follow your heart

currently, i am waiting for the cupcakes i am making for my birthday to rise. they are going to be chocolate with cream cheese icing. since i share a birthday with three of my coworkers it was just that much easier to justify bringing cupcakes to work.if i were to bring them for only myself, it may have seemed "elementary school"ish, but since there are other people involved, it becomes a thoughtful gesture... i hope?

anyways, i figured i would kill some time by writing a long over due post... so, this post is dedicated to two of my favourite people in the world: my brother, duncan, and my best friend, michelle. not only are they two of the funniest, caring and honest people i know but they are also two of the most passionate, driven and accomplished people i know.

obviously, duncan plays baseketball at the university of saskatchewan. i am sure you are all beyond sick of hearing me talk about how proud i am that he is completing his engineering degree while playing a million hours of basketball a week, but sorry, i am going to say it one more time: i know i could not do what duncan has done over the past four years both athletically and intellectually and i am amazingly proud of him. this is duncan's last year playing for u of s and this weekend he scored his 1000th CIS career point. approximately 30 of those points were accumulated two years ago when his team won their national title. check out this preview for the documentary that they made about the boys and their journey earning the national title.

if you don't know who duncan is, he is number 30 and dunking in the majority of the clips. not only is it pretty damn cool that they won nationals, it is even cooler that someone found their story inspirational enough to make a documentary about it. duncan has already ordered us our copy...

secondly, i want to share a clip of michelle doing a recent performance with florance and the machine on x factor. when we were younger and people asked us what we wanted to do when we grew up, like most teenage girls who danced extracurricularly, michelle said she wanted to be a professional dancer. unlike most teenage girls who dance, michelle has achieved her dream. some may say that she got "lucky" but i know for a fact that isn't the case. she spent the summer after we graduated high school working two, sometimes three jobs, saving all the money she could manage in order to move to LA. after 9 months working jobs here in calgary and dancing in various projects in vancouver and toronto, she finally had the experience and money that she needed to pursue her dream. she is booking some of the most sought after dancing gigs in LA... it makes me so proud to see my friend who, at one time was so shy it was painful, living her dream. she deserves it.

michelle is the main dance in the trio that starts out on the left. not only is she a beautiful dancer but she is also a beautiful person. no one deserves success more than she does. i think what i admire most about her is that amidst all her success she is still the same amazingly down to earth person that she has always been - something that is incredibly difficult to maintain living in LA. check out the audition reel that gets her the majority of her gigs below...

well, my timer is going and i definitely cannot afford to burn my cupcakes. i hope they inspired you like they inspire me.

i heart you

yesterday was valentine's day!

i know a lot of people believe that valentine's day is simply a commercial holiday created by corporate giants to make an extra buck or two but i think i may have to disagree. obviously, i do not believe that you need to buy your significant fancy jewelry, a bouquet of flowers, or an incredibly over priced valentine's day card (the one i bought jesse was 8.99! next year, i am making him one) simply because it is february 14th, but i do think that it is a day where it is important to make an extra effort with the one you love. this doesn't have to mean buying into the hallmark scheme. yes, it may mean buying them a card or flowers, but it may also be doing something as simple as writing them a quick list as to why you love them (easy), cooking them dinner if they normally take care of the meals (possibly a bit harder, depending on how awful you are in the kitchen), or just spending some good quality time together... maybe i am a cheeseball but i just know that no matter how much effort you normally put into your relationship, no matter how hard you attempt to make "everyday valentine's day", your significant other deserves a few days a year (anniversary, birthdays etc), valentine's day included, where they feel extra special loved...

***

sometimes, i wish that there was a feature on blogger that allowed you to see when things were written. i wrote the above portion of this blog on my lunch break at work yesterday and saved it as a draft, knowing that i would be adding to it later after we had carried out our valentine's day plans. well, not only is jesse a fabulous husband and person (yes, we all knew this already) but he is also an amazing valentine. not only did he get me a dozen beautiful red roses and chocolate (something that isn't exactly "jesse") he came home early from work to clean our house. i honestly don't know what meant more to me, the unexpected valentine's day gifts or the perfectly clean house (believe me, this was no small task, we were so busy this weekend that we missed our weekly "deep clean"). obviously, he knows me well enough to know that i need a few days a year when i feel extra special loved, and yesterday, without reading the above,  he definitely made me feel that way!

so, enough with the sappy stuff, onto the more exciting stuff - our handmade heart shaped pizzas... not only did they actually look like hearts but they are absolutely delicious!

my beautiful flowers

close up

prebake

our delicious toppings:
parmesan, feta, mozza, red & green peppers, green olives, tomatoes, pesto, tomato sauce, and garlic butter (for the crust!)

