First day of August = time to review my progress on my summer goals again.

  1. Finally paint the cheapo wooden drawers we got from IKEA.
  2. Make delicious popsicles in my new popsicle mold. once (strawberry lemonade). twice (strawberry frozen yogurt).
  3. Go swimming in the ocean for the first time in Vancouver. done!
  4. Ride the rides at the PNE.
  5. Watch fireworks. done.
  6. Finish my Settlers paintings.
  7. Sell a pair of shoes or a shirt or a painting.
  8. Go to one of the night markets in Richmond. donetwice, actually!
  9. Regularly visit the farmers market on Saturday mornings. once. twice. does that count as ‘regularly’? not sure.
  10. Read some books while I actually have the time. Insurgent (Veronica Roth), Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (Jenny Lawson), currently reading The Art of Fielding: A Novel (Chad Harbach). I <3 you Kindle.
  11. Make a nicer looking menu planning board. done!
  12. Find a new person to play board games with.
  13. Try a new fruit.
  14. Do a successful venipuncture on a real patient. I’ve done about 60 now.
  15. Make a new blog header.
  16. Take more pictures. definitely failing at this so far.

Getting there!

I’m totally looking forward to this upcoming long weekend, and 9 AM start time at work for the next two weeks. Two more days of early mornings and busy days giving injections.

We’ve been asked for our top three choices for hospital placements for the fall and winter terms (we alternate two weeks at the hospital and two weeks of classes for all of second year). So many factors to consider… commuting, convenience, hours, friends, educational experience, potential jobs, etc etc. I’ll let you know when I finalize my choices.

We went to watch the Celebration of Light fireworks with Zsofi and Dylan last night. We got a great spot and had a little picnic with lots of fruit and cheese. It was a good show.

Don’t you think fireworks should have advanced further than they have by now? Everything else in the world is getting faster, cooler, fancier, yet the most complex firework they have is still that dumb smiley face one. Yeesh. I think they should be able to spell out words or make pictures by now!! I hope by the time I die I will have seem them recreate Starry Night in firework form.

Some other stuff I haven’t shown you yet!

Chocolate hazelnut tart from Death By Chocolate that Scott and I split the other night. Reminded me of the hazelnut pie I made a couple years ago. (I never made it again because just the hazelnuts cost me like $10!!)

Crepes of Wrath’s Simple Salmon Tartar. Totally delicious. I already want to eat this again.

Well I declared today CRAFT DAY so I’d better get off the computer and do something DIY.

Saturday was our second anniversary. It was a beautiful hot cloudless day in Vancouver so we spent the whole day outside.

First we had lunch at Boathouse in Kitsilano. We shared a pitcher of delicious lime margarita.

The whole restaurant is pretty much a big patio with great views and fresh air. So lovely on a nice day!

I had lobster grilled cheese benny and it was amazing. Big chunks of lobster, nice bread, poached egg, cheese…. OM NOM NOM. It was very rich and it made me really full. I would totally order this again if I ever get to go back.

Scott had ahi tuna. He liked it a lot too.


After lunch we went down to the beach and read our Kindles in the shade for a couple hours. I did go for a quick swim in the ocean (another summer goal checked off!!) but didn’t stay in too long because it is boring swimming by yourself.


After swimming we headed home to shower and get ready for my work party. There are ten people in our department that are turning 30, 40, 50 or 60 this year so they had a big birthday party for all of them at our bosses house and the students were invited as well. It was Mexican themed and pretty fun. I liked all the appetizers and the cakes were super cool. Each cake was personalized for each person in their favourite colours AND type of cake!

More summer market stuff. A big bucket of local strawberries and raspberries, a loaf of potato and honey bread (can’t taste the honey at all though), yellow/regular zucchini, and a plant.


What kind of flower is this? I have no idea but it was only $1.50 and it’s nice and sunny in Vancouver now so I thought I would have a go at growing it.


I made strawberry yogurt popsicles. I didn’t measure but it was basically a cup of plain yogurt, a bunch of frozen strawberries and a tablespoon of sugar blended up and poured into my popsicle mold. They turned out really yummy! Much better than my strawberry lemonade popsicles I made before where all the flavour sunk down to the tip of the popsicle mold.

Happy Canada Day from Vancouver! I really miss Ottawa a lot today. Canada Day in Ottawa is one of the best celebrations I have been to, and if I am going to be in Canada on July 1st I really want to be there in the nation’s capital. I think this might be the first Canada Day I have spent in Canada NOT in Ottawa. SO WEIRD!

I started a new rotation at work last week in the stress lab. We put patients on treadmills and watch them sweat. It’s very busy in there and it was a pretty overwhelming week. I dropped a drop of MIBI on my shoe in the hustle and earned the nickname Hot Foot. I had to put my shoes in storage for two days until they were not radioactive any more. Haha.

We had breakfast at Brioche with my friend Jason (who I camped with in Bowen, Australia) and his girlfriend. They were on their way to Vancouver Island to visit his family. My avocado, brie, and smoked salmon omelette was pretty tasty but the foccacia was super hard and it was kind of expensive. Booo.

The first day of the month seems like a good chance to review my summer goals list, so here we go……

  1. Finally paint the cheapo wooden drawers we got from IKEA.
  2. Make delicious popsicles in my new popsicle mold. once (strawberry lemonade).
  3. Go swimming in the ocean for the first time in Vancouver.
  4. Ride the rides at the PNE.
  5. Watch fireworks.
  6. Finish my Settlers paintings.
  7. Sell a pair of shoes or a shirt or a painting.
  8. Go to one of the night markets in Richmond. already done! twice, actually!
  9. Regularly visit the farmers market on Saturday mornings. once.
  10. Read some books while I actually have the time. reading Insurgent at the moment.
  11. Make a nicer looking menu planning board.
  12. Find a new person to play board games with.
  13. Try a new fruit.
  14. Do a successful venipuncture on a real patient.I’ve done two so far.
  15. Make a new blog header.
  16. Take more pictures.

Clearly I still have a lot to work on. I’m putting away my computer right now!