put down your sword and crown, come lay with me on the ground
Day 5 of summer vacation. Or day 2, if you don't count the weekend, since I wouldn't have been working those days anyway. Thankfully, my stomach bug has passed, and I'm feeling much better/more like myself now. It was mostly gone by Sunday, actually, although I still had next to no appetite that day. This was especially a shame, because the girls and I made brunch at Erin's house on Sunday, and I could only eat a couple bites of each food before my stomach just refused to allow me to consume more. :-/ Very sad to not be able to fully enjoy brunch, especially since that's the best meal of the day, but the rest of the day was pretty good. We all hung out in Erin's living room knitting and crocheting various flowers for her wedding, and it was lots of fun.
We ended up staying till after 5, at which point, I still needed to drop Gabe, Lynn and Ilana off (we carpooled and they gave me gas money, since Oshawa is far!), and stop at Target before going home. The stopping at Target bit was made more fun by the fact that during brunch prep, I'd managed to drop a full glass of smoothie all down my skirt, so there was a big old mess on my clothes. :p Oh well. I'm not too concerned about what the employees of Target think of my fashion sense. Picked up a bunch of stuff we needed and spent the rest of that bonus money I'd gotten from ING (which, by the way, I found out was because I switched my payroll deposit over to them, though I'm pretty sure they hadn't told me that before I did it), and also grabbed 50/50 from the $5 movie section by the registers. I really love that that's a thing. :)
Monday was Canada Day, so I did . . . nothing all day, haha. At night I met up with Nicole and her fiance so we could see the fireworks at Mel Lastman square; they were fun, but not as good as some of the other displays I've seen up here. When they were over, of course, there was a huge crowd of people all trying to leave the square, and we all got kind of bottlenecked by the exit. However, for the most part, everyone was just standing nicely and waiting their turn to get out, so I made a comment over my shoulder to Nicole that I loved how polite Canadians were. I know, at least in certain places in the States, there would have been a lot more pushing/shoving and swearing in that situation. When I said that, another woman behind me agreed with me, and I said 'It's okay, I'm an American, I can say that' and it turns out she was too! She told me she was from Brooklyn, I told her I'm from Jersey, which she said was probably a lot quieter than Brooklyn, and then another man near us spoke up and said that it depended on where in the States you were, because if you were in Minneapolis, the whole crowd would have lined up single file to get out! Lol. It is seriously one of the things I love most about Toronto, that there are people here from all over the world and you run into them everywhere, making conversations like that possible. It left me with a smile on my face for the rest of the night. :)
Now I'm in the midst of relaxing and beginning to enjoy my summer as best I can. I realized yesterday that my birthday is in three weeks already! I'll be 29 on the 23rd, and I'm trying to figure out how to make it fun. Really, what I had planned was that the yarn I bought on the TTC knitalong on the 20th would be my gift to myself, and that was all I was really going to do. However, there's a lot of other not-usually-in-the-budget expenses this month (I need to renew my license plate registration sticker for my car and I need to order more contacts being the two biggest ones), which means I don't actually know if I'll have the money to get myself yarn. :-/ So here is my birthday request: I am hoping that maybe you guys might like to help me fund my birthday yarn shopping. I know (trust me, I know) that money is tight for everyone, so no one is even remotely obligated to contribute anything, but if anyone would like to throw even $5 my way, it would certainly help. I've already pretty much accepted that, as much as I really want to, there's no way I'm going to be able to make the trip down to the States to see everyone and have fun in person. It makes me really sad, because I do very much want to go, but it would take a miracle at this point and I just don't see that happening. However, I think I can still make something fun happen for my birthday; I'm just going to need a little bit of help to make it work. (My paypal is linked to my email address, which is alia dot siegrist at gmail, if you don't have it already.) So, if you want to contribute, you are awesome and amazing and I love you forever. If you can't contribute, you're still wonderful and fantastic and I love you regardless. If you think I'm a terrible person for asking for small contributions from my friends for my birthday, well, then I'm sorry you feel that way, and I won't hold it against you if you want to leave.
One of the other things I'd like to do this summer, if we have a little extra money at some point, is take Brad to a teppanyaki restaurant like Benihana. It came up in conversation the other day that Brad has never been to one of these restaurants, but I think he would really enjoy the experience of watching the chefs cook the food right at our table. I did some google searching yesterday to find other restaurants like that in our area, because if you click on the menu links for Benihana, they are PRICEY. I found Yang's Teppanyaki and Sushi, which looks much more reasonable, and is closer/easier to get to for us anyway. I suggested taking Brad there for his birthday in August, but he's not sure that's what he wants to do for his birthday. Even if we don't do it then, it is something I'd like to take him to at some point, because I do think it would be a good time.
