December 24, 2015

Shannon
Amazing how I've not been taking tons of pictures lately, yet I still keep taking ones of FOOD. These are some of the tasty chocolaty treats that we've been enjoying this holiday season. I don't think they will last too much longer, but I will enjoy them any time I can!

December 23, 2015

Shannon
I have been in pre holiday blitz mode, and not taking lots of pictures but hopefully that will change as it turns to holiday-ing mode! This was my lunch today. You know it's holidays when cookies make it ON TO your lunch plate.

December 22, 2015

Shannon
I've been working in some time for my wrap ups/reflections for the year, and as happy timing would have it, Good Reads just added the "See Your Year in Books" function which I love! I had already started working on my thoughts about books this year but I love the quick picture and comparative stuff here. I still have a few I want to finish this year (including of course War and Peace), so it's not a complete picture yet but it's still very cool to see.

Suzie

Hopefully had the last doctor's appointment of this year and got all our holiday groceries which took forever. Also woke up to find out there was snow on the mountains again! Starting to look very Christmasy up there!

December 20, 2015

Jamie

Yesterday was the big "pull out all the stops and bake" day. We had a lot of fun combining this with taking periodic breaks and watching A Very Murray Christmas. It's nice to get into the holiday mood!

Shannon
Netflix has some really odd Christmas/Holiday options this year, but I'm so glad we chanced A Very Murray Christmas at Jamie's initiative. It was a lot of fun. Dry humour, familiar faces and a fair amount of singing too. Fun times.

December 18, 2015

Shannon
Didn't take too many pictures today, almost none! Weird! So here is my MP picture. I actually ended up doing morning pages in another book, as this one got full and I realized the little books only last 2 weeks which isn't a heck of a lot. Anyhow, I might actually take off the holidays of morning pages and see how that feels. It is the holidays and all!

Suzie

There was construction work here so our power was out for 8 hours. To fill up our day, Reg and I went to see In The Heart of the Sea which was a very tough movie but very good. 

December 17, 2015

Jamie

It's been a really demanding time and I haven't been taking pictures at all. Hopefully as I ease into the season things will start to settle down. Yesterday I took some time for myself and also to be social! I had coffee with my journal at Futures and then went out for dinner and choir with a friend. It was a lovely way to spend the day.

 

 

Shannon
It's cookie time! I have been making this recipe for about 25 years now (aieeee!). I should do that kind of math anymore. Anyhow, little twist, this time I used the pizza cutter to make shapes, and it was pretty cool because I could maximize the dough from rolling it out to getting it in the oven. Still can learn stuff after all this time!

Suzie

Today kind of sucked. I had to cancel my first MeetUp meeting and had lots of stress and upset all day. At least I got my Star Wars Bossk Brownies post done.

December 16, 2015

Shannon
I've been feeling like the holidays are really here now and I am seeing signs of them everywhere, even places they technically aren't even suppose to be! Like these snowflake looking fellas that are actually speakers in an elevator.

Suzie

Most of my day was spent resting and/or waiting for our groceries to be delivered but I did have this cute moment with a squirrel. I have seen this little guy running around between the houses around here a lot and he just took quite a few minutes to sit on this wire and just chill. It was quite adorable.

December 15, 2015

Shannon
I'm officially past the halfway point in War and Peace, woohoo!!!! I'm still working towards finishing it by the end of the year, and I've found a pretty good pace for it that's a pretty enjoyable although still pretty dedicated. I'm working hard not to do the mental math each day on how much it left divided by number of days sans holidays, and that is HARD. I'm going to just trust that I can finish it at this nice pace, and deal with it if I don't (or not deal with it if I do). The book is pretty amazing, although I sometimes can feel that the author is telling the reading something an it's not the plot. I pick it up when it's overt, but other times I know I'm missing it. Oh well, I'm enjoying it and that's good enough for me!

Suzie

Haven't written a rant in a while but things have been so hard I wrote Merry Christmas & Kiss My Foodie… This hamburger at McD's was terrible, having to go to the hospital... I am really trying to not be a Grinch but it's been harder. Gotta work on that Christmas spirit.

December 14, 2015

Shannon
Holiday baking has officially started and the latest is white chocolate peppermint fudge! Crazy simple recipe, although technically it's cooking (stovetop only) not baking, but it did go in a baking dish... anyway, it tastes YUMMY and that's the most important thing. Woohoo to trying new recipes and liking the results!

Suzie

Saturday was such a horrible weather day. I went out for a bit and what a mistake. I came home as quickly as I could and got to work on making a minotaur for my friend Reuben. His minotaur character for D&D saved my character from being kidnapped so I made him this little gift. It will always amaze me how something that looks so ordinary suddenly transforms once you put a face on it. Oh and add horns and faux fur of course. He loved it and I was thrilled.

December 12, 2015

Suzie

Sadly, this is our back alley right now. All our neighbours have decided to put big pieces of furniture/appliances out and dump right outside their property. As far as I know, there is no pickup scheduled for this stuff. Going to have to call the city and let them know about it, it's just so awful! At least one neighbour finally got rid of their two toilets!

December 11, 2015

Shannon
I spent a lot of the day deep down the rabbit hole of researching Canadian Literature. Do you know how hard it is to find something from PEI that isn't Anne of Green Gables related? Way harder than I thought! Anyhow, between looking stuff up I took a War and Peace reading break and had some visits with Scout and Escher. So nice to have cats all around!

