around here

Besides the fact that I was awfully sick for the last week things have been pretty grand around here. It seems that I am finally pulling myself out of this god forsaken rut and starting to feel like myself again. It's funny how my best friend and I both fell into ruts at the exact same time. She was in a bit of a emotional rut and I had more of a physical rut. It's crazy to think the closer you become to people the more alike you become and the more you go through similar waves of life together. 

Now that I am finally feeling better I am finding the energy I once had, you could say its because I am eating healthier and "cleaner" foods or even just my mentality has changed. Waking up as early as I used to is still a work in progress but I'm getting there. It's hard to wake up early when you can't sleep straight through the night but last night was better than the other nights!

Sometimes when life gets so busy and we get so lazy we tend to forget about what's important. WE are important, our health is important and our happiness is important. My best friend has decided to take forty minutes of every day to find time for herself. Half an hour for a work out and 10 minutes for meditation. Those 40 minutes don't need to be done all together, she'll split up the 10 minutes for when she finds the time like when she is riding the subway or walking home. 

I find that we have to make the time for ourselves. I am a victim of forgetting that, I sometimes work so much that I'm to tired to do anything but sit in front of the TV. Some may argue that, that is finding time for yourself but its not really, finding time for yourself involves really doing something that makes you feel good and makes your mind work. I find TV is just an easy way to let your brain rot for a while, of course there is nothing wrong with it but we should take the time to care for our bodies and our brains. Take a few minutes to read a book, to say a prayer or to just think about how good you've got it. 

Just remember:

Morning

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Today is my monday and let me tell you, although it's Tuesday it feels like a Monday. I have been dealing with a weird case of insomnia lately and it is awful. I have also been sick with flu like symptoms but yet no flu and by no flu, I mean I haven't gotten "sick". 

It's weird when your body decides to just do what it wants, feel awful everyday and not let you sleep. I am exhausted and every time my head hits my pillow, my eyes are heavy and my brain feels like its going to explode yet, I will lay there for for over an hour and a half in the dark completely wide awake. It is so frustrating and I'd be lying if I told you I haven't cried out of frustration, last night especially. I like my sleep and if I don't get at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep I am not fun to be around, I'm basically a two year old who is cranky because she hasn't had her nap.

I'm open for any suggestions as to how to conquer this insomnia, I have bought melatonin (extra strength, which did not help last night) I have bought that bedtime tea that calms you, I have gone to bed early and turned off all electronics at least an hour before bed. I just don't know what else there is left to do! Help! 

Besides that things have been rolling pretty well around here. I bought a new car, yay! Which is a terrifying yet exciting ordeal for me. Since I commute about an hour back and forth everyday it's nice to have a new vehicle that is secure and can handle this winter weather (that has mysteriously disappeared, NOT complaining though!) But this is what I feel like my first real "big girl" responsibility, dudes I am paying for a really nice car and it's actually all mine. AHH it really freaks me out. 

Sometimes I find it so funny how I can be caught so off guard about how I'm a "grown up", I am living on my own (it'll be a year soon), I am engaged to the most amazing man and I just bought a car. Holy crap does time fly. I remember being in high school and day dreaming about all this stuff and here I am living it now. It's just so darn crazy. I don't know maybe I get too into these things?  

Anyways, I hope that everyone is having a splendid week and I hope that my health starts turning itself around. Can you believe its almost Christmas?! Gahhhh I am so so excited, I absolutely LOVE this time of the year. I will be decorating the house reallllly soon, so I shall keep you posted!

Five things

This weekend was by far my favourite weekend of the year. My favourite day would obviously be our engagement, but we're talking about this weekend here. Friday night we had our engagement party with 30 of our closest friends, it was amazing. We felt so much of their love and are so blessed to truly be surrounded by so many beautiful people. 

On Saturday, we went on our anniversary getaway. Now that I think of it, it's kind of like we just had ourselves a mini pre wedding and pre honeymoon... Ha! That's actually pretty funny! Anyways, we drove up to Blue Mountains and spent the night, it was so wonderful. Since we were fairly hungover Saturday morning, we decided to drive up in the afternoon. Once we got to the hotel we put on warmer clothes and boots and decided to go for a walk in the village, where we proceeded to eat an amazingly delicious poutine. I don't know what it is about crispy fries, hot gravy and cold cheese but I am addicted to anything poutine and seriously refuse to ever give it up. 

We had dinner that night at a nice pizzeria. In honour of our five year anniversary, I have been bothering Brent to help me make a list of the top 5 things we both believe help make our relationship strong, healthy and happy. 

Trust
A cliche, I know but seriously hear us out. In order to be able to be with someone you need to believe in them and give them a reason to believe you. It is so easy to break someones trust, a small or big lie can sometimes do the trick so its important to always be truthful and honest. 

