Weekends on a Wednesday

It's totally acceptable to write a weekend recap post on a Wednesday, right? I'm going to go with YES.. because it's my blog, and why the heck not?

This past weekend was a nice 4-day weekend spent with amazing friends, copious amounts of alcohol (oops), and bungee jumping adventures... what other way could you possibly want to spend Easter? ... Unless of course you have kids and you're into that whole Easter Bunny thing.. then, you know, whatever floats your boat. Or something.

Anyway, this weekend was one for the books blog for sure...
It was nothing short of legend - wait for it -



I'm not going to explain the pictures in the collage - I think they're pretty self explanatory, different bars, different drinks, different daays/nights, same amazing friends, and same amounts of fun in every picture. The picture in the bottom right hand corner is a view from the front door of our condo that we rented in Whistler for the night. AMAZING. It's really hard to see in the picture, but we're surrounded by exquisite mountains. It was so hard to leave.



Justin and I with the famous Olympic rings in Whistler. Come on, it's totally 'awwwww'-worthy.



- Dary - this weekend was legendary.

This one right here is my FAVOURITE. On Easter, we went BUNGEE JUMPING. Ahhhh I still can't believe we did it. This was the most amazing experience, EVER. It was so much fun and we had such a blast.. and talk about adrenaline pumping through our veins before/during/after we all jumped. We celebrated none of us dying with a couple beers - duh.

Annnnd this basically sums up my Easter weekend, and why I've been MIA from the blog since last Thursday. Today is Amanda's 26th birthday, so we'll probably be out partying again ce soir, and I'm sure I'll have more pictures for the blog in the next couple of days.

Happy hump day.

I Never Thought I'd....

Oh hi, happy Wednesday hump day.
My favourite little Californian posted about this topic yesterday, and then decided to turn it into a link-up.. soooo here I am. I was going to steal her idea for today anyway, but at least it's legit now and she can't get mad.

Alright, so lets see... I Never Thought I'd...

... make friends through blogging. I've made some great friends.. and a few that I know will be around for life.

... move to the west coast - but I've been in Vancouver for 3 years now.

... live without a car - it's a struggle at times, but I've managed to survive, so far.

... lose over 100lbs.



... go back to having insomnia again, but it's back. Oh joy.

... date another guy from online, but then I met Justin.

... become lactose intolerant. It's basically the worst thing, ever.

... be a runner, and now I'm doing a 10k this month.



... make sketti like honey boo boo, and document it for the blog.

... get a hangover. oh wait, STILL HAVEN'T - muahahaha.

... deal with my parents selling my childhood home and moving to another continent.

... go to Surrey (for anyone outside of Vancouver, you won't understand this.. but this is a big change since J lives there).

... fall in love.
Awww shhhh, I know. So mushy.

five favourites from the weekend

I still really miss weekend shenanigans posts, hey Sami, I'm looking at you.

I didn't do anything too crazy this weekend, but it was a fantastic one nonetheless. Unfortunately, blogger on my computer is being a huge PAIN right now and won't let me upload any other pictures from my weekend.. so please use your imagination while I recap my five favourite things from Friday - Monday with GIF's instead of real pictures:

Spending lots of quality time with this guy. He's kinda totally my favourite.



Carbs. This weekend, we ate ALL the carbs. Pasta, chicken & waffles, bread, mmmmmm carbs. I'm in a carb-coma today.



Captain America... mmmm Chris Evans. I mean, what? Have you seen him without his shirt on? Yeah... anyway... I saw Capt. America 2 on Sunday on a double date with Justin, Amanda, and a certain someone in her life.



Running. I didn't do as well as I'd like, but I got out twice to do a bit o interval running. This injury is killing me and I'm less than 2 weeks away from my 10k race, but I'm determined to run as much of it as I can.



Sleeping in for the first time... since Christmas. No joke (Apart from the time I was sick in February). But on Sunday, I think I actually stayed in bed until like 10am or so... and it was GLORIOUS. Not to mention that I've been dealing with insomnia for the past little while and just the fact that I slept more than 3-4 hours was also glorious. mmmmm sleep.

Basically to sum up this weekend... I ate a lot of food, but whatever, sometimes we all need to indulge a lot little bit.

