WHOA lansi

francophile, oenophile, logophile, turophile

Tag: laughter

the little things

I know it’s a cliche. & not even an uncommon one at that. But sometimes it really is the little things that make all the difference in the world.

Sometimes I get so wrapped up in life: work, the gym, meal plans, cooking, cleaning, sleeping… & repeat. Sometimes I forget to stop for a second. I took a break for a second today and stepped back from all the craziness I’m creating for myself and was reminded of one of those little things that I love:

good coffee, in a nice space, with a book.

It doesn’t even really have to be a good book. It can be a mediocre book. It does have to be a good cup of coffee, however.

I needed a little break from the office today so I stepped over to one of my favourite restaurants for a coffee. They also happen to brew one of my favourites: Phil & Sebastian. As I admired their La Marzocco (I have an obsession) and stopped thinking about workweddingvenuesfitnessdinnercleaningsleeping for a minute, I remembered how important taking time out is to me.

I sat down for a few minutes with my cappuccino and read. It was a nice escape. I don’t know what it is about books in coffee shops for me, but I love it. Maybe it reminds me of being a student. Or maybe my love for frequenting coffee shops to read is why I have fond memories of being a student. Either way, it got me thinking about some of the other little things that make me smile. Here’s a little list for you on this lovely Thursday:

– dancing with N
– the first bite of a perfectly cooked piece of red meat
– well designed, aesthetically pleasing spaces
– random emoji-filled text messages
– dance parties with my girlfriends
– when a really great song comes on my iPod as I’m walking to work
– the first glimpse of Columbia Lake as you crest the top of the hill on highway 93
– photos of friends, food, travel (let’s be honest here: everything)
– the first day it’s warm enough to go bare legged after months of winter
– standing at the top of a mountain
– the few minutes before we get out of bed in the morning
– freshly washed and waxed Rula (my subarula!)
– a perfectly cut piece of salmon sashimi
– dancing with puppies
– driving a winding road with no one in front of me
– flip flop tan lines

What are some of the things that make you smile?

Color Me Rad

Fun runs seem to be popping up all over the place lately. I can’t seem to login to Instagram on the weekend without coming across at least one photo from some kind of charity or fun run. It’s great! I love to see people getting out, moving around, and getting healthy.

A few friends and I signed up for Color Me Rad this year. You dress in as much white as you can and run 5 km while people throw packages of corn starch dye at you. It was originally scheduled for July Long Weekend, but due to the flooding it got rescheduled to August Long and a lot of my friends couldn’t participate.

Luckily, Color Me Rad is an easily transferable race, so a few other friends took their places. We met at Crowfoot LRT Station on Saturday morning and took the shuttle bus out to Canada Olympic Park for the run. There were so many people up there. It was great to see everyone dressed up and running around having a great time.

At the start line we were given our first colour bombs, which we proceeded to throw at each other. We couldn’t start things off with pristine white shirts. The race itself was up and down the hills and trails at the Park. It was a mix of pavement and trail running, but all in all a fairly easy course. We weren’t with many actual runners so we walked a lot of the hills and just took our time, laughing at each other as we got more and more covered in colours.

As we rounded the last corner, they gave everyone one last colour bomb to use however they wanted. Of course, we saved ours and dumped colour all over each other at the finish area.

I really enjoyed the race. It was lighthearted and easy so there was no pressure running-wise. It was advertised as a 5 km, but I’d give it 3 km at most. Definitely manageable for all fitness levels. We got a lot of great photos and laughed a lot. If you have the opportunity to do Color Me Rad or some other colour run, I would definitely go for it. If you’re worried about the colour dying your hair (like I was), coconut oil seemed to keep the colour out and had the added bonus of leaving my hair super soft after I washed it.

Happy Running!

July In Instagram

Summer is by far my favourite season and it always seems to just fly by. It’s already half over and it feel like it only just began. We’ve got lots planned for August and September, but not nearly as much as we did for July. I’m kind of excited to just slow down a bit and enjoy this season. I’m looking forward to sitting outside on patios, having barbeques with friends, and enjoying the long days before they’re gone.

The end of this month has felt slightly out of control. Anyone who knows me know that I’m not a fan of feeling out of control. Work has been full of deadlines, I’ve been trying to cram long runs into already hectic weekends, and N has been away for work. I think the last one has been making life feel particularly hectic. N and I are a pretty good team and he’s been in Northern Saskatchewan for work since July 25. He’s there for at least another week. It reminds me of when we did long distance, except at the time I was used to doing everything on my own and now I’ve been spoiled by having the extra help. Anyway, it’s only another week so we’re almost back to everyday life.