Now, I think I will go read for a bit/tackle more dishes/knit like a madwoman. Happy 4th to my Americans! :)
We ended up staying till after 5, at which point, I still needed to drop Gabe, Lynn and Ilana off (we carpooled and they gave me gas money, since Oshawa is far!), and stop at Target before going home. The stopping at Target bit was made more fun by the fact that during brunch prep, I'd managed to drop a full glass of smoothie all down my skirt, so there was a big old mess on my clothes. :p Oh well. I'm not too concerned about what the employees of Target think of my fashion sense. Picked up a bunch of stuff we needed and spent the rest of that bonus money I'd gotten from ING (which, by the way, I found out was because I switched my payroll deposit over to them, though I'm pretty sure they hadn't told me that before I did it), and also grabbed 50/50 from the $5 movie section by the registers. I really love that that's a thing. :)
Monday was Canada Day, so I did . . . nothing all day, haha. At night I met up with Nicole and her fiance so we could see the fireworks at Mel Lastman square; they were fun, but not as good as some of the other displays I've seen up here. When they were over, of course, there was a huge crowd of people all trying to leave the square, and we all got kind of bottlenecked by the exit. However, for the most part, everyone was just standing nicely and waiting their turn to get out, so I made a comment over my shoulder to Nicole that I loved how polite Canadians were. I know, at least in certain places in the States, there would have been a lot more pushing/shoving and swearing in that situation. When I said that, another woman behind me agreed with me, and I said 'It's okay, I'm an American, I can say that' and it turns out she was too! She told me she was from Brooklyn, I told her I'm from Jersey, which she said was probably a lot quieter than Brooklyn, and then another man near us spoke up and said that it depended on where in the States you were, because if you were in Minneapolis, the whole crowd would have lined up single file to get out! Lol. It is seriously one of the things I love most about Toronto, that there are people here from all over the world and you run into them everywhere, making conversations like that possible. It left me with a smile on my face for the rest of the night. :)
Now I'm in the midst of relaxing and beginning to enjoy my summer as best I can. I realized yesterday that my birthday is in three weeks already! I'll be 29 on the 23rd, and I'm trying to figure out how to make it fun. Really, what I had planned was that the yarn I bought on the TTC knitalong on the 20th would be my gift to myself, and that was all I was really going to do. However, there's a lot of other not-usually-in-the-budget expenses this month (I need to renew my license plate registration sticker for my car and I need to order more contacts being the two biggest ones), which means I don't actually know if I'll have the money to get myself yarn. :-/ So here is my birthday request: I am hoping that maybe you guys might like to help me fund my birthday yarn shopping. I know (trust me, I know) that money is tight for everyone, so no one is even remotely obligated to contribute anything, but if anyone would like to throw even $5 my way, it would certainly help. I've already pretty much accepted that, as much as I really want to, there's no way I'm going to be able to make the trip down to the States to see everyone and have fun in person. It makes me really sad, because I do very much want to go, but it would take a miracle at this point and I just don't see that happening. However, I think I can still make something fun happen for my birthday; I'm just going to need a little bit of help to make it work. (My paypal is linked to my email address, which is alia dot siegrist at gmail, if you don't have it already.) So, if you want to contribute, you are awesome and amazing and I love you forever. If you can't contribute, you're still wonderful and fantastic and I love you regardless. If you think I'm a terrible person for asking for small contributions from my friends for my birthday, well, then I'm sorry you feel that way, and I won't hold it against you if you want to leave.
One of the other things I'd like to do this summer, if we have a little extra money at some point, is take Brad to a teppanyaki restaurant like Benihana. It came up in conversation the other day that Brad has never been to one of these restaurants, but I think he would really enjoy the experience of watching the chefs cook the food right at our table. I did some google searching yesterday to find other restaurants like that in our area, because if you click on the menu links for Benihana, they are PRICEY. I found Yang's Teppanyaki and Sushi, which looks much more reasonable, and is closer/easier to get to for us anyway. I suggested taking Brad there for his birthday in August, but he's not sure that's what he wants to do for his birthday. Even if we don't do it then, it is something I'd like to take him to at some point, because I do think it would be a good time.
Now, I think I will go read for a bit/tackle more dishes/knit like a madwoman. Happy 4th to my Americans! :)