The Safety Net of "IF"

Life is made up of millions of little moments. There are many moments that just pass us by without so much as a second thought, and there are special little moments that stick with us for a long time forever. Today's blog post was inspired by one of these special kinds of moments. It's based off of a conversation that I had a few weeks ago with my boyfriend.



At the beginning of March, I accompanied Justin on a trip to his Aunt's work for a visit to 'check in' and introduce me to her. While we were there, she reminded him of his grandmother's birthday and family function that is taking place on the long weekend in May. I absorbed all of the information/details that she gave to him (like the good girlfriend "sponge" of information that I am... (so that I could later remind him of this event)), and we went on our way. While we were having lunch about an hour later, he asked me to go away with him and his family on that long weekend in May. I agreed to go, but in the back of my mind I had the thought that I might not end up going because that was still 2.5 months away, and this was a new relationship... who knows if we'd still be together.



A week or two after this little moment took place, we had another one of these 'moments'... I told Justin that I was flying home to Nova Scotia in August for my best friends wedding, and asked if he'd come with me. The conversation went a little something like this:

Me: Uhh, it's pretty far away, but I'm wondering if you want to come home with me in August.. if we're still together?

Justin: When we're still together... and yes.

Me: Well no pressure, I know it's a while away... but if we're still together I'd love for you to come home and meet my friends and family.

Justin: Stop saying "IF" we're still together... we'll still be together, and yes.

At first I thought this conversation was cute and made me get all girly for five minutes thinking 'ooooh he thinks we'll still be together - that's a good sign', then my mind immediately switched back to normal mode and said 'but be realistic here, Faith... this will be amazing... IF we're still together'. Now before you start thinking that I have an absolutely terrible negative mindset, I want to clarify something - I depend on the safety net of "IF".



Last week, I was having a heart to heart with Juliette about this conversation and told her my thoughts on the whole scenario. While I loved how Justin kept reassuring me that we'd be together in 2 weeks... 2 months... 2 years... even 20 years, I was being realistic. I always tend to hope for the best, and prepare for the worst - I don't think this necessarily makes me a cynic, but more so relying on that safety net of having a back-up plan IF life doesn't go as planned.

Juliette and I had the realization that we both depend on a simple two-letter word to keep from getting too excited about something that could potentially not work out. That little safety net of using the word IF means that we're not putting our whole heart into something... to help protect ourselves from disappointment. During this conversation I had an epiphany that I do this far too much in my life: weight loss, love, career, etc... I use that little two letter word to prevent myself from facing disappointment whenever and wherever possible.



Later that day, I started drafting a blog post (just so I would remember to blog about it at a later time). Justin happened to be at my house when he saw me typing the words "The Safety Net of "IF" into the subject line, and asked what it meant. I told him that I had this conversation with a friend and how I felt about it and he listened very patiently as I explained why I do this. He calmly explained in a few simple words that this was how he had chosen to live his life a long time ago. He believed in saying 'when' instead of 'if' because if you have positive thoughts towards something and believe them to be true, then it's more likely that it will happen. Honestly, I couldn't agree more.

I never realized the impact that such a simple two-letter word can have on a conversation, a situation, or even on your own outlook on life. Thanks to these discussions, I will be doing my best to take this word out of my vocabulary. If you currently depend far too much on 'the safety net of if', maybe you should consider extracting it from your vocabulary and just having a little faith in the future.

Joyeux Poisson d'Avril

Happy April Fools Day..
or as the French say - Joyeux Poisson d'Avril.

If you know French at all.. you know poisson means fish, so April Fools Day basically translates to 'happy fish of April'... yep, you're welcome.

Today is going to be short and sweet, but I wanted to link up with my love Allie today.

I did a brief recap/update/re-committment post on Friday to say that I need to get my booty in gear and get back to focusing on my weight-loss goals. Part of this effort to get on track consists of having 'sober April'. I'm not an alcoholic by any means, but I've gotten back in the habit of having drinks with friends every weekend - which is basically just me consuming all of the calories (in liquid form) that I just spend my time burning. No bueno.



So if you could all do me a favor and have a drink or five for me each weekend while you're at the bar, I'd greatly appreciate it. I need to work on this waistline.