that means screwing over my dad then be it. My dad seems to screw up every Christmas for us anyhow. Sometimes I fear that I will have the same type of relationship that my parents have. Not really happy together but not making an effort to cut it off for good. Oh well - 2007 should kick off with some major changes to our family structure. Ah - dysfunctional families...wish we could be "normal".

cooking for a good cause

Calling all Iron Chefs - no...that's not me. I've been tasked with cooking and baking this week. At work my department is hosting it's first annual Christmas breakfast. Our sister branch in Victoria does this yearly and we thought that we'd start the tradition on this side of the water.

As leader of the Gung Ho committee (our departmental social club) - I was given 2 weeks to put it all together. The committee participation is pretty pathetic - just Robyn and I are members now. I gathered money from everyone, sent out invitations and intended on going to Costco to shop last night. On the way home I nearly fell asleep at the wheel again as I was so tired - it's been really busy at work - so I decided to take a nap first before going grocery shopping. My nap turned into a 3 hour power nap. I woke up in time to rush to the mall, grab a secret santa gift for my coworker, go to Save On Foods and pick up all the groceries needed for the breakfast party. This morning I lugged all the stuff into work. Good thing was that I found parking in the shipping and receving bay, loaded a trolley with my items and took it upstairs.

Part of the breakfast includes collecting donations for the food bank (in terms of canned goods or money). I'll be dropping off those items on the way to Richmond tomorrow. Z95.3 is having their Food Bank Fillup campaign right now. One of the locations is the Safeway on Hastings and Willingdon. Going to drop off the donations there after work tomorrow. We're cooking for a good cause. So that makes me feel better when I have to be in at 6:30am tomorrow to scramble eggs, fry bacon and stuff. I'll post pics later.

sleep is over rated

It's nearly midnight and I feel wired. This is despite the fact that I've only had about 4 hours of sleep since yesterday. Sunday a lazy day. The adventures in finding a place to have lunch was amusing. Chicky and I found ourselves in West Vancouver after perusing the streets of Vancouver to no avail.

After lunch Chicky was a tired (probably emotionally) and not in the mood for Christmas shopping so we went back to his place. Nick and Lisa had gotten up much earlier than us and had brunch. They had a Christmas party the night before and got home at around the same time as us. We watched a bit of TV with them before going to bed. Lisa is so cool - she made her own Christmas gown. Since I've known her (which has been on and off for the last 4 or 5 years) she's like making fancy dresses for parties. She's quite the seamstress. Nick and Chicky relaxed the rest of the afternoon by playing computer games with each other. Lisa and I watched Pirates of the Caribean: Deadman's Chest. After that Lisa went out for a bit and I took a nap on the couch. Nick has new couches - so big and comfy. Only thing is that they are leather and VERY cold. I feel like I have to be bundled up while watching TV. Unfortunately Nick doesn't suscribe to cable to the TV channel selection is limited. That's not too disappointing to me as I normally watch channel 25 and 50 (cartoon channels). Once in awhile I'll mix it up and watch the space or discovery channels.

When I woke up from my nap it was nearly dinner time. Lisa had come back and had changed the channel - she's not as much of a cartoon freak as I am. The 4 of us ordered pizza and all watched Da Vinci's Code. Some times it's just nice to just sit around and relax.

After Da Vinci's Code - it was 9pm and I was heading out to go home. Chicky and I then debated if we wanted to watch a new movie (in the theatre). That would have meant that I'd be up past midnight. He didn't really care as he had monday off. I said "what the heck - sure!" So we watched Blood Diamond. That movie was almost 2 hours long! I got home at 1:30am - had to get up for work 4 hours later.

on being impersonal

Chicky picked up a voice message from his parents Sunday afternoon. They wanted to tell him that they had put Elmo to sleep that morning. We were having lunch at the White Spots in West Vancouver. What a horrible way to find out about something like that. He quickly called his parents to find out why they had done that. Elmo was apparently sick and they thought it would be better for him to be put to sleep. When he told me what happened afterwards, I couldn't help but think about Mui Mui. I think we've invested moocho mula on her (as her last surgery was more than a couple of thousand). I think KA and I would be extremely upset if my parents put her down without consulting with us first. As long as Mui Mui avoids being another midnight snack for a coyote - the less we'll have to pay in medical fees. Mui Mui should live a long time, she's quite spoiled at home.

Elmo was technically Chicky's pet and they should have asked him what he thought about the procedure before doing it. That or at least told him in advance what was going to happen. No one wants to hear about it after the fact. Elmo was nearly 10 years old, he could have lived longer but would he have been happy?

So at lunch we mourned Elmo for a bit. Talked about his good kitty days. Though Chicky may not have directly taken care of Elmo since moving back from Victoria - he still loves that chubby kitty. I didn't really know Elmo. He was a bit of an unsocial creature when I met him. Elmo never lived with us - we had white furniture back then and I wasn't so keen on his shedding. When Mui Mui came into our lives, Elmo was over shadowed by her playful/needy ways. I remember Mui Mui as a puppy and wanting to play with Elmo (she thought he was a bigger version of her toy bunny). He wasn't into playing and enjoyed slapping Mui Mui on the head with his claws. Soon after that I didn't let Mui Mui have play dates with him.