Kindness 
I can absolutely be a victim of my own anger and say things that shouldn't be said. Over the years I have tried to make a stop to it and slowly succeeded. Being kind to your significant other is so important, building someone up is harder than tearing them down so focus on the good in your spouse. Everyone has flaws, even you. 

Physical Contact
No, not just sex. Although we both believe sex is obviously very important and should happen frequently (even if your busy, MAKE the time) we mean touching. Holding hands, frequent kisses, a hand on the knee or even a hug, these are all mini examples of constant touch. Touch is something that is so important to us, it shows us that were constantly loved and wanted. 

Communication
Brent stressed that communication is key. One thing that we always do is talk. If we're angry with one another we give each other the needed space but we always talk it out before bed. Very rarely do we (mainly me) go to bed angry. In the early stages of our relationship I found communication was a difficult one for us to nail down but as the years have gone by and the more we know each other its a lot easier to talk about what is bothering us or what we love about our relationship. Just make sure you're always talking! 

Fun 
This one is probably our favourite, duh! Who doesn't enjoy a little fun? Through out our whole relationship fun has always been a big thing for us, we constantly travel, go out, be lazy and just spend copious amounts of time with one another. Having fun and being silly is so important, you need to feel comfortable and like yourself when you're in a relationship. I love being able to be my weird self around Brent and knowing he loves me even when I'm singing horribly in the shower. Being a big kid has kept our relationship fresh and with the help of new adventures it keeps us from falling into ruts of boredom! Our next big adventure is travelling to Portugal in February, we're SO excited! 

I hope you all have a happy Tuesday and safe driving out there! The winter is coming! Brrr.

xo

five

Five years. Today makes it five years that we have been together and I couldn't be happier. 

It's unbelievable how quickly time flies. Five years ago I was fresh in college making questionable decisions and unbeknownst to me, meeting my future husband. Gosh, it's unbelievable. Brent and I first met in September, we were both in the same course and I thought that he was a cutie. Being my openly loud self I spoke to him first, I still remember how I did it... I was nervous (it was one of the first days) and he was looking at a picture of himself on Facebook shotgunning a beer. I turned to him and said "I wish I knew how to do that, I've never been able to do it," the rest is clearly history. 

I am so beyond fortunate to have met Brent at such a young age. I was 18 and he was 20 when we started dating many will say that is so young and that we haven't experienced enough life on our own. I say, that it was the perfect age. I was going down a weird road before Brent and I had met, he made me see that I was better than the decisions I was making and he showed me how truly wonderful I am. I can honestly say that my confidence in myself has stemmed with how he has made me feel. We have always had a fairly healthy relationship, we support one another in all our decisions, we pick each other up when one makes a mistake and most importantly, we are kind to one another.

I am so lucky to be marrying this man, he is everything I could want and more. I am so grateful he came into my life five years ago and I am SO blessed he's stuck around. 

I can't wait to go on this life journey with you Swance, I can't wait to get married and have a couple of little ones running around. You are my best friend and my everything. Happy five years and here's to many many more! 

xo 

wedding invites

Woah, guys. It has officially been one month since Brent popped the question! Time flies and I'm loving every minute of it. I have decided that this blog is going to become a little more wedding-y. My best friend said it is time to start milking this exciting time in my life and where better to start than here? Thank you for joining me on this exciting journey! 

I started out feeling that wedding planning is overwhelming, if you look at any wedding planner there are just lists upon lists of things you need to do. It terrified me. I opened it once then closed it up and thought to myself, "maybe later?" Now that we are a month in, it has given me time to really enjoy being engaged and I am now "ready" to start planning! Ha! Remind me I said that when I have my freak outs, okay?

First up, is something you should probably only do about six-seven months before your wedding but since I like to work backwards. I'm starting with invitations. There are SO many invitations out there and these are clearly only a handful of ones that I've looked at. I was going through one of the bridal magazines that was given to me and there was a page talking about free samples. Since I'm all about the free stuff I totally jumped on it and ordered 18 different invitations from two different companies. I have to admit I loved a lot of them and this is going to be a little harder than I thought. Yikes! Good thing Brent is actually on board with the whole helping me plan the wedding! It's so nice when your groom is actually putting in some input and cares about whats going on. It's my day, yes, but its his day too! Remember that ladies, no bridezillas up in here! 

Minted (click here for the direct link) 

I thought it was pretty awesome when I opened up the envelope and found this beauty inside. I thought I would just get a handful of cards but oh no, they give you a whole package. You get cards with different fonts, colours, paper types and all envelopes. It's pretty amazing. There is such a variety of things you can do with every invite and not to mention you can customize everything. You can change so many colours and fonts and all that jazz. There are a few top contenders with minted but since the wedding is still so far away (a year and eight months) I will obviously be looking at all of my options. 

