WHOA lansi

francophile, oenophile, logophile, turophile

Tag: to do list

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

New Year

Resolutions. I haven’t been big on the whole making-a-list-of-things-I-want-to-do-better-this-year thing recently. I think if I need to change something or do better, it should start as soon as I realize a change needs to happen.

I really do like goals. That’s probably an understatement. I love goals and I set them often.

A perfect example: Nathan and I decided to do a month long paleo challenge November 15. It wasn’t the best time of year to decide to do this and we definitely cheated a lot, but my reasoning was that there was never going to be an ideal time to do it. There’s always something going on and it’s never going to be easy. So we just did it the best that we could. It worked out well for us (especially me) and I’ve been feeling great and getting lots of compliments that I look great so I’m glad we did it.

That said, sometimes it’s nice to look back on the year and decide what you want to do better next year. So here’s my list:

1. Follow our budget better.
We moved out in July and we haven’t saved much money since. We had lots of stuff to buy and neither of us makes a ton of money so it put a damper on saving for a place of our own. I’d like to get back on track with this. We do a lot of things right: bring a lunch of work every day, drink terrible office coffee instead of stopping at Starbucks, and avoid paying for parking ever. We also have a big weakness for delicious food, nights out with friends, and shopping and that needs to slow down significantly. Which brings me to my second resolution:
2. Have friends over more often.
We like entertaining and we like having drinks and playing games. I love our place and definitely want to make more of an effort to have people over instead of going out. 2 birds, 1 stone.
3. Eat grains on rare occasions.
Our month of paleo taught me a lot about how food makes me feel, and especially about how grains and gluten make me feel. I still LOVE bread and will never say I’m giving something up forever, but it needs to be a treat for me. I feel so great when I’m eating good food and fueling my body properly. Don’t worry, I’m not going to go too nuts about this whole gluten thing though.
4. Be more tolerant and appreciative
I have it pretty good when it comes to boyfriends. N mostly puts up with my neuroses and my need for our house to be clean and organized. He helps me out a lot with grocery shopping and vacuuming and taking out the garbage. He listens when I’m acting like a crazy person and always tries to be helpful and supportive. I need to be more appreciative of this and I definitely need to be more tolerant of the imperfections in our lives.

So there we go. Some goals for the year! I obviously have some other more short terms goals (get back to be being able to do 25 pushups ina row and run 5 km under 27:00…ok actually try to run a 5 km for time not training), but these are my four solid yearlong goals.

I should also probably add blog more to the list. I had good intentions of blogging about Croatia, Vegas, and Christmas. I’ll get to a couple of these in the New Year.

Come on 2013!

Get in my belly!

I think it’s time I got back to blogging and what better way to start than with a list (I love lists)? Not only do I love lists, but I love food. I spend most of my day either eating or thinking about eating, so it seems only natural to have a restaurant list. I’ve tried to be as thorough as possible (food is no joke, people!), but I’m sure I’ve missed a few and I’m definitely open to suggestions, so if you notice a great restaurant hasn’t made the cut, let me know!

 I realize this list is insane. I will potentially never actually complete it, but the goal is to one day say that I’ve checked all these places off.

I’ve crossed off the ones I’ve already been to. There are some that I went to a very long time ago (so long that I barely remember them except that they were delicious and I want to go back). I’ve decided to underline anything that I haven’t been to in the last five years (so anything I haven’t been to with le boy?). Honestly, what did I know five years ago? (nothing!)  There are also some places that I cannot reasonably afford (Blowfish, Il Sogno…) right now, but I want to go to someday. (And hey, maybe someone will treat me, hinthint). So, without further ado, here is my wish list:

Restaurant Wish List:

Charcut (Downtown)
Beatniq + Piqniq (Downtown) CLOSED

Craft Beer Market (Downtown)
Galaxie Diner (11th)
Buffalo Cafe (Downtown)
Red’s Diner (Beltline)
Double Zero Pizza (Stephen Avenue)

District (Downtown)
Bonterra Trattoria (Downtown)
Bumpy’s (Downtown)
Holy Grill (Downtown)

River Cafe (Eau Claire)
West (Downtown)
Taste (Downtown)

Raw Bar at Hotel Arts (Downtown)
Anju (Downtown)
La Chaumiere (Downtown)
Blowfish Sushi Lounge (Downtown)

Big Cheese Poutinerie (17th)
Una (17th)

Cibo (17th)
1410 Bier Haus (17th)
Ship + Anchor (17th)
Buttercream Bake Shoppe (17th)
Cafe Beano (17th)
Tubby Dog (17th)
The Coup (17th)
Farm (17th)
Cilantro (17th)

Model Milk (Fried Chicken Mondays?) (17th)
Brava Bistro (17th)

Ox and Angela (17th)
The Living Room (17th)

Without Papers (Inglewood)
Eat Eat (Inglewood)
Capo Restaurant (Inglewood)

Jacqueline Suzanne’s (Inglewood)
Sugo (Inglewood)

Rouge (Inglewood)

Wurst Restaurant + Beer Hall (Mission)
Vin Room (Mission)

Wurst Brunch (Mission)
Mercato (Mission)
Bistro 2210 (Mission)
Bistro 2210 Brunch (Mission)

Belmont Diner (Marda Loop)
Phil & Sebastian (Marda Loop)

Cassis (Casel Marche)

Chef’s Table at Kensington Riverside Inn (Kensington)
Dairy Lane (Kensington)
Crave Cupcakes (Kensington)
Kensington Wine Bar (Kensington)
Pucinella’s (Kensington)

Muse (Kensington)
Brasserie (Kensington)

Il Sogno (Bridgeland)
Tazza (Bridgeland)
The Main Dish (Bridgeland)

AKA Wine Bar (Bridgeland)
Diner Deluxe (Bridgeland)

OEB (Bridgeland)
Blue Star Diner (Bridgeland)
Peters’ Drive-In (16th)
JoJo’s BBQ (Edmonton Trail)

 NOtaBLE (Bowness)
Lazy Loaf + Kettle (Parkdale)
Green Beanery (Parkdale)

Wa’s Japanese Restaurant (NW)


Rocky’s Burger Bus (SE)
Alloy (SE)
Karma (SE)
Smoke House (Ogden)

Village Brewery (Ogden)

Wild Rose Brewery (Currie Barracks)

Caesars (SE/SW)
Nellie’s (various)

Food Trucks:

Alley Burger

Perogy Boyz
The Noodle Bus
The Might Skillet
The Naaco Truck
Cheezy Bizness
Red Wagon Diner
Braizen
Holy Crepe
Shogun Teppanyaki Grill
Steak Out Truck
Fiasco Gelato
Fries and Dolls
JoJos BBQ
Los Compadres
Pimento’s
Blamwich

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