Burrito West Blog

Time for a list!

1. Peter has signed us up for the Sun Run, so in May I will be attempting to run 10k. I'm optimistic because everyone has told me that there are so many people in the run that there are plenty of times where you can't actually run even if you wanted to (bottlenecks in the route). So long as there are enforced walking breaks, I think I'll be okay.

2. I'm about to go hem 3 pairs of pants. And by hem I mean take out the hem and try to make the pants longer.... am I growing or are all my pants shrinking? who knows. But it's driving me crazy having pants that are 1/4" too short so I'm doing something about it. booyah.

3. Peter and I just dropped some laundry off at this place: http://www.swanlaundry.com/ We're having all our blankets and pillows cleaned (finally) and this shop looked cute. And it was cute and the lady running it was super nice and totally encouraged us to hire a cleaning service to come do our chores for us. She says life is too short for chores. She's very convincing. ;)

4. The Olympics are coming!! There's stuff being built all over the place, Cultural Olympiad events going on (theatre, concerts, dance, art).... I think people are starting to get excited! I know I'm excited! I keep watching all the inspirational videos and getting all pumped up. Like this one on First Nations, this one, and this one by the BBC. This one isn't olympic related but is SPECTACULAR.

5. We had our first taste of Viennese waltz at dance last week - LOVE IT!

6. If you're looking for a way to contribute to the efforts in Haiti and you also like pretty things - this wonderful Etsy shop has opened and is selling items donated by other sellers. They've raised a staggering $24,000 already for Doctors Without Borders! Go buy yourself something nice - all your money will go to a good cause! http://www.etsy.com/shop/HeartsforHaiti

Finally, photos of the infamous loft bed.


Wish I had a before pic - you'll just have to picture this with a 2-shelf addition on top of the set of drawers, raising the bed up another 2-3ft. It sucked - was hard to get into, was too close to our ceiling (even though we have high ceilings here), and it just filled the bedroom too much.

Our 'bedroom' is so tiny it's hard to get a photo of it but the bed fits perfectly into this little nook and we've got a stack of storage boxes at the end with a blanket on top which makes a fabulous little cat bed at the foot of the bed - that was a wonderful bonus.


Basically, it's worked out really well. Lots of storage space, an actual dresser in the bedroom (!), and I stuck up the London skyline wall decal to complete the deal, which makes it feel quite nice. We have always called our bedroom 'the happy place' because we're both big fans of sleep, but now it's actually an inviting space that we enjoy being in. And I can open both doors of my wardrobe! (The previous bed was oriented differently and blocked one of the doors.)


Yay! Thank goodness Peter was willing to take on the hacking this required! Having a bedroom that makes you happy is very very good. =)

Also, today Peter and I ran 5.0km. Still caused suffering and woe and is still a long way from 10k, but at least it stopped raining long enough for me to get out and do it. =)

Peter and I had a great private lesson at dance yesterday. Rather than our regular instructor, we had someone else which is interesting, especially because our normal instructor is a woman and yesterday's was a guy. So we got a different style/perspective. It was fun and he fixed some stuff in our chacha so that it feels much better. We still hope to go back to our regular instructor, but it's good to shake things up now and then.

January is an interesting time at the dance studio - you see lots of new people coming to check things out, new people joining. Peter and I did the same thing, started in January, two years ago! Funny to think back to how scary it was, going to group classes and dancing with strangers, going to parties and having people who actually know how to dance ask you to dance.... all so intimidating. But we could see what the experienced people could do and that motivated us to stick with it - the promises of what could be. So we see the new people and we know what they're going through and we just encourage them to stick with it, it really does get easier. Except for waltz, that just gets harder. ;)

We also finally got a few photos of us dancing at some of the events that our studio puts on - some kind of evidence for you that we do dance. It's hard to get a good picture of people dancing, apparently - generally you look quite goofy. Also, we only have pictures of Peter from the back so you'll have to take my word that it's him. =)


Things have been busy and good at work, but also weird because my manager left the city on Friday which is too bad for the city because she was a fantastic manager and her departure leaves a gaping hole in our group. It's going to be rough until they figure out how to fix it. In addition to regular work, a lot of us are getting ready for our Host City roles (what we'll be doing during the Olympics). We got our uniforms (rain pants, fleece, rain jacket) and everyone is starting to get excited! I'll be working at one of the City's Live Sites which I'm looking forward to. Things are going to be crazy awesome here starting Feb 11 (when the torch arrives)!

