A few of my favorite things:

I rarely eat frozen dinners as I find them repulsive and terrible for you. This one however caught my eye and I figured why not. Every now and again I'm lazy and don't feel like making something for lunch at work so ta da! The curry could have been less watery but other than that absolutely no complaints. It tasted great, filled me up and I really enjoyed it! So bizarre!

Mmmmmm speaking of Indian food I'm absolutely in love with Gulab Jamun! I could seriously just sit and eat these little balls of sweet delight for breakfast, lunch and dinner one right after the other, nom nom nom!!!!

I was at Sephora buying nail polish and could not keep my eyes off of the sales woman's lips. They were soooo shiny, subtle flecks of pink and sparkly. I was surprised when she showed me a lip gloss as I thought for sure it would be a regular lipstick. I realize in the photo below it doesn't look like much, maybe you need movement to get the full effect, I swear it was like diamonds on her lips! I just adore this new gloss!

Speaking of Sephora, I've been looking for a sugar scrub to exfoliate my skin and get it ready for the nice weather! (Ummm ya so it snowed the other day, clearly I have more time than I thought). Anyway, I came across Sweet Cheeks by Cake, what a delightful treat! It's a brown sugar scrub and yet has hints of cinnamon and vanilla and feels amazing on my skin! I smell like a cinnamon heart after I'm done! Love it!

• Thank you for all of the good thoughts towards LD and her family. It is with a heavy heart that I tell you he did pass away this weekend. I don't think I will ever be able to wrap my head around cancer and how quickly it changes a life. I'm sad to say he is not the first person I've known to pass so quickly after the diagnosis. It's taken so many of my friends parents that I'm unable to count them all on one hand, it's touched my life as well, I've had several relatives succumb to the beast and I will never ever understand how it can transform lives within days. They told my Aunt she had pneumonia and she was dead within 2 weeks, she went into the hospital with a general feeling of malaise and never came out. LD's dad was sent to physio for a possible pinched nerve in his back and meanwhile it was spreading all over his body.

• I've met several breast cancer survivors and my friends mom did live for a year with brain cancer before she passed but come on, somethings gotta give! You would think with the bazillion dollars spent on "research" they would be closer to finding a cure or at least detecting the many different kinds of cancer before it's too late. I know there are mammograms and paps and some tests that can find irregularities but my experiences with those close to me have not been positive. They're fine one minute, feeling not so good the next and then poof they're gone in less than a month. I still can't wrap my head around it.......

• I was with her at the hospital, she was curled up in the bed beside him as he slept and I couldn't stop crying, I felt so bad for her family and the pain they were in, knowing at any moment he could be gone, offering anything to the universe for one more minute. Through tears she said "do me a favour, go see your dad and hug the shit out of him when you leave here" and I did! All of my love goes out to her and her family, we'll get through this together! I love you!

Randomness -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------*I was out of the city and wanted to go to the gym so I headed to the closest one in my chain. It was inside of a mall and I realize I"m going to work out so I should be happy about having to park a mile away but my lord! Seriously, parking was ridiculous I was like 50 rows away from the entrance and then I get inside and guess what?!? There are four flights of stairs to climb to get to the actual gym. Sheesh, I felt like turning around and thanking them for the workout. Someone remind me again why I'm paying for a membership?!? --------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------*I was flipping through the channels and came across some extreme coupon show. Ummmm what the fuck is wrong with these people? One woman bought 60 bottles of mustard and her husband doesn't even use it! This same woman bought hundreds of boxes of cereal and containers of yogurt. Her bill went from $1500 to $100 but my jaw was on the floor. Everyone loves to save a buck or two but what the hell would you do with a million bottles of mustard?! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *I'm not sure if it's the cold rainy weather or if I'm just tired in general but I know when I need to take a week off and it seems as though it's time. I get sick of the excuses from my clients and even the people that legitimately have issues and reasons for lagging behind are on my last nerve. It's hard when you've worked with someone for 18 months and for 18 months they've done nothing. Every time there is an appointment it gets cancelled for some reason or another, then they pop in and demand to see you, they promise and promise and plead for more time ad nauseum and yet nothing ever gets done. I've had one guy cancel 10 appointments due to sickness, it's actually laughable now, I wait for his name to pop up on the day of his appointment as I know he's going to call he's sooo predictable....I finally asked him why he's always sick....he said he's not used to the weather in Canada....I asked him when he moved here...he told me 12 years ago! I had one woman beg me not to send letters to her house as her partner was not aware of her criminal activity and would kick her out if he found out. I find it odd that he's reading her mail and wonder what kind of relationship that is where you have to fear being kicked out for making a mistake but that's going off topic. I told her all she has to do is show up to her appointments and no letters will be sent. She's missed two now and she's done nothing, I have bent over backwards trying to make her appointments through third parties and phone calls and I'm done. I'm sending a letter if I do not hear from her by next week, it's not my problem. That is how I know that I need a break! --- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Someone recommended an author (Malcolm Gladwell) to me so I went to the library to grab a few of his books. He must be rather popular as I had a hell of a time finding any titles by him, they had all been taken out across 4 libraries save for two books. I snatched those up and plan to crack the spine this evening. I'm excited to read something new! Are any of you familiar with is work?