Suzie

Was not looking good for my Paladin Citrine! We hosted D&D and she got flattened ASAP and then almost kidnapped. Thankfully her gang saved her and then she blew the bad guys away once she regained consciousness. Scary stuff though!

December 10, 2015

Shannon
I thought I didn't have a pic for the day, but low and behold..... CAKE PIC. Yes, I always take pics of food to instagram and share on Facebook, so even if I forget to take other pics I usually have a pic of something I ate! This nutella cheesecake I made for Jamie's Bday and oh my...yummy goodness it is.

Suzie

Other than having the doctor's appointment from hell I also did a product review of these MASSIVE corn nuts! I am glad I managed to fit it in before the appointment. I am grateful for being able to do product reviews because my life is so full of tests and appointments... I never get a chance to make anything these days. At least I have corn nuts to write about, LOL.

December 9, 2015

Shannon
It was so much fun to chat together on stART! I had a blast catching up with everyone creative projects on our last ep of the year. And here is a behind-the-scenes look at the new place we are hosting the audio. So far, so good!

Suzie

Thank you all so much for the support yesterday. In so many ways. Love getting together for stART.

December 8, 2015

Jamie

This is actually Shannon's pic (I hope that's okay) of our fabulous night out at Birthday Bowling! OMG, it was so. much. fun. We had actually planned on a bigger, fancier place but it was booked solid so we ended up at the local spot and I'm so glad we did. It was so comfortable and fun and Shannon even learned how to keep score the way the professionals do. It was a fabulous birthday with lots of great memories. Suzie, I can't wait to get to the cereal box paper dolls. Thank you so much!

Shannon
Happy Bday Jamie!! This is us heading out to birthday fun times. I didn't notice the poster behind us til I looked at the picture later, and I think we took the message to heart!!

Suzie

Had my last art class. I had finished my painting so I just did some experimenting in class. I am surprised how far I have come with being adventurous with colour. It was sad to end the class though. I will miss it. It's been hard but I went to every single class.

December 7, 2015

Jamie

Well, the birthday celebrations began the night before. Justin and I went to the Christmas market in the Distillery district and then out to dinner at a lovely French restaurant there. It was absolutely packed! We had no idea that this was such a big thing with such a draw! This is the picture we took as we were leaving and everything was closed. It's amazing how magical things are in these moments afterwards. The tree was spectacular and dinner was a treat. My birthday is off to an amazing start.

Shannon
I'm very excited about my December Advent-Ture Extravaganza. This has all the big to do's that I want to do in December, and any time I get one done I get to colour in the image! I hope this will provide some fun, positive energy and incentive to get to do a bunch of stuff instead of it feeling more like 'just one more thing on the list'. Here's hoping!

December 4, 2015

Shannon
It was so much fun to all be together for Planning Day!! It was awesome to see so many people there and so many exciting things, tender moments and wonderful sharing at Planning Day. Way to go Jamie for knocking it out of the park for 2 years running. WoohoO!

Suzie

Once again, Planning Day proved to be a powerful force! I realized I did not want to plan my year as much as I wanted to figure out what to do with my year and that works even better for me. Scary that during such a risky year and time in my life the word "risk" seems to be the word for 2016. Thank you so much for such a profound experience Jamie!

December 3, 2015

Shannon
After month off my game of reading War and Peace, I have picked it back up. I would really, really, really like to finish it by the end of the year. Even though I already have a paper copy, I bought it on Kindle because it is so much easier to read a big book this way. And bonus, they had the exact same edition so the page numbers are the same and I can switch between paper and Kindle if I wish!

Suzie

We are still working hard at figuring out the sleeping situation for Christmas so we drove out to Coquitlam to buy a cot for Jason. We were going to get a fold out couch for Dad but I was unsure so we drove home. It was so dark and rainy but at least we got this done. Oh and my blood work. So sick of blood work.

December 2, 2015

Shannon
I still can't quite believe it's December already. Where did this year go? And, I was totally forgetting to take pictures again, but at least I got my Morning Pages pic this morning (I forgot the day before, can you believe it???). I actually am writing my MPs in a book because I ran out of loose paper. It's wild because that's how I used to always do it, and I slipped back into that way of doing it way easier than I thought I would.

Suzie

Tuesday I ended up getting a lot of stuff done, got out for a walk, came home cooked and then made an early dinner so we could go out to see The Peanuts Movie. I've always had a complicated relationship with this world. I always feel so bad for Charlie Brown but I am glad I watched it. It had heart which I was so happy to discover. A kid movie with heart that did not talk down to kids. Brilliant.

December 1, 2015

Jamie

Yesterday was an intense but beautiful day in the studio. I wrapped up the season with most of my clients, closed this season with Circe's Circle and started to turn my full attention to Planning Day, which is coming up Thursday. This is always the busiest week of my entire year. Luckily it is also full of love and hope and celebration.

Shannon
I was very off my game taking pictures on Monday. First off, I forgot to take a Happy Monday Everyone! picture to share, and then I didn't take any pics while making dinner. Weird! Well, here was what was left *after* dinner!

Suzie

Second last painting class yesterday and my night sky painting is done. I am feeling quite sad about class being over. It's been a frustrating experience but also nice to have something creative to look forward to every week.