I think Elmo was lonely. I don't think many people played with him. Chicky's parents have tried to give him away twice in the last couple of years. That can be damaging to a cat's self esteem. I think it's best that he went onto his next cat life peacefully.

waterfront Christmas

On Saturday was Chicky's company's annual Christmas party. They held it at the Fairmount Vancouver Waterfront. It's a gorgeous hotel. Chicky and I walked to the party from his place. It was quite the stroll - about 3 blocks in the sprinkling rain. It was romantic. We had his golf umbrella so that I wouldn't have frizzy hair by the time we got to the party.

The party was really good. The food was spectacular - Chicky even had seconds! As usual it was an open bar. I had an array of drinks infront of my but it was the glass of wine that put "color" into my cheeks. I was glassy-eyed by the time dessert came around. :-)

For entertainment the company hired some performers from the Drum Cafe. I've heard of them before and seen some of their team building events. I was very impressed with the precision of the instruments, the excitment from the crowd and the excersizes that they had us do. We clapped rhythms in harmony to the beat of the drums and when the bag of morrocos came out - the crowd went wild! An enjoyable experience which left me to ponder whether I should look at hiring them for one of our own Social Club events. I'm ever on the lookout for Social Club ideas. I did speak to a lady at our table who just finished with a Survivor event hosted by Canadian Outback Adventures. Sounded like lots of fun. I told her that I'm looking into hiring that company for an event as well and asked for feedback. She was most willing to give me some.

We also played Heads & Tails for a chance at winning 2 airfare tickets for anywhere in the continental US. I was close to winning! But got eliminated when my "heads" streak came to an end. :-) Oh well - I was fun to be one of the last few people standing on the dance floor. After dinner and dessert, Chicky and I mingled with his friends, danced a few songs, watched some good dancers show the rest of us how bad we look on the dance floor and went home. Here are a few pictures from the party.

testing completed

I finished my final exam tonight. Whew! So happy that it's done with. I put in about 6 hours of real study time. Procrastinated all yesterday. Didn't crack open the textbook till 1:30am Thursday. Read it for an hour then fell asleep. Woke up 6 hours later, took a shower to wake myself up and hit the books again. There was no retention involved in all of this. It was basically going in and out of my head. The exam was only worth 20% so I figured I'd be ok if I failed miserably. Having this type of mentality to start with does not help with the procrastination. During the day I studied, ate breakfast, slept, studied, watched TV, snacked on junk food, cleaned the kitchen, studied, fell asleep again and did laundry. Yup - not very productive in the academic field but my house is much cleaner! Plus Muimui was making it hard to study, she kept walking all over my papers and wanting to play. So instead of playing, I went on the web and searched for doggie biscuit receipes. Going to make Muimui some home made goodies for Xmas. Wait - I've been down this road before. It's cheaper to buy doggie biscuits. You can get a HUGE bucket full of Milk Bones from Costco for $8! Kimmi is all about convenience...Costco here I come!

Now it's time to start Christmas shopping and concentrating on more important things such as decorating the house for the holidays. I love Christmas - it's such a colorful time of year.

hanging with the girls

I took 2 days off this week to "study". Didn't get too much of that done though. I spent a good part of Wednesday with Josie and Katarina. I went over to see Josie's new home. It's so nice. They've done a lot of work renovating it. Plus it was pretty easy to find - despite the directions from Google maps. I think Google purposely gives you the roundabout way of getting somewhere. After missing many of the turns listed on the map - I chose my own stealthy ninja way.

Katarina has grown up so much since I've last seen her. She can now sit and fully interact with you. She's such a happy and easy baby. Josie is so lucky! I really like it that Katarina is not afraid of strangers. She was a bit tentative at first and kept staring at my pink toque (maybe she liked it) - but after awhile we were buddies. :-) I have no problems stealing her from her mommy!

Jasmine and Josie's mom were visting too so the 4 of us went out for dim sum. It was yummy and Katarina kept us entertained. She's in that phase now where everything needs to be "tasted". She's really strong for her age and has a really good grip. My hair is the perfect length for pulling on. I figure she'll bypass crawling and go straight into walking/running. She like to be held up so that her feet is walking along the floors. But the cutest is her ability to giggle whenever a camera is pointing at her. :-) Do we have a model in the making?!

After dim sum, Josie and I went to Richmond Centre to do some shopping. I wasn't in any hurry to study and Josie had a few hours before cardio bootcamp with her sister. I'm proud that Josie's so hard core. My attempt at working out this week was yoga. I went on tuesday and felt nauseous. The room was spinning after a few poses. I thought I was going to throw up on the mat so I layed down - that only made me want to puke more so I had to sit up in fear of choking on my own vomit. Ah - not hydrated enough before going in. I'm so bad at not drinking water. It's not good either when you know that you have a hot yoga class that evening too. The room was heated to it's normal 45+ degrees but it felt like 100 degrees to me. :-) Todd (the owner) was surprised to see me walk in at 6pm and asked me where I've been these last few months. I said I was bad and haven't been practising. Part of the appeal of this studio is that I know the owners and instructors well (from the days when I was diligent and practiced daily).