Back To Work

After two and a half weeks off, I finally go back to work tomorrow. I was really starting to miss the kids, so I'm actually looking forward to going back! Only thing I'm not excited about? Waking up at 5:30am! Those early mornings have always been hard for me.

This was a mandatory vacation for me, as my nanny family road tripped it down to Disney Land. This means that I didn't have an actual vacation planned out for myself, no getaways for me. While I'm excited to get back and see the kids and actually make money again, I can't help but think of all the things I didn't get done:

• Not enough reading. I planned on at least finishing my current book, but due to misunderstood overdue late fees at the library, I wasn't able to renew my book and finish it. Everything is sorted out now though, but note to self: don't let my mom use my library card!
• Not enough baking. I had all these grand plans for the things I wanted to bake and the new recipes I wanted to tackle, but thanks to a tempermental oven, this didn't happen. A guy came to look at the oven yesterday, but he didn't find anything wrong! I need to buy an oven thermometer.
• Not enough movie/tv show watching. I haven't had a day in months where I let myself just sit and watch endless amounts of tv. Perhaps this is actually better for me!

Ok, so this wasn't as bad as I expected! Especially when I list the things I did accomplish:

• Pancake Party with my family. I hosted it and made homemade syrup!
• Having my youngest sister over multiple times.
• Spending more time with my roommate Cam.
• Cooking more. I made Lasagna, Lazy Cabbage Rolls, and Stir Fry. For someone who can't cook and has hated it her entire life, this is a big deal for me.
• Organizing the apartment. We cleaned out all the kitchen cabinets (you wouldn't believe the amount of spices we own) and emptied out the storage room. The storage room was once full of stuff (that Stephen's old rooommates left behind), but now it's practically empty.
• A ton of (awake!) time with Stephen. We even managed to get three full days off at the very same time! We normally have very opposite works schedules (me: 7am till 5ishpm, and him: 4pm-midnightish), so a lot of our time together is spent sleeping. We also never have the same days off (unless planned far in advance), I get weekends off, he gets a weekday or two off. This is was the biggest accomplishment by far, as it meant that we were actually able to go out and do things during day light hours! I didn't have to stay up past midnight waiting for him to come home!

I guess I'm more ready to return to work after all! Some of the things from my unaccomplished list will be accomplished anyway: More reading will be done during my commute and I always bake at the very least once a week for my nanny family.

Come 5:30am tomorrow though, I will regret ever writing this post, having a job and I will be wishing that Starbucks delivered coffee to me in bed.

Yogurt Love!

I love yogurt. Always have, always will. I've grown up on the typical Canadian yogurt and have never had a problem with it. I especially love vanilla bean. I've been hearing a lot of good stuff about Greek yogurt, so I decided to take a look for it at Safeway today. The only other yogurt I found (other than the regular stuff) is Liberte Mediterranee Yogourt. I picked up a tub of lemon flavored yogurt.

Ok, hello! I am in love with this stuff! It's so thick and creamy, each spoonful is like a party in my mouth! The website is says the recipe is based on one used in the Greek Islands, and since I've never been myself, I'll accept that. Best part? It's Canadian made! There's a good chance I'll never go back to regular yogurt again. Now I just need to convince my boyfriend that spending more money on a smaller container of yogurt is definitely worth every penny. I'll convert him, don't you worry. My Safeway only carrieds three flavors, so I'm going to have to check Superstore out and hope they have a larger selection.

So there you have it, an entire post dedicated to my new found love of greek style yogurt.

Big City Girl

I've always been a city girl, through and through. I grew up in Toronto and have lived in Calgary for the past ten years. I don't plan on living in Calgary forever, I hope to live in Vancouver or Toronto some day. Calgary is alright for now, but I think I need to live in a bigger city. I need the excitement of all the people and knowing that everything downtown doesn't shut down early at night.

Occasionally though, I will pause, look around me, and fall in love with Calgary. It's the simple things that make me fall in love; a trip to the farmer's market, discovering a new coffee shop, finding a new park hidden in between houses and the thing I'm loving most lately: the view from my balcony. I could sit out there for hours. Who am I kidding? I already have! I invited my sister and her friends over for a movie night, but we spent the whole night out on the balcony. It's perfect weather for it, and there's always something interesting to look at.

