I must confess that I keep hearing Selena Gomez songs.
And I keep liking them.
ACK.
HOW DOES THIS ALWAYS HAPPEN TO ME!?
Good gravy…
This latest realization came tonight when I was working out. We have this insane little “amenities room” here in our complex (a supposed stand-in for a gym whenever anyone is selling their place!) and it’s where Marc and I go to work out when the days turn frigid, and the daylight has all but vanished by 4:17pm.
(Aka November – February of every year.)
Anyways, whilst in this room, I like to pump up the crappy pop tunes and just go at it.
Tonight, while getting through my push-up/jumping lunge super-sets, I found myself dancing like a silly thing during my one minute rest period.
You can imagine my chagrin when the DJ announced at the end of the song, that my latest jam was in fact the newest release from one S. Gomez, former belle of DA BIEBZ, and overall auto-tune queen du jour.
I feel like I really must get my music palette looked out, and stat.
And yet, at the same time, I know that as long as I don’t listen to that stuff all the time (such as I don’t just eat candy all of the live long day, despite how much I enjoy it,) I’ll be fine.
We are family.
There are times in my life when I realize just how quickly time is speeding by.
This realization is sometimes correlated to specific milestones: graduations, marriages, mortgages, or child births. It may come after running into someone I haven’t seen in a long time, only to knocked over by how much they have aged, changed or matured.
Sometimes, I start thinking about it for no reason at all.
However, if you are a part of my family, there is a very good chance that this will happen to you, and at a regular basis at that.
With fourteen grandkids, there are always something new to celebrate: a job, a child, a wedding, a degree.
Often times I have a hard time remembering that we are no longer twelve years old, on the hunt for five cent candies and slurpees, to quench our summer-sunshine driven thirst.
So you have to understand how discombobulating it can be, when my now twenty-four year old cousin (who in my mind, I still eight) makes me look like a little girl:
What an absolute trip!
Tough it out
Well, it’s official.
Next summer I’ll be back in Whistler, running Tough Mudder for the second time in my life.
I am on a team “Armed and Dangerous” (aka – DA GUNS) with three fabulous friends of mine, and as the only girl I am going to be repping hard for all my BAMF ladies out there.
(Tell me – can you tell it’s a team of mostly dudes with a name like that?)
But mostly, I am just the most excited.
I had such an amazing time completing the course in 2012 with Marc, and I know that next year too will be a tremendous adventure. (I just need to find a way to 1. Cure my husband of his chronic ankle injuries so that he can 2. compete as a member of our team.)
We’ve all got to have goals, don’t we?
Because if we don’t, what’s propelling us through all this cosmic cat food in the first place?
A little over five years ago, in front of friends and family, Marc and I pledged each other our troth. Our celebration took place at Minter Gardens, an absolutely amazing space just outside of Vancouver.
Here, plants and flowers of such a wide variety create a kaleidoscope of colours vibrant and breathtaking.
It’s a beauty that will make your head spin.
It was the perfect place for us to publicly proclaim our love for one another, celebrate with our phenomenal guests, and dance the night away.
So you can imagine how sad I was to learn that on the 14th of this month, these incredible gardens will be closing to the public.
Closing forever.
It would seem that we no longer live in a world where people visit gardens as a weekend trip, or family getaway.
Alas.
In an attempt to say our own goodbyes to this special place, Marc and I drove out to Agassiz last Saturday and spent a few hours wandering about.
It poured like the dickens as we strolled along the different paths, our umbrellas gently knocking each other, our coats slick with rain.
Afterwards, we warmed up in the cafeteria, sipping mushroom soup and milky tea, while our hearts went out to the wedding party congregating at the gardens’ entrance.
The bride and groom had obviously gambled on an end of summer West Coast outdoor wedding.
But a little rain isn’t anything a lifetime of love can’t cure.
Minter.
Love.
Quote.
Lizard.
Flower.
Legs.
Fountain.
Foliage.
Church.
Waterfall.
Love, redux.
…
‘If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”
Today I am saying goodbye to my very good friend, and long-time partner in crime Kristy (although our heists have unfortunately been coming few and far between over the last couple of years, as she embarks on a new work adventure in the good ol’ United States of America.
First stop Texas.
Then onto the Big Apple.
As if I needed another excuse to keep visiting New York!
For people who don’t know Kristy – give it a couple of years.
Before you know it, she’ll be running the darn place.
The girl will be kicking butt and taking names.
Now, I’ve written about this lass before – once to give you a general overview of our completely bonkers, and ever important friendship, and the second to regale you with our absolutely absurd fandango of a trip to Boston for a badminton tournament in 2002, but I feel the need to tell you more about his amazing gal (what with the inevitability of her one-day becoming our benevolent business overlord.)
Let’s start shall we?
First, she is a laugh riot when it comes to photo shoots.
We’ve had many over the years. Most normally devolve into us play-acting completely ridiculous situations (such as wearing bikinis and posing as the “before” and “after” of diet pill commercials) or as illustrated below – “pretend to be as drunk as you possibly can be.”
It really is amazing neither of us has attended the Academy Awards for our spectacular acting skills, let alone taken home multiple Oscars.
Second, if there is one thing you should do before you die, it’s attend one of her birthday parties.
THEY ARE FUN.
Third, she is one of the most dependable people I have ever known.
In this day and age it is super easy to flake out on people (heck, depending on the season and the crazy level of my life, I am guiltier of this than most), but Kristy?
Never.
And the girl is not sitting at home all day crocheting afghans.
(It makes me feel weird that spell check wants to capitalize afghans WHEN OBVIOUSLY I AM TALKING ABOUT THE WRAPS HERE GUYS NOT THE PEOPLE OF THE COUNTRY OF AFGHANISTAN. JEEEZE.)
But back to business.
I cannot really communicate how much it means to me that she is there for me whenever I need her – to come see a show, to talk about life and all its madness, to share a laugh, or eat a fish taco. At the risk of sounding like a Ford truck advertisement, the girl is solid as a rock.
A ROCK.
(IRAQ?)
ACK.
Stop that.
And finally, what I admire most about Kristy, is her fearlessness, her drive, and her independence.
I truly believe that if we were all a little bit more like her, the world would be a much better place.
Because if this were true, I am fairly certain there wouldn’t be diet pill ads to make fun of in the first place.
Cookie monster.
Rant and Roll 