I've become a bit lax with writing on my lovely blog so my apologies, I promise upcoming posts will be more frequent, maybe not entertaining but more frequent! Ha! The bachelorette party in Montreal went well and a good time was had by all. A few tips for those taking 7 plus hour road trips.....make sure to put the correct address into the GPS AND make sure to spell words correctly when using another language. I wasn't the driver thus not in charge of directions which I'm sure everyone was happy about, but the driver forgot to enter "west" at the end of the address. We ended up at some dead end street, confused and clearly not at our destination. I realized her error and kept trying to type in the correct address to no avail. We drove for a while and eventually ended up where we needed to be. Turns out "west" is spelled "ouest" in French hence my not being able to enter the full address correctly. I was like "WHY won't it let me put WEST at the end of the street name?!?!"

I've been sworn to secrecy about the goings on of the festivities but I will say I had beer, champagne and wine in front of me all at one time during dinner, I ate pizza twice (the super cheesy fatty one above and another more reasonable thin crust with just a sprinkle of the white stuff) and had poutine at 2am even though I declared "I'm full, why am I eating this?" Even drunk Miss Ash knows when she is being bad! LD and I were able to sneak off in the wee hours of the morning to our favorite 80's bar with the blessing of the bride to be, she was supposed to follow but didn't quite make it!

I learned that green bananas take FOREVER to ripen and had no idea they were impossible to peel at said stage AND that they're putrid when not ready. I seriously brought a bag full of fruit to fill up on so I would not eat like a super pig and could watch my points somewhat. I bought greenish bananas as I hate when they get toooooo ripe only mine where horribly under ripe. My friend suggested I hang them in the sun.....so I did....only that made them worse! They ended up green with black marks everywhere and I had to toss them. Bye bye bananas!

I watched the interactions with groups of friends and it made me appreciate mine that much more! When one of my friends is acting like an asshole I'll tell them, they'll tell me...end of story. It's very very rare for my friends and I to get into fights, we may have disagreements and not see eye to eye but at the end of the day we're usually smiling. One girl actually got upset with her friends because they were talking to guys. If any of my gals was chatting up a bloke I'd be giving them the thumbs up as long as their beer googles hadn't creeped up! This girl was clearly jealous her friends were getting attention, she yelled at them, told them the guys were ugly anyway, it was rather amusing!

I let myself have a few treats but other than that super cheesy pizza and the poutine I was a good girl.....booze not included! You know, brown toast when I wanted eggs benedict, fruit smoothies when I wanted frappucinos! I didn't do soooooo bad! I lost a pound this week so that made me happy!

A phone call came as we were leaving the hotel, devastating news, like a punch in the face you didn't see coming, LD's dad was in the hospital. What was originally thought to be a slipped disk was much much worse! Can everyone out in bloggyland please please please send positive energy to LD and her family! Her dad has unexpectedly been touched by an illness and while it can not be cured they just want more quality time with him! So join me in sending light and love their way!! He's not done!!!!!!