A Bad Day & A Happy List

Today got off to a not so happy start, and just kept going downhill from there. I honestly have no idea why, but anything that could go wrong did. So, in an effort to make myself smile, here are the things that are currently making me happy, despite a bad day:

• Ice cream. We have three different flavors in the apartment with a multitude of sundae toppings. Oh yes!
• Upcoming Wedding Social. A friend of mine from highschool is getting married, and although we haven't seen or talked much since then, I'm going to show up at the BBQ and support her love!
• My balcony. Whenever the boys get home from work or someone comes over, we all sit on the balcony and enjoy the weather! I love it it when it gets dark and I get to light candles.
• My love. He'll do anything to make me smile, and no one can melt my heart quite like he can.
• Brand new BBQ. We've planned a huge BBQ party for next month, and I cannot wait for it to come!

In a nutshell.

I'm not big into astrology. I like reading my horoscope in a magazine, but once I close it, that's it. It stays within the pages of the magazine, I don't apply it to my everyday life. While reading another blog, I came across this name analyzer type deal, and I'm not going to lie- I think it sums me up pretty good. I've been thinking about this for several days now, so apparently it does have some impact on me!

Angela is the last of the great eccentrics. The funny thing is, she doesn't know it. She thinks her behaviour is perfectly normal. She sees herself as a pillar of propriety and a paragon of protocol. Angela has strong views about every topic under the sun. There's not a subject she doesn't know about or a moral point she can't pontificate on. Angela is entitled to be a little arrogant. She knows an awful lot about an awful lot of things. She is well versed, well rehearsed, and deeply immersed in the kind of knowledge that we lesser mortals can only dream of attaining. Thankfully, she is there to shed the light and show the way. This, she does generously and patiently, as befits a person of superior intellect. Angela Mallyon is wise, intelligent and (thankfully) oblivious to irony.

Or, at least, that's how Angea is, at her worst. She can't help it. She's an Aquarian and Aquarians are infamous for their occasional outbursts of pomposity. Happily there is another truly delightful side to her. Angela is as honest as the day is long, as generous as the ocean is deep. This is partly where the eccentricity comes from, for a person with such strong opinions Angela is surprisingly willing to please. she is keen to win friends and influence people. She loves to feel that she belongs. She always wants to be in on the action, part of the scene and one of the gang. Rather like Groucho Marx though, she is never sure that she would want to be part of any club that would have her as a member. She is always on the lookout for some new cause to support, or enterprise to sign up to. You might think that this would make her fickle but actually Angela is exceedingly loyal. She may be forever expanding her horizons but she never forgets her friends and she never reneges on her commitments. This is why, despite the highly idiosyncratic nature of Angela's personality, so many people think the world of her

You can find the name analysis here. The boyfriend thinks this sort of thing is silly, but I think that if it strikes a chord with you, why not run with it? It's not like it'll do me any harm.

Coffee Dates & Noticing Changes

I've been living away from home for about a month now. I moved in with my boyfriend and his roommate, and you know what? I absolutely love it! I never thought I would love it as much as I do. The thing I love most is the location of our apartment, we're living downtown and there's always so much going on. One of my favorite parks is just a tweny minute walk away, and I've found myself there quite a bit in the past two weeks.

I met up with a good friend of mine for a coffee date. We got coffee at Second Cup and then made our way to Prince's Island Park. It was around sunset, so it was extra gorgeous!

{Walking across the bridge overlooking The Bow River}

{ A fountain in Prince's Island Park}

After walking around the park for awhile and experiencing the musical stylings of a beginner violinist, we made our way to China Town for a short walk. We were accosted by way too many bugs, so we decided to end our coffee date with promises of another one next week.

Since I've lived away from home, I've noticed a few changes.

1. I've actually started cooking. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate cooking. With a passion. My family always teases me because of this and would say that I need to marry a cook someday. Well guess what? I'm dating one and my other roommate is one as well! So there! But, they're never home around supper time, so I've been doing the cooking lately. I'm not doing so bad, and I've even grown to like it!

