Honest to Blog: Goodbye 2013 Hello 2014

So we are at the end of another year and only a drunken breath away from a new year. I for one am pretty happy to be done with this year. It was a hard one for me. This was one of the hardest years for Richard and I in our 7 year relationship. A lot of that was to due with the fact that I was hit super bad at the beginning of this year with one of the hardest bouts of depression I've had in a long time. I was in the hospital earlier this year with a really bad kidney infection as well. In my defense I was trying to be healthy and took some daily vitamins which ended up giving me the kidney infection. Then being on even more of a 'got to get healthy' attitude I decided to work out and my knee slipped and I've had to deal with that injury. So if this is any kind of lesson it should be to stay unhealthy, but I know that's not the best attitude to walk away with.

But lets talk about some of the amazing things that happened this year. I became an aunt not once but twice to two beautiful girls. Both my brothers had daughters this year: Callie and Sarah. Add those two to my new nephew Caleb that was born last year, we are now up to 7 nephews and nieces.

Left: Simon, Valerie, and Caleb. Top Right: Tyler, Macayla, and Callie. Bottom Right: Sarah

Seriously?!? How beautiful are all these kids. Ridiculous, I know but there you have it.

I joined all the cool kids and signed up for Instagram this year, and it reminded me of how much I love taking photos. So much so that I did a 30-day photo challenge with a Beautiful Mess. I am really proud of the photos I took for the challenge, and tried being creative with how I took them. 

On top of these photos with instagram alone I have taken just shy of 400 photos since May of this year. I have also done Photo Adventures with my friend Hillary and Uncle Chris. All of which you can see here, here, and here. 

I got promoted at my work from Receptionist to a Call-Coordinator. I like that I have a lot more tasks to do and the team I work with is awesome. They really make the days at work more interesting. And I've made new friends at work, but shh don't tell them that. 

These are the girls on the Deskside Team. Our team lead Neil was MIA for this photo.

Speaking of work I was a part of the Social Committee for the second year in a row and we put on two very successful events. A 50's Breakfast and, my ultimate favourite, our Masquerade Holiday Party. You can see all the photos of those here and here. 

I also challenged myself to read more books this year, and ended up reading 27 new books. I wanted to challenge myself to read 30 new books, but fell in love with so many this year that I ended up re-reading the same books over and over. So I guess technically I did read over 30 books. Challenged Accepted- Challenge 'sort of' Completed. And with reading comes wanting to write. I joined Richard's writing group and started writing a novel. Ya that's right I'm writing a book. Pretty awesome if I do say so myself. 

After getting out of my depression in the beginning of the year the rest of the year went pretty darn well. I'm happy with how this year ended and I'm looking forward to next year. This is around that time where people post their goals and talk about how they want to lose weight and stop smoking and learn a new hobby. Well I've done that on here before and let me tell you, those goals where never accomplished. 

But I do want to set myself up with some goals, so here is a list of what I want to do next year:

1.Stay positive.

2. Spend more time with family.

3. Cross off more things on my Bucket List. (You can see what I have on it here.)

4. Finish my book.

5. Throw out my weight scale and never weigh myself again. EVER. My health goal next year is not going to be to lose X amount of pounds but instead get myself to a point health wise where I'm happy. Screw the number on my clothes and the number on the scale. My goal is to be happy with my body and how I feel. 

6. Stick to my passions and complete my home decorating ideas. 

7. Chisel away at our debt. I would really like to be debt free as soon as possible. 

Well, that's all folks. Thanks for reading this little bit of the internet world that I have. Hope you all will stick around next year and see what other crap I get up too. 

Happy New Year Everyone. 

Photography Adventure: Ice Storm 2013

I started this post earlier in the week when the Ice Storm actually hit but then Christmas got in the way of everything and this got pushed back. But I'm here now to share of the photos I took from the day of the storm. First off I wanted to say that considering how bad this storm was, Richard and I were extremely lucky. I've never been more happy to live in a condo then I was when this storm happened.

Richard and I lost power on December 22nd between 1am-2am, and then lost hot water some time after 12pm the same day. Out of everyone in my family we were the only ones to have lost power and hot water, so my brother was nice enough to let Richard and I spend the night at his place because we were unsure of when things would be fixed. We were once again lucky enough to get power back that day just after 6pm. We have underground parking so we didn't have to chisel through an inch of ice to get into our cars like most people, and we weren't  too worried about driveways either. Most people kept asking us if we were getting cold without heat but because we live on the west side of our building, we get the sun most of the day and therefore our condo very rarely gets cold. Honestly our biggest worry was that our food in our fridge and freezer would go off due to the lack of hydro. We lost a bag of shrimp which we bought the day before but it could have been a lot worse. Even now 7 days after the storm there are still people without power and hot water which is hard to believe. But people have been working around the clock to get this fixed as much as possible.