Wedding Paper Divas 

I really liked a lot of the designs from Wedding Paper Divas, although I wasn't a fan with how thick the invites came. Granted, I was the one who chose the thickness and it could definitely be changed so no worries there. There were a couple the we enjoyed and thought were pretty and go with our "theme" but like I said we're keeping options open because I'm sure there will be many more designs to look at. 

We have been going through these for the last week and although there were some that I loved, the cost of them is pretty up there. I never imagined that invites were this costly but when it comes to wedding everything seems to be expensive. I am trying to get this wedding planned and done all on a very tight budget. I am so so excited for this day but I also want to be reasonable about it. It is only one day and I would much rather a happy marriage than putting us in debt for the wedding. It's about priorities friends, Brent and I have decided to keep the wedding expenses to a minimum (no set budget yet) and spend more on our honeymoon. We're far more excited to just get married and travel then we are at spending 50k on one day.

I hope you all have a happy tuesday and also a happy Rememberance Day. Thank you to everyone who has served for our country and for those who continue to serve for us. You keep us free and I will forever be grateful. Take the time to remember those who we have lost and to thank those who have risked their lives for us. 

xoxo

Sunday Funday

Another weekend has come and gone. It's depressing how long we have to wait for these two days and how fast they just happen to fly by. Anyways, it was another fun and eventful weekend. Saturday night Brent and I and some friends spent our night having some drinks and crafting. We made a bunch of decorations for our engagement party! 

Sunday was the most fun though, Brent and I went to Toronto with my family. We had a wonderful lunch at Bairrada, a delicious portuguese restaurant and spent some fun time at the science centre! Since my cousin is here for three months we have been trying to find a bunch of different things that we can do with him! 

I can't believe that in less than three months I will be flying back with them to Portugal and the real wedding planning will begin! It's so exciting and nerve wracking. I haven't planned anything at all, actually I just opened my wedding planner for the second time yesterday!

There is something about spending time with family that I just love. There is nothing better than having my grandma here visiting, I love spending time with her and seeing how happy my mom is to have her own momma here! Its so endearing. I don't want to think about what it'll be like when she's back in Portugal! 

After lunch we headed over to the Ontario Science Centre. Learned a bunch of new things and got to play with a lot of toys. It's so neat what science can do. It was definitely a fun trip spent with those who mean most to me.

This week is going to be a short one for me, I have Friday off to set up the house for our Party. I'm really looking forward to the weekend since Brent and I will be going away on a little romantic getaway. We'll finally get to celebrate 5 years of us and our engagement. I am so lucky to have such an amazing man like him. 

Have a wonderful week friends! 

xo

weekend update

I am so absolutely terrible with this blogging thing lately, it seems that all I do is blog about my weekend halfway through the week. What is this madness called life? Being busy is so terrible sometimes, I've had my October Ipsy bag literally laying on a table just waiting to be photographed and blogged about. Since my November bag will be coming in the mail soon I'll just do a total overhaul! 

Can we just take a minute and make note that it is fricken November already? Next week will be mine and Brents five year anniversary and our engagement party. 50 days until Christmas ya'll! 

Anyways, lets talk about my weekend! I paid Gimena a nice visit, I drove all the way to Toronto all by my lonesome, those who know me know that this is actually a pretty big deal. I absolutely hate driving and Toronto traffic, so if that doesn't explain it I don't know what will. 

We had a very lovely dinner out at a new restaurant that opened in June (or was it July?) it is actually a restaurant that gives you a little bit of a life experience... Signs, is a restaurant that is all about sign language and gives you a better understanding of how sign language works. 

We were greeted by wonderful hostesses who signed our welcome and right from the get go we were intrigued. Once we were seated someone came over and explained to us (speaking) how the restaurant works, how to read at the menus and how to communicate with our deaf server. It was such a fun and interesting dinner and we learned a bunch of different signs. 

Once we were left completely alone with our server, we were a little terrified. In no way did we want to offend our server by being incorrect but in reality sign language is actually pretty difficult and its so amazing how graceful those who are deaf (and those who are not) sign. Obviously they have spent years learning but I find it beautiful how they can understand and speak to one another without using words. This restaurant had great service, delicious food and gave me a great life experience. 

I now have my eyes opened and have a better understanding how it could be difficult for someone who is deaf, when they are in a world surrounded by people who are not. If we found it hard and confusing at dinner at times, imagine their world where it is a constant struggle to communicate with others. Next time we do encounter someone who may be deaf or even hard of hearing, take your time to really understand them because in reality I'm positive that they get just as frustrated if not more than you. 

After our wonderful dinner we headed home, got into pjs and watched halloween town all night. Dudes, that movie is a classic and I am so glad we watched not one but TWO movies. It was the icing on the cake! 

Girls night for the win! I hope you all have a speedy week, were halfway there friends! Only three more days until the weekend! Hang in there :) 

xo