2. I've developed a bit of a dirty mouth. I've never been one to swear, but living with two kitchen boys, I've picked up some of their habits. I'm trying to watch myself though.

3. I'm turning into a night owl. Both Cam and Stephen (my boyfriend) usually work evening shifts and don't get home until midnight or later. They have me regularly staying up until 4 or 5am. I don't mind this at all, except when I have to work, because I have to be there at 7am. Not fun at all! I'm always trying to convince my friends to come over later and stay later...but I have to remember that they all have morning jobs as well and no reason to be up so late.

4. I drink way more coffee than I used to. We just bought a new coffee maker and there are two Starbucks about a block away. Iced coffee is my new favorite drink.

Babies & Bunnies

My sister and her friend Margaret came over for a visit today and brought with them this little cutie: This is Emma. She's just nine months old and cute as a button. I love her so much I can hardly stand it! When she's around, I'll often proclaim that she's my baby and I'm quick to take her off her mama's hands. She has about a dozen nicknames thanks to me, and she'll likely acquire about a dozen more in the coming months.

I nanny for a family with 4 kids and a bunny named Molly. My nanny family is currently on a vacation in Disney Land, and I have the joy of bunny-sitting.

{Molly}

Molly's cute and fairly low maintenance. I can be in and out of the house in an hour...with most of that time spent letting him run around and get exercise. (You did not read that wrong, Molly is in fact, a him. He was named before the family knew wether it was a Molly or a Milo.)

I discovered today that I may be allergic to Molly, and I'm not too impressed. I've never been allergic to anything! The past two days I've left the house rubbing my eyes and sneezing. I don't normally handle Molly when my nanny kids are at home, hence the delayed realization of my bunny allergy. I suppose I'll just have to take one for the team and put up with itchy eyes for another two weeks.

A Little Bit About Me…

I’m Angela, a twenty-something blogger residing in Calgary, Alberta. I’m a nanny for 4 kids. My job can be quite challenging at times, but I love it so much. We’ve been together for nearly four years; it’s amazing watching these kids grow up.

I love baking. Actually, that’s an understatement. Baking is who I am. I recently discovered my passion for baking, and haven’t looked back since. Funnily enough though, I can barely cook. I used to have melt downs in the kitchen whenever I was told to come up with a meal.
I have (not so) secret fantasies of owning my own bakery someday.

My mom had me when she was sixteen years old. In my family, there’s a history of the women having children at a relatively young age. My great-grandma is about the same age as most of my friend’s grandparents, and my grandma was the same age as most parents. Needless to say, my parents are ridiculously young. I broke the tradition of having babies young, and my sisters carried on that tradition. We’re keeping it baby free for a while longer.

Speaking of my sisters, I have two of them, they’re younger, and they’re pretty awesome. We often have late night grilled cheese parties and dance like fools. And laugh. There’s always laughter between us. The youngest sister still lives at home, but the middle one moved to Vulcan, Alberta this past summer. I miss having her over for grilled cheese parties! My family and I are all really close. I love all of my relatives and love it even more when we get together over the holidays.
I have an amazing core group of friends. Some of them live here in Calgary, others live in St. John, NB and others live in Abu Dhabi.  These girls are the true definition of good friends, and I don’t know where I would be without them.

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At the beginning of 2008, a friend of mine decided to sign me up for a dating website. I was secretly freaking out about it (Dating website? That’s not who I am!), so I let her do all the work. She created my profile and uploaded my pictures. For the first week, I laughed at all the messages that I received. One guy felt the need to tell me that he had all of his teeth. Then this guy sent me a message:
I was instantly interested. We talked for hours. He worked evening shifts, so I would stay up late to be able to talk to him after work. We had our first date, and I had a feeling we would be together for a long time. It freaked me out a bit, so I tried talking myself out of a second date with him. I’m glad I didn’t, because now I’m head over heels in love with Stephen. This past summer, we took the plunge and moved in together. Nothing is more fun than living with your best friend and having 2am crepe parties.