Day 1 and 2 of vacation – Saturday & Sunday

So day 1 wasn’t to exciting. I dropped newbie to work as per my usual Saturday morning routine and then came back home and passed out cold. It is really hard going to bed at 1:00 in the morning and waking up a few hours later to take Newbie to work. He needs to get his G2 so I can give him my car and not worry about moving till I’m good and ready.

I did have lunch with NYU girl at Shoeless Joes and that was fantastic! I love how my single friends are so confidant and can date random guys and be strong and in control. Lord that is SOOOO not me. After catching up, Sushi bf messaged me to advise at some point last week there was a flood from the storm sewer with some damage – mostly to my brand new floor in the closet and it will need to be changed and replaced. Setting back construction a day to two because now he needs to fix the storm sewer as well. Tears sprang to my eyes – I just want this done! I want my home to be finished. But it wasn’t his fault our house is old, the pipes are old and the storm sewers are old. 😦

I picked Newbie up from work a little after 7, ate dinner and pretty much just relaxed until bed time. Nothing exciting. Newbie was tired and seemed more interested in his music then doing anything else exciting so I crashed pretty early.

Day 2 – Sunday, today. Again drove Newbie to work – poor kid works weekends…that SUCKS. I bought my daddy and me breakfast and then watched my church service online. Global Kingdom Ministries plays their 11:00 services live so those who want to can watch it from the comfort of their homes. Now I prefer to be at service, but I have so much to get done TODAY that I needed time. I have two loads of laundry to do – a room in desperate need of cleaning, a car that needs emptying and I have to pack for my Bobcaygeon adventure tomorrow.

Phew! Where did the vacation part of vacation go??? sigh…at least I’m away from work right…

XOXO Nikilee

TGIF – before my vacation begins!!!

I have had a long week, I have been miserable and grouchy and wanting to just have some time away from work. Not that I don’t love my job, because my job is great! My career is the one steady thing I have in my life – that I am sure of and confidant in…but every once in a while a girl needs some time to not be in the same environment day after day.

Since my surgery in May I have been stressed and tired and unhappy. However, as Kansas City said to me “a miracle will happen in your life this week*, it has. My wound has healed over – for the first time in THREE years! Now it is fresh and new skin so I am still very weary of it opening again. BUT I will be grateful for the idea that maybe this time something different has happened. I thank you God for that! And I thank Kansas for letting me know a miracle was coming.

Now since Newbie is stuck working like a million days in a row, I doubt I will see him at all over my vacation time so I am heading up North to Bobcaygeon for a couple of days. I will go Monday night after home care and come home Wednesday night before home care! This way I get to spend almost two full days with my mom and aunt. It will be great!

My uncle is going to take us three ladies on the boat to a nearby town for lunch and I love LOVE boat rides! I will miss my bed because I will sleep on a couch (I can’t sleep up stairs alone. Her house used to be the place 100 years ago where they kept dead bodies and it C.R.E.E.P.S me out!) So I’ll sleep in the main room on her couch. I did that when Biker dude passed away and it was fine.

I will go into town, take my mom to lunch on the Wednesday and of course shop at Bigleys Shoes – I mean really – did you expect something less from me??

I am also getting my car detailed. I mean it’s dirty – not just untidy, but downright dirty! Between me, Newbie and Ms. J that car needs some TLC and I have no problem paying someone to give it some.

Other than those lovely activities I plan on attending Ribfest in Scarborough next weekend and relaxing. Preparing to move into my basement which should be done the first or second week of August! I AM SO EXCITED!

Because I am on vacation, I may or may not get a chance to blog. I will try. I mean, I love the writing and I love seeing high stats…lol…BUT if I don’t, please have a safe and happy week and enjoy your long weekends for those of you who have one (my reader ship has made it’s way around the world) – and that is pretty damn cool!!!!

XOXO Nikilee

No more Coke!

So last week Sunday I decided that I no longer wanted to include Coke in my diet. It’s horrible for you and I was drinking way to much of it. In fact when I had my surgery in May I had to take all these antacid things before hand. The only food difference between this surgery and the past two surgeries – my Coke intake was high.

So I have gone 11 days with no Coke and let me tell you, it has NOT been easy! My family is not always the most supportive! My dad ordered a 2L Coke with dinner the other day “for the grandkids” and it sat in my fridge until he emptied it (please note he should NOT be drinking Coke at all and he’s an ass cause he does whenever he can get away with it). But I resisted. I did not have a drop! When I was at Crazy Cat Lady’s house for a visit, she offered me a Coke, and I said no. She said I could have just one. Just one today leads to just one tomorrow, leads to just one this afternoon and just one tonight. NOOOOOO. I managed to say no, stay strong and my body is still Coke free.

On August 15th, I am going to switch out my tea with three sugar to tea with two sugar. This will be the hard one. The impossible. I love the three sugars in my tea. It’s so yummy!

Stay tuned as I rant and rave about my ups and downs in the healthier living zone!