Here’s what I got up to this month:
1. Started off July with a long weekend at the lake. Nothing more relaxing.
2. Stampede Parade kicked off one of my favourite weeks in the city! Enjoying the parade with my lovely co-worker.
3. Camping in Drumheller. The sunsets on the hills are unreal.
4. Spaghetti Western 2012: L and I enjoying our company party and the awesome sillybooth.
5. Weekend at Columbia Lake with N and some great friends for my birthday. D and I look related and it’s really weird.
6. Nothing beats a calm, hot day on the lake. Seriously.
7. Folk Festing. I finally attended a full day at CFMF. It was full of great music and shenanigans.
8. D and I in the beer gardens at Folk Fest.
9. I finally got my last wisdom tooth out. And I bit the bullet and did the ombre thing. Turns out I love it!

Here’s to a wonderful, hot, sunny, dry rest of the summer! Happy Long Weekend, everyone!

Summer To-Do List

Columbia Lake
Considering yesterday Calgary and its surrounding communities and cities declared a state of emergency due to flooding from heavy rainfall, it’s hard to believe summer has arrived today. Inspired by a couple other bloggers and the first day of one of my favourite seasons (who am I kidding, I love them all!), I put together a little summer to-do list of some of the things I’d like to do. 
1. Enjoy cocktails with friends. I want to host a cocktail party but I envision this being outside and that’s not an option for us due to our lack of outdoor space. Elsie of A Beautiful Mess has been posting a ton of amazing sounding cocktail recipes that I am dying to try! 
2. Take advantage of the mountains. Go hiking and backpacking. The rockies are too close not to take advantage of!
3. Experience more Calgary events. Street Festivals, Food Truck Events, Fun Runs…Take advantage of some of the fun local things happening around Calgary. Play tourist at home a little bit. 
4. Take a road trip. I can’t wait for our trip to Vancouver, Portland, Seattle, and Kelowna. I love a good road trip and I love visiting new cities. 
5. Attend an outdoor concert. I bought tickets for Folk Fest. I’ve heard great things about it so it’s about time I did a full day at Prince’s Island. 
6. Nail a handstand. I’ve been practicing and I’m determined to nail a decent handstand. The summer I was nine, I had a similar goal, but with cartwheels. What I’m saying is that I’m an nine-year-old at heart.
7. Get away with the girls. Boys will be boys, so let’s leave them at home and have our own fun. I’m thinking some lake time is in order. Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone and make up some cocktails too!
8. Rock a flip flop tan and some freckles. Nothing says summer to me better than sunkissed skin and tan lines from my havaianas. Come on Calgary, bring on the sunshine!
9. Bike to work as much as possible! We live in the perfect neighbourhood to take advantage of biking to work. It’s such a great way to start the day. 
10. Spend time outside daily. Summer always flies by. I’ll save my hermitting for winter, when darkness sets in before I leave work and the ground is frozen for months. 

Enjoy the first day of summer! What do you plan to do this season?
Nashville North
Wedding Shower
Wakeboarding

Weekend Wears

I want to wear dresses all the time. Rain or shine, I’d prefer a dress to pants any day. I was pretty excited to find this one online. A coworker introduced me to Tobi (the website I bought it from) and it’s full of cute, dangerously cheap clothes. This is one of those perfect summer dresses. Easy to slip on for a casual date or for work. The back is open, but I can throw a blazer or sweater over top and since it’s such a great length it works.

At five foot nine, length is a big thing for me. For the longest time, the trend was super short dresses and I could never find anything appropriate for work. I actually had a hard time finding dresses that I felt comfortable wearing at all. Luckily the trend has moved back towards longer dresses and skirts now. I still get pretty excited when I find something that comes to just above my knees.

The weather lately has been so sunny and warm. It’s been lovely. I’ve been wanting to spend as much time as possible outside, which has been great. The only downside is that we haven’t done any spring cleaning yet and our condo desperately needs it. We haven’t even lived here a year yet and somehow it feels like we’ve accumulated so much stuff. I’m really feeling the need to de-clutter and reorganize some things. I haven’t really lived in one place for a year for a while so I haven’t really done the spring cleaning thing in a while. Moving tends to accomplish that to a certain extent.

It’s supposed to get pretty dreary tomorrow and continue for the rest of the weekend. Unfortunately, I doubt we’ll have much time to get any of the things on my To Do list done. We seemed to have made plans for every minute of the weekend. This is something I have a knack for doing. I’m not saying I don’t like it, but I know I’m going to need a few days before summer hits.

We’ll be making plans and trying to get outside as much as possible the minute summer hits. I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way.

Weekend Wears

Even though I am more than tall enough and most of my friends are on the shorter side, I love heels. I feel so much more put together when I wear heels so I tend to wear them almost every day at work. So when it comes time to hit the Farmer’s Market on the weekend, I’m all about the comfy flats. Moccasins are currently my favourite. Not only are they the comfiest shoes I own, but they are adorable too! Thank you for being so awesome, Minnetonka.

I linked to that website and now I really want another pair of moccasins. Maybe in white for summer?

Life has been busy lately despite our lack of drinking and partying. Our office is undergoing renovations and I’m working on getting new manuals ready for when they are finished. It’s going to be a pretty busy couple months. I also have the opportunity to attend more events in my new role. It’s exciting to be able to put names to the faces of so many of the clients I’d spoken to on the Help Desk. 