The only words I have for this storm was Hauntingly Beautiful. While it was terrible to learn just how many people were affected by it, it was definitely an opportunity to get out my camera and take some photos. To see twenty to forty year old trees snap under the weight of the ice, was insane. Some were broken on houses or cars, and blocking whole roads. It was dangerous to even go out for the fear that at any moment another branch could snap. Whats even worse is that some branches would snap but get caught within the trees so now there are 300lbs of ice stuck up in a tree just waiting to melt and do more damage. I think we will be seeing the after effects of the storm for a while until everything melts and city workers can go around and get rid of the dangers.

Below are some pictures I took from the day of. I'm sure if you live in the GTA you've seen photos like this or even took some of your own but here is what the damage was around me. 

On Christmas Eve I was able to come home from work early and was greeted by what looked like a landscape that was dipped in glass. Everything sparkled and shined beneath the sunshine, and these pictures below don't even do justice to what it looked like in reality.

Like I said at the beginning of this post I did start writing this early last week, so even now this is not what we are greeted with outside. Now in our area all the ice has melted and the trees are once again bare. Today we saw city workers with trucks picking up the branches off peoples lawns and main streets, so maybe the cleanup wont take to long to get done.

So there you have it. It's been a crazy week with the storm and Christmas. Now we are only a couple days away from 2014. Hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season and are all recovering from their turkey comas.

Our Christmas Tree

So its that time of year again. There's snow on the ground and lights on the houses, and crazy people pushing each other in malls to get their hands on the newest bestest thing. This is the time of year where I try to avoid malls like the plague. Growing up with my parents who had an obsession with all things Christmas, we always had one or two trees in our house. As well as miniature villages; lights on every window; decorated garland on banisters, ceilings and walls. Not to mention our waist high Nativity set on the front garden. It truly was magical.

Earlier last week I posted a picture on my IG account with our tree that Richard and I put up. We purchased this tree six Christmas' ago for our first Christmas as a couple in our new apartment. Money was, like it always is, tight and this was the tree we could afford.

Richard and I were fighting each other about what colour the lights should be. I who had been around white lights wanted only what I was use to where as Richard was against it. He wanted coloured lights and that's it. If you read this blog you know Richard and I are both more into Halloween then Christmas, but Richard was really passionate about what he wanted our tree to look like. He wanted a tradition tree that looked like the decorations were home made or passed down. At this point I was pretty much like "Whatever I don't care, Christmas sucks anyway."

WHAT!?! Christmas doesn't suck, Paula you're insane. ( I can only imagine that's what people are saying when they read that.) But for me it has. Not to be a downer like my sister Karen says I always am but, for many years after my Mum passed I've never been overly excited about this holiday. Christmas was always so over the top when she was alive and since then it's truly never felt the same to me. I do try. I really do. And I'm making more of an effort this year to be in the holiday spirit. Don't get me wrong I love Christmas Day. I love the days leading up to it too. I love the potluck family dinner we have with my side of the family. All the games that my brother Matthew will make us play. The laughter that will be shared. I love getting together and spending actual Christmas Day with Richard's family. A tradition that has become a favourite of mine. I LOVE the togetherness of it all, but its also a time I get the blues.Usually I don't put the tree up until a week before Christmas because I honestly don't care, and then it's down come Boxing Day. But Richard being the incredible person he is, is pushing for us to do more holiday stuff sooner this year. He knows how depressed I get so this year especially he's all about the Christmas Spirit.

Ok enough with the all the "Bah! Humbug!" let's get back to our tree.

We were very lucky that Richard's family came to the rescue as always and gave us some ornaments from their collection to start us off. We were given some teddy bears, and nutcrackers, as well as some silver garland. With their help we were able to pick up new decorations and a really cute quilted looking tree skirt. Every year we buy a couple more decorations for the tree, as well as ornament exchanges with my side of the family instead of presents.

We use to buy presents for everyone but living in a large family where you end up having to buy presents for 15+ people was getting to be to much. Honestly it wasn't worth it. Then we started doing Secret Santa, which turned into Bad Santa, which eventually turned into each person buys one tree ornament or decoration for a secret exchange. So with this new family tradition our collection has grown and now we have beautiful decorations.

Now six years later despite hating it for so long, I now love our tree. I've tried replacing her over the years but Richard always gets this sad look on his face. He eventually told me one year, "Paula this is OUR tree, and our first one as a couple. Why would you want to get rid of it." Honestly you cant mess with a statement like that. Another thing that Richard is adamant about is that we have to decorate the tree together. Which it totally fine by me as long as we have a Christmas themed movie playing in the background while we decorate.

We both know that eventually we will have to buy a new one. It's a tree where the lights are already attached to it, which means when enough of them burn out and cant be replaced we will have to get a new one. But until then this little beauty will stay in our family and get more and more full.

I will say that something definitely changed this year though. Maybe it was Richard's attitude to make this Christmas better, maybe its all that vitamin-d I'm taking, but I got to say I'm not dreading the Holiday Season as much as I usually do.

Can't wait to celebrate early with my family this Saturday for our Bowman-Kalverda-McPhee-Vaughan Christmas. Seriously we got a lot people on my side coming over on Saturday. 14 people and only a table that sits 4. But we have lots of floor space so it looks like people will be eating off their laps.

Sorry Family. :)