Also stay tuned because Sushi bf and D are almost done my bsmt! 2 more weeks hopefully and I can begin to decorate!!! WOOT WOOT!

XOXO Nikilee

It’s that time of year…

Every July/August I get to do what every crazy-organized person loves to do…

I BUY A NEW AGENDA!

I know, I am insane. I mean, buying a new Agenda and filling in birthdays and anniversaries actually makes me a happy person. Using pretty new pens of different colours. I get a weird high and I love it! I look forward to it every year!

Pens and Sharpies all colours of the rainbow!!

This year I headed over to Staples (Business Depot) and spent about 20 minutes looking through the different options. I never buy a plain one and I never buy the same one as the year before!

Yesterday at lunch I spent my hour filling in special dates with my colourful pens and thinking of all the fun I am going to have this year and how I want to fill in every special day I have.

I do not have OCD. Trust me, my bff has OCD and I am not like her in that way, but I MUST have my life organized. You would think I am SOOOOO busy that I have to write it down or else I will double, triple book myself, but it’s not that. I just like seeing it written down, if it’s not, I could forget. Many of my days remain blank because other than work and home, I have no other plans, but it’s not about keeping everything straight, it’s more of having a reference point.

So today, is the start of a new Agenda year. I am happy. I can’t wait to fill in my dates as I go and share my experiences with you all – my loyal fans…LOL…okay, readers.

XOXO Nikilee

The Violence will never end…will it?

Last night in Scarborough – right behind my brother’s family’s home and filipino boys family’s home – a “get to know your neighbour” block party was happening. Why a party on a Monday night when many people have to work the next day is beyond me, but somehow the party, which should have been seen as sweet and a great way to bring a sense of community to the street, turned sour. Shots rang out and 19 people were shot and injured while 2 people are dead – one was a teenage girl.

Now I have reached my family – not filipino boys yet, but I saw on Facebook they are okay – who live off the street where the shooting occurred, and everyone is alright. Thank you God. But many families, will be changed forever. Because of a “get to know your neighbour” party.

Chief Bill Blair has named this the worst case of gun violence the city has ever seen. EVER SEEN…1 minute from my family’s front door! My heart hurts. The shooting happened at 10:30 pm. I mean it wasn’t even that late in comparison to when the shootings happen downtown and in the more “violence prone neighbourhoods”. My nephew who is 15 could easily have been walking home from his friend’s house. My brother could have been out having a cigarette! Filipino boy could have been coming home from work…driving by…I know, none of this happened so stop thinking of the could haves. But it is very hard not to.

I know violence could and does happen everywhere. I know that. But it didn’t happen last night everywhere, it happened by people I love. People I would not survive losing.

Mayor Ford and I finally have a similar stand on something – we are both disgusted in this level of violence that has happened in OUR city. Who’d have thought me and the Mayor would ever agree on anything…well we do. Now I want to see what HE, our MAYOR is going to do about it. I wish my family would move, but it’s never that easy. Police are appealing to anyone that has information to come forward. I beg everyone – anyone who knows anyone in the area, please contact your loved ones…make sure they are okay. If they know anything, please come forward.

This violence has to end…it just keeps getting worse. Whose going to put a stop to it?

XOXO Nikilee

Coke addiction

Not the coke that is white and powdery and leaves the border patrol dogs panting – the drink…coke o’cola. This one:

Throughout my life I have had a love/hate relationship with this sugary, slice of heaven. I drink it obsessively and then decide it’s bad for me so I don’t drink it for months on end. But then one day the iced tea fountain pop will be broken and I will break down and get a coke. And the cycle continues…

It’s brutal. I am well aware of how bad it is for me. It has something like 14 tsp of sugar (I love sugar) and if you put a can of coke and a can of diet coke in a tub of water – the coke sinks to the bottom while the diet coke floats happily on top! No one wonder my butt and belly seem to be expanding at an alarming rate!!

If all the Coca‑Cola ever produced were to cascade down Niagara Falls at its normal rate of 1.6 million gallons per second, flow for nearly 83 hours.

I have decided I must do something, I mean, I had lost so much weight, and it is creeping up on me and I know 100% it is not Coke’s fault, but it sure doesn’t help me any. There are many changes I need to make to my life – sooner rather than later – and quitting the pop is one of them. Now I love iced tea, and regular tea with three sugar and those have to be cut out too, but for now I will work on Coke. I am an addict. I can not have one and just be okay and satisfied with that. I need one today and then one tomorrow and then maybe Friday I have two … oh boy!

If all the Coca‑Cola ever produced were in 8-ounce contour bottles, and these bottles were distributed to each person in the world, there would be 1,104 bottles per person.

I started drinking a tea this morning and then had a chocolate 1% milk for lunch. I know neither of these are great drinks and I MUST find a way to enjoy water, but these two drinks are way better than Coke O Cola any day!!

I will let you know how I do – for now, please wish me luck!!!

XOXO Nikilee

Friday Favourites and Happy Birthday Newbie!

