londres

folks, i am leaving for london in less than 48 hours. my house is a complete disaster. okay, it's a one bedroom apartment, there can only be so much mess, but it is a bit over the top. the plan is to fly into london, hop on a bus out to hereford and meet up with pete and his family for a week of visiting / touring / adventuring. then pete and i have a couple of days to ourselves in london, which is the part of the trip i am really most excited for. i'll also (i hope! i'm not sure if it's all set up or not) get to see pete row in cambridge, which is unbelievably cool.

i've never been to england before. i spent 10 glorious days in greece when i was 16, but that's as much of europe as i've seen. i'm excited to visit the natural history museum, see the changing of the guards, and eat lots and lots of curries. hopefully we'll get to see a show, get shittered with my friend jamie, and and spend hours just wandering through london and all the places that we visit with pete's family. there is also supposed to be a trip to wales squished in at some point, but i don't want to get my hopes up so i'm not counting on it. but that would be very cool!

so that's the news. lots of work, lots of running, a little bit of the 30 day shred (this will be tackled in its entirety during the month of august), and a lot of baking. i love baking. i want to learn to love cooking, i'll work on it, but baking is just so great. it's so easy to have the right ingredients on hand (flour? check. eggs? check. butter? check. sugar? check.) i've found what i believe is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe. period. i've made crumbles and pies and muffins and cakes.. and i haven't even gained a pound! okay, so the real reason i've decided to run this stupid half marathon is so that i can run off all these extra calories. haha.

summer goals, i just love them. i realize i haven't crossed a single goal off of my summer to do list from an earlier entry, but there is still a month and a half of this summer left. i have a time.

hair no more

I did it! Took long enough, eh? I made the appointment kind of last minute, dragged Katelyn out for a longhair photoshoot at Willows beach, and then marched over to the salon next door to get it chopped off. Now my ponytail is sitting in an envelope, waiting to be donated.

I'm pretty happy with it. I feel a little bit dorky when I see myself, but the idea of it nice. It just has to grow on me (ha! ha!).

mile-ionnaire

So, I signed myself up for an airmiles card. Anyone who knows me knows that this is a problem, because I have such an addictive personality. I've managed to avoid the drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc. that most people associate with addictive personality, but that's because I've found replacements. Let's see. Remember those endless days of first year playing Halo 2, then Mario Party? There's a good example. Last summer I become obsessed with keeping a budgeting journal of every single penny I earned/spent/saved. Now, there is airmiles. My standard internet checking routine involves the Blue Jays website (my homepage), my UVic email, then my airmiles page. Collecting airmiles is a slow process and it takes a while for your balance to get updated, so instead I look at the different current coupons and offers. I even immerse myself in the Safeway flier to see if there are any good airmiles offers in there. Not sure how long this will last, but I have spent many an hour debating about whether or not to sign up for an Airmiles American Express (NO! I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT DO THIS!) and getting thisclose to applying. I'll start buying things that I don't need just to get a few more points. I know I will. Just throw a few more things in my basket so that I can get that extra point. But it's worse than that! I've started entering draws and stuff online. Like giveaways. I know that the odds of me winning are very very slim, but what's the harm in signing up, right?


I think that this has been partly induced by the recent poverty I've found myself in. I thought for sure the recession would just pass me by, I mean I have a good job, I live in a good city, all that. But no, it has found it's way to me. Shifts at work have gotten extremely cut back and I'm just not making ends meet.. so I need to find free things! I keep telling myself "Okay Taryn, just go about your every day life and if you can use your airmiles card, great, but it's not a good program if you find excuses to use it." Example, I was going to forego my annual eye exam (they'll make me have a contact fitting and that costs an extra $60) and just order my contacts online and save a few bucks. But my eye place takes airmiles. And I could get an extra 120 airmiles on top of what I get from actually buying my contacts. I'm in a serious dilemma about this.


I'm sure this will pass once something new comes along. I'm hoping this new thing will be a Nintendo DSi (it's my birthday soon, but let's keep it hush hush). But I'd also like it to be something like running, eating freakishly healthy.. Last summer I got a pedometer and made sure I walked my 10000 steps every day until I lost it in Peru. Sometimes this addictive personality is a good thing. And I usually have a few things going on at once. I definitely jump right into things and then quickly get over them so hopefully that is the case. Then my airmiles will be left to quietly accumulate until I have enough to get a flight out to Peru so I can reunite with my little ninos (I miss them so much it aches).

summertime and the livin's easy

the annual summer to do list

1. sleep under the stars
2. do as much shopping as possible at the farmer's market
3. wear sunscreen every day
4. pay off my credit card debt
5. reconnect with my longboard
6. learn to use my camera in manual mode
7. bake a pie from scratch
8. walk/bike my little heart out
9. finally explore the juan de fuca trails and beaches
10. roast marshmallows

sunshine days

it has been outstanding around here. on monday pete and i spent the afternoon having a makeshift picnic at beacon hill park, subway and slurpees and sunshine. i generally don't do alliterations, but sometimes i just have to make an exception. on tuesday kates and i did our laundry and had snacks on the patio at the pub and then baked cookies (zucchini chocolate chip, who'da thunk they'd be so delicious?). the only downside of all this springtime bliss has been the insane allergies. and the fact that you just can't count on continuous days of sunshine in crazy victoria. i figure that it doesn't really matter where you live in canada, the weather is crazy everywhere. little moments of beauty surrounded by days of mucky yuck. spring weather is a real trickster.