looks like we weren't the only ones drooling over the thought of pizza

putting together his pizza

jesse's pizza

my pizza (yes, it is a lot messier than his)

post bake - mmm mmm!

these pizzas were so easy and fun to make! next time we may even attempt to make our own pizza dough (this was premade pilsbury pizza dough but it was delicious and worked perfectly). this was the perfect way to have a little at-home-date on valentine's day with the one you love; it was fun to cook them together, customizing the pizzas to our exact liking, and eating them was even better!

flower headband

i am officially the worst sick person. ironically, i am like a reverse hypocrondriac (this is ironic since i am overly neurotic about all other aspects of my life). when i get a cold i refuse to see a doctor until it is completely necessary (aka i am passing out due to lack of oxygen during a coughing fit). i hate taking medicine. i never "go to bed early and nurse my up and coming cold"; i think i actually believe that i can fight it off with pure will power. so obviously, when i am sick i refuse to stay home from work unless i am sent home which was the case today...

some people may like staying home from work sick- lounging around in their pajamas all day, eating comfort food and watching horrible day time television, incredibly happy that they are getting paid to do nothing. i think i too may like this if i wasn't the worst person in the world at "sitting around and relaxing". i get too bored too quick, especially when the only thing on tv are god awful day time soap operas. anyways, about two hours into my "healing sick day" i got a brilliant idea...

last year, my girlfriend, christa, bought this amazing flower crochet headband from anthropologie for some exorbitant amount of money that i was incredibly, incredibly jealous of. ever since, i have been looking for a cheaper knock off and have sadly been unsuccessful. well, thanks to youtube and my new basic knowledge of crochet i made my very own... hopefully my sickly germs don't stay alive in the wool...

my pretty flowers

the headband
(yes, it is supposed to be wider on the right side - that is where the flower goes)

finished it off with a pretty purple button i had lying around

close up

crochet

so for the last couple weeks i have been toying with the idea of learning to crochet. obviously, we are lucky enough to have grandma jessie who will crochet us beautiful blankets / afghans / mittens and hats whenever we ask, but i still want to learn how to do this myself. personally, i think our generation is completely loosing our ability to make things from scratch or by hand: for the most part, we cook premade meals that come out of packages, only bake betty crocker cakes and are neglecting to know how to knit or crochet. instead of partaking in these "old fashioned" pass times we watch tv, surf facebook and tweet all our tedious thoughts. if we want or need something we simply run to walmart or superstore.

don't get me wrong, i love modern technology; obviously, i have and use facebook, i follow twitter and i pvr all my favourite shows but, i also know how to sew, cook, bake, clean and enjoy reading novels (yes, real books made of paper that i hold in my hands, not words off my kobo or electronic e-reader). personally, i am proud of the fact that i can sew on jesse's buttons and make him his favourite banana muffins from scratch just like jesse takes pride in his ability to change a tire, fix a leaky faucet and start a fire from scratch. yes, i am completely aware that i am sounding fairly sexist right now, gender typing our roles but so be it. unfortunately, very few of our friends posses the same abilities hence why i have come to the sad conclusion that for the most part, our generation is completely ignorant and unappreciative of the skills and pastimes of our previous generations. if we never learn how to do any of theses things we will be unable to pass them along to our future generations and the art will be completely lost - it is really sad to think about.

lucky for me, val knows how to crochet and is willing to teach me! so, last night i went out after work and got a set of crochet hooks and my first chunk of wool, headed over to val's attempted to master this "waffle" style pattern. honestly, i found it incredibly difficult (to my credit, apparently it is a harder pattern, but it is my favourite, so i really wanted to try it). while my fingers are incredibly agile on a keyboard, they seemed awkward with a crochet needle and wool. my stitches were either too tight or too loose or just plain wrong. after about a half hour of crocheting and recrocheting the same 6 inches over and over only to have to unravel the entire and start from scratch after val checked it, informing me that it was wrong, i was definitely read to quit. thankfully, val had faith in me and a good two hours later i finally got the hang of it and really started to enjoy myself.

unfortunately, i do not think i picked the prettiest wool. i chose this rainbow / multi colour wool since i thought it would be easiest to learn on; in my head, the multiple colours would make the stitches i had previously done / were about to do, more visible. while this theory was definitely a correct one, i am not sure how pretty it is going to look. it is either going to look colourfully kitchy or like a grade 6 art project when i am done but i think i am okay with that. i think i will just be happy that i finished an entire blanket(although i have gotten a good hold of the pattern, now i have to deal with emi who seems to think my spool of wool is a toy...). hopefully, my next one will be a bit more elegant. 

i think it may end up a scarf, i am running out of wool