Just went for a 4.5km jog. lovely day out, very pretty ocean and stuff. however, am very out of shape. Peter's trying to get me to do the Sun Run this year.... 10k. That seems far. Maybe. Have to go collapse on the floor now.

It's the weekend and man, the first week back at work after a nice long break is hard! Especially when you find out your manager, who is awesome, is leaving in 2 weeks. Eek!

But back to the weekend. Only 2 days off - what?! I really got used to 2 weeks off at a time, that worked really well for me. Anyway, the irony is that I'm actually sitting at the computer right now to do contract work (this would be procrastination you are witnessing, it happens very rarely)... so it's not even really a full weekend. On the one hand I love work - I find it all very interesting and satisfying etc. and on the other hand I have 27 other things I also find interesting and satisfying and I want time to do all those as well.

I also really want to find a new coffee table. Did you realize that there are no interesting white coffee tables (with storage space) out there for less than $800? It's true. I want something funky but useful. I don't understand why all the furniture in the stores is so boring!

Has it become evident yet that I don't actually have anything to post about and I'm really just stalling on starting work?

Today was a big day. It was Peter's last day at work! Well, last day at his old company. He's moving on to more challenging things that are more in line with his strange niche interests (plasma physics). I think it's going to be great - hopefully he'll be in a better work environment - his previous one was very heavy on senior management and company reorganizations/restructurings and laying off employees in the same year they give their executives millions in bonuses... that kind of stuff can really taint the work experience apparently. Someone should tell the executives.

The new job doesn't start until later in January so Peter gets a nice break. I think he has plans to do a lot of snowboarding while I have to work. ;)

January is a good time to make changes and have fresh starts. Change can be scary but exciting too - just gotta have the guts to embrace it and see where it takes you!

If you remember a while back, I convinced Peter to agree to a scheme that involved selling our perfectly fine bed and getting a loft bed with storage underneath, to solve the lack of storage in our apt/blg. Except when we assembled the loft bed in our tiny 'bedroom' it was kind of.... big... and high. Like, hard to get into high.

So today Peter lopped off a few feet. Fortunately for us it was constructed in such a way that there was a very logical point to cut it at (just above the drawers). Miraculously, Peter manged to frankenstein the thing together using only power hand tools (I'm impressed). Now our bed is about 4ft off the ground (to the top of the mattress) which gives us good storage but isn't silly-high. It's much better to look into our 'bedroom' (in quotes because it's only sort of technically a room) and see the top of the bed. Also, now if we fall out of the bed we shouldn't injure ourselves too badly.

I'm very pleased. 2010 is turning out to be a productive year so far. Next item on the to-do list.... back up the computer. :(

As my first activity of 2010, I've been trying to finish going through the eleventy billion photos I took on our Europe trip in 2008.

Part of the problem is that I love all the photos so I want to take each one into photoshop and perfect it. I have perfectionist tendencies in certain areas like that.

(I finished last night -yay- and now just have to pick out which ones I'm going to get printed.)

Going through the photos made me fall in love with Paris all over again. While there I was pretty daunted by the language barrier (I'm very shy about attempting to speak in foreign languages), but loved the surroundings. The architecture is so beautiful - we don't make anything that ornate or beautiful today, which I find sad. The public spaces were grand, as public spaces ought to be, and well used. People just hang out in the public spaces - mostly along the river - groups of friends just hanging out with some food/wine, it's quite wonderful.





Peter and I were both very tired by the time we got to Paris (after London and Stockholm), I had a bit of a cold and Peter was incubating the chicken pox it turns out - so we were very mellow in Paris, which is probably how you should be anyway. We did a lot of lounging in public spaces.

Funny how when you look at pictures you remember all the good stuff and forget all the bad, like our apt hotel in Paris (we splurged and got a little studio in the Latin Quarter) - the first morning there was jackhammering (repairing a gas main from what I could decipher from the sign posted on the door), the second morning the recycling truck came and the sound of the glass pouring into the truck was insane (and this was after the bar across the street had partied until 3am). It was actually kind of funny, in an aggravating kind of way. We were not well rested in Paris. But loved it all the same.




This post is mostly an excuse to post some of my newly discovered favorite pictures of Paris. It's a photogenic town.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2010 is going to be AWESOME.














p.s. - check out the cute dress I got for Christmas. =)