So first things first – because love and friendship and family are the most important things to me…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY (TOMORROW) NEWBIE! XOXOXOX I am so grateful that you have come into my life and thrown my world upside down. Whether we are together forever or for just a short while, I am so in love with you and appreciate every day we get to spend together! I can’t wait to spend all day tomorrow with you and the family celebrating you (privately of course because Newbie hates celebrating birthdays…good grief )

😉

Friday Favourite:

Todays favourite is also one that is bad for me and I am well aware of it. I am addicted to having a tea (medium with three milk three sugar) and bagel (blueberry lightly toasted and buttered) for breakfast from Tim Hortons. I have it 3-5 days a week (I know SOOOO bad) while I’m at work and it really is the greatest comfort food because I can eat it and it fills me up for the morning + makes me smile – so this is my Friday Favourite!

XOXO Nikilee

A new idea

I have been thinking a lot of random thoughts lately – whether it be the hot weather, my boredom, my annoying health issues or whatnot – I have been thinking, I need to start a new column for my blog. Not one I do every week cause I could easily become a huge failure, but when the impulse strikes…I am going to do it! This is going to be a short blog when I do. Just my thought. You’ll all think I am crazy or psychotic I am sure when you read my thoughts, but it’s a chance I am willing to take.

So yesterday I was driving home from an evening with two of my favourite people (Ms. J and her dad). I saw this guy driving in the far right hand lane, he was driving slowly. I was getting close to the street I needed to turn left on so I threw my signal on. All of a sudden slow civic driver whipped across all three lanes of traffic to get into my left hand turn lane – with NO SIGNAL! I slammed on my breaks and came about a foot from hitting him. Immediately I thought

“If I could get away with it, I would ram his car from behind into the light post and he would learn his lesson and if he got hurt and broke some bones – or his face – all the better!”

I envisioned me doing this and it made me smile – at least long enough till I got home and was able to calm my racing heart.

XOXO Nikilee

Remember when telephones were to talk to someone

Sometime while I was living in Peterborough completing my B.A a strange thing happened. Cell phones were used for texting – not talking. It was like I had left the planet and not the city because upon my return everyone had a cell phone and no one used it to talk.

This was in 2004. Not that long ago in retrospect, however in the 8 years since, even I have succumbed to the use of the phone for something other than talking. Now my friends know I am not a texter, I will text because I know they HATE talking on the phone, but I prefer to talk, to hear someones voice, to be able to tell when they are joking, happy, sad, angry and other emotions better heard then described by an emoticon 😉

Filipino boy bought me first cell phone, a Fido pay as you go – back in 99 – and I thought I was so cool to be able to talk to people during the day, while at school, out at the park etc. I don’t even think it had text messaging or if it did, I certainly didn’t know how to use it. When I left for Peterborough I cancelled the phone and used the home phone service. When I returned from Trent, I felt no need to have a cell, my dad had a home phone, so I didn’t use one for a long time. Then GBF convinced me to get a phone. I bought the hot pink Razr which was the flip phone and the coolest phone out for the longest time. It had predictive text and I sucked at messaging so rarely did I do it. After that phone bit the dust I upgraded to a black berry. I had finally evolved into a full-blown texter. I mean it had a full key board! I could easily text. However, once I started texting regularly I started to notice my nights were full of little side convo’s that had no meaning behind them. My relationships seemed to have very little meaning over text because really telling someone who hurts you or someone who loves you how you feel just doesn’t have the same meaning. I have now upgraded to an iPhone 4s and while I do love it – see that Newbie I DO love it – I am starting to hate text messaging even more because it’s touch screen and a bit more difficult.

Everyone from Newbie to Crazy Cat Lady prefers text to talk and I think my only real friends that will call me instead of texting is NYU girl and GBF because they too prefer talking to text and at least as far as GBF is concerned, he knows I hate texting.

I remember in 7th and 8th grade lying in bed late at night trying to be super quiet so my parents wouldn’t hear me talking on the phone past curfew, talking for hours to one girl friend or one guy friend and then when three-way calling came into play I knew my world had changed for the better. I am a talker – duh – I love talking, I love hearing what people are thinking and asking questions without having to wait 1, 2, 10 minutes for a response. All through high school I would spend the majority of my nights on the phone – no wonder my grades weren’t the best!

I understand why my friends like texting, we are all so busy with a million things to do every day that texting provides an ease of communicating with those we love without having to set aside time or something else in order to do so.

I have a feeling that with more young kids having cell phones that texting is not going ANYWHERE anytime soon. I might as well get used to it. People always seemed surprised when I call. Thank God my mom still talks on the phone and not over text. She doesn’t know how to text! I am SOOOOOO not teaching her!

XOXO Nikilee

The Closet – my new favourite room in my house

Yesterday before getting ready for work I wanted to wear my funky brown slip ons and could I find them? NO. Of course not. My house is a mess with all my stuff. I decided I wanted at least my shoes to be put away. I would find the patience for everything else, but the shoes had to go where they belonged – in my new closet which, aside from a few minor tweaks, is complete. Here are some pics for you!