N’s mom brought me back this awesome yellow coach purse from the States and I’ve been wearing it at every chance I get. I just love it. It seems totally perfect for spring and is a nice change from my usual black, brown, or blue.

I’m pretty excited for the coming weekend. Cirque de Soleil’s Amaluna is in Calgary right now and N and I are going with my family on Saturday night. I’ve heard it’s incredible! We also plan to grab dinner all together before the show. Everyone knows how much I love going for dinner, so it should be a pretty great weekend!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Café

It’s no secret that I love coffee. A good cup of coffee is my favourite way to start the day. I have a stove top espresso maker and I love having time to make delicious coffee on the weekends. Even better though, is heading to a local coffee shop for a cappuccino or an americano. I’ve been drinking Fratello Coffee for a while at the Calgary Farmer’s Market and it’s what goes in our stove top espresso maker. Now they also have a great shop on 17th avenue called Analog Coffee and it is fast becoming my favourite.

When we did strict paleo, I made an effort to drink my coffee black more often and Fratello made this significantly easier. N has always drank his black, but I was a milk and raw sugar girl myself. Mostly, this is just a necessity due to the terrible coffee at work. I’ve come to enjoy my weekend coffee without any sugar, but I still love a delicious cappuccino from time to time.

Some days there’s nothing better than a delicious cappuccino, a pain au chocolat, and some blank journal pages. Fratello is such a great place to enjoy these simple joys. It takes me back to living in France. Journals are such a great way to keep track of travel, but I often forget how great it can be to do the same back home, when life is far more average.

Not only does Fratello have delicious coffee, but the cafe itself is really beautiful as well. My photos of it aren’t the greatest, sadly. (I was feeling a little self conscious trying to get them. I should work on that.) I guess you’ll all just have to check out for yourselves.

N and I were running low on coffee so we had to stop by again last weekend. Sometimes life is really tough.

I also convinced N to take some outfit photos after the pumpkin pancakes recipe photos. It was a gorgeous day; leather jacket weather is finally here! Most of the photos turned out pretty funny, but I got a couple that I like so here goes: first real outfit photos.

I’ve been wearing these little booties a lot since I got them. It wasn’t quite warm enough for bare legs last weekend, but I’ve worn them a few times since without tights. So exciting!

I find myself getting really excited for spring fashion every year around now. It’s probably the same with the start of other seasons, but all I’m thinking about is how satisfying it is to pull my leather jacket out of the back of my closet.

I already mentioned how much I love the inside of Analog Coffee but the exterior is just as great. I love this large, graphic A on the side as well as the A in the concrete at the threshold, the doors, and the large front windows. 

 I love slow-paced weekends sometimes. It’s so nice to sleep in, grab coffee together, and enjoy the gorgeous weather. We’re usually running from one thing to the next and before I know it it’s Monday already.

Coming out of the long weekend, I’m already wishing I could have one more day to relax. We had a great Easter weekend that seemed to last for much longer than three days, but I’m still not ready for work tomorrow morning. I guess that’s what happens after a great long weekend!

Happy Easter Everyone!

Such A Girl

The boy utters those words countless times throughout the day. This mostly occurs after I’ve spent 5 minutes doing something he thinks is pointless or ridiculous (such as perousing pinterest).

Fall is here. Actually, this just means that winter is here because we’re not fooling anyone into thinking we actually have more than two seasons in Calgary. Although I haven’t looked at my cold weather wardrobe in months, I’m pretty sure I hate it all. I know last season it was perfectly fine. I even bought a few things I know that I love. But whenever I open my closet I see nothing but ugly (with a few pieces I’ve recently added thrown in).

My biggest issue is that I hate wearing pants when it rains. Who likes wet pants? I sure don’t. So I usually go with boots and skirts and dresses. Most of my dresses are too summery and most of my skirts go with silk tanktops though. My work-appropriate, long sleeve winter wear doesn’t exactly get me excited. (Too-big turtle necks, plain sweaters, boring boring boring!)

I have a long list of things I want:

  • a red cardigan
  • a big wool cardigan
  • more skinny dress pants (black, green, mustard!)
  • Long sleeve blouses
  • High socks for riding boots
  • Yellow chevron skirt
  • Ankle boots
  • Patterned blazer
  • Peplum
  • Fitted dress shirts (that actually fit)
  • Oversized mens-style watch
  • Geometric printed sweater
  • Denim shirt
  • Dresses (that can transition from fall to winter to spring)
  • Knee-length pleated skirt
  • Maxi skirt
  • Tweed skirt

I could probably go on forever. Not only do I love lists, but I also love clothing. This post is a win-win for me.

trois ans

Three years later. Still laughing my head off when I’m around this guy. 

Happy Anniversary, Babe! Next year we’ll be together for it! xx

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