The Distillery District was done up BEAUTIFULLY last night except that it was really way too cold to fully enjoy all the goodness at the Christmas Market. My fingers fell off every five minutes of exposure to the cold. It got to the point where I couldn’t even feel my finger press the button on my camera; I could only tell that a photo had been taken when I heard the shutter click. And then excruciating pain would follow shortly after. I need a good pair of gloves that fight the cold but don’t interfere with the mobility of my fingers.

This is SCROOGE and I met him last night. If you know me, you’d also know that I don’t know some of the most common knowledge in this world… like Scrooge. My boyfriend had to tell me the story of Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol for the first time last night. :)

Hence the black & white photos.

It’s Friday again. I know I say this all the time but I can’t believe how fast the days, the weeks, the months, are passing by. I ask what’s going on??? And the older people say “You’re growing up.” Apparently, time flies faster and faster with every year you get older. That’s not cool with me.

The best part about work is meeting more awesome people. Chris on the left, Sarah on the right, together, we make up half of the Marketing team. Both are smart and ambitious as hell – they keep me on my toes. It’s good to be around people like them because they keep you from slowing down. It’s go time all the time. Surround yourself with achievers and you too, will achieve. I don’t have time for debbie-downers and naysayers. Focus! Perform! Pursue! Achieve! Go get it!

Today was Sarah’s last day and I’m not getting over it very well. I feel like I’m going through a work break up.

I watched The Last Exorcism last night but can’t tell you much about anything that happened in the movie because I shut my eyes / peeked behind my blanket through all the freaky parts. It’s the scary faces of little girls in horror movies that get burned into my brain to haunt me in the middle of the night, so.

Today I learned how quickly a bond can form with someone you’ve just met and how effortlessly they become a valued constant in your life; time plays no part. Relationships with people mean more and more to me as I grow older; they are important. Acquaintances are plenty but people you can really, truly, naturally connect with, are rare. I am blessed to have good friends, who make an effort to keep the bond alive and strong with unexpected phone calls, funny text messages, ranting coffee dates, gossiping dinner dates, catch up lunch dates, meaningless wall posts, goofy photoshoots, angry voice messages, apologizing emails, and other such sweet things. And I continue to be blessed to meet new friends like you, who’s gotten me enthralled by the thought of meeting new people in the years to come, not just anyone, but the special ones whom I can share an instant bond with, just like this one. It’s a great piece of awesome to look forward to. Ah, life.

Another photo of my bear below. It fits the mood, I think.

There was snow on the ground and it’s starting to feel more like the holidays! With my new winter parka, I am begging for the temperature to drop because I want to test how cold-proof it is. I actually get excited to go outside. One way to battle the winter blues (if you have them), is to buy a new winter jacket. It helps!

I think I’m going to go hang out at the mall – that place gets you all Christmas-y more than anywhere else.

Thank God it’s Friday!

I’m going out for Congee dinner. I’m going through a Congee phase. Not that you’d care to know but I have very obsessive tendencies with food that I fall in love with. By obsessive I mean having it for lunch or dinner at least twice a week for as long as seven or eight months. Some of these foods include:

Wendy’s five-piece nugget meal with fries, caesar salad, and sour cream and chives baked potato
Boston Pizza’s cactus cut potatoes
Popeye’s chicken (one drumstick and one wing) with fries and mashed potato, sometimes cajun rice
Kagawa’s spicy salmon roll and tempura appetizer
Port Credit Souvlaki’s chicken souvlaki dinner with a glass of water
Swiss Chalet’s quarter chicken dinner with fries and caesar salad
Triscuits with spicy thai chili tuna
Sunny side up eggs with plain white rice
And now Congee Dynasty’s duck congee

I think the longest obsession may have been Boston Pizza’s Cactus Cut Potatoes because I still haven’t gotten over them and I’m pretty sure we’re fast approaching 365 days. I order these over the phone and pick them up at BP. What’s worse is that I used to have them delivered to my house and then that stopped after they put a policy in place where orders under $20 cannot be delivered. Can’t say I didn’t grieve over that…