#Get2knowJoan

I promised to be here more often again.
And again I have to apologize that I just can't be for a while.

"The play's the thing" you know.
And this time I am even back in the rehearsal hall.
The meal plan until further notice is frozen in our freezer from costco, or at the mercy of Rob's whims.

Please take a minute to watch our video about Joan.
This play is not only very very close to SKAM's heart (in fact it was born inside the heart of SKAM), but it is also a show that is heart warming and heart breaking and beautiful and touching and will leave you feeling like there are ways to spend time with someone who has gone missing from the landscape of your life.
If you look hard enough, as Matthew has.

I am leaving it here in the form of an Indie Go Go campaign.
I am not asking you to contribute in anyway, but if it moves you please share it.

(This also provides video of all the other crazy things I've done this year, which might be of interest to some).

See you all in May

Spring Forward

I'm from Saskatchewan.
Daylight Savings Time has never made a lot of sense to me. Even trying to make sense of which way I am going to set my clock when the time comes hasn't made a ton of sense. Until now.

I missed the end of Daylight Savings my first winter here.

(end? start? does anyone know? I am only going on the belief that now that we are basically making the daylight last longer it must be starting now? right?)

I had gone back to Saskatchewan to work on a show at Persephone Theatre and would not have even considered it being a problem except for two things. In Rob and I's relationship, whenever we lived apart, being two time zones away rather than one was awful. Two hours should not be that much more of a big deal over one. Should not be. But it is. For example, when it is six pm in Saskatchewan, it is eight pm here in the winter.  Six pm is dinner time. Eight pm is unwind time. The two hours between them feel like an eternity when you are apart. Trust me.

The other problem, I had never encountered before; most of my cast was from out of province. Most of my cast was not only prepared to set their clocks back, they did not realize that Saskatchewan didn't. This resulted in a near disastrous tech day when Marcel luckily responded to the next days schedule email the night before  with a quick little reminder to everyone to set their clocks back and get an extra hour of sleep. If he had not done that, the majority of the cast would have done just that, resulting in a disastrous first morning of tech rehearsals, the one week in theatre where everything absolutely has to run on time! Thank God for Marcel. I emailed everyone back quickly and reminded them Saskatchewan does not observe Daylight Savings time, and it resulted in a hilarious conversation about how horrible we are for depriving people an extra hour of sleep, especially in -30 weather and the crises was diverted. Whew.

So this winter was the first time I gained an hour and realized how sad I was to lose the sunlight. It was also the first time I really had to wrap my head around how startling it was to lose an hour of daylight in one day's time. Suddenly I wanted to pack up the office at three pm because it was very dark in there and yesterday at this time it had been four pm. See? Figure that out.

But this past weekend I finally got it. Yes, on Sunday we lost an hour, but really, where did I have to be anyway that I lost an hour to? I had a few moments of trying to wrap my head around getting up late and realizing it was ok, because yesterday it had been earlier. But then, it was six pm, and it was light outside. Just like that. And I decided Daylight Savings Time, you are ok with me, because even though I lost an hour, that extra hour of sunshine on the end of my day was worth its weight in gold.

And that, is something that will also take getting used to, dark and stormy winters. While I may not freeze to death from windchill, its hard to warm up from the damp without seeing the sun for several days in a row.

I'm very excited to "Spring Forward", and the blue skies seem to be co operating with me. As well as the cherry blossoms, and crocuses and daffodils. Spring here really looks like the spring in storybooks. The Vancouver Island chapter of my Instagram filled up with blossoms of every colour this weekend and now I am craving summer and a chance to go dig around in the (very very very soggy still) dirt!

And now that I am only "an hour away" from Saskatchewan again, let the evening Skype calls abound!

A Way Way Delayed Meal Plan

Hi guys. Remember me?

It has been months again since I posted anything and I feel so bad about it every time I think to do it. The truth is, despite all of my best intentions, life is still, pretty unmanageable... so unmanageable that there are some changes coming to get me my life back.

One of which will be a commitment to this blog. I mean it guys. An actual scheduled commitment for me and this keyboard in my calendar.

There will be much more on all of this later. For now, the one thing we have made a permanent spot for in our unmanageable lives is our weekly meal plan. It took some time, but now sitting down on Saturday and Sunday afternoon to etch out our week has become so ingrained in us that even on our recent trip to Hawaii trying to wing it drove me a teeny bit batty and we ended up with way too much leftover food.

I have had a few friends who read this blog ask me what we put in these meal plans with the hopes that I will pass on the recipes, and I promised once I would update weekly here.

So. This is where I hope to start my commitment. A commitment to our week in meals, and as the time I etch out gets more ingrained and firm, hopefully I will find a little bit more time each week to write about other things too.

A few of the things we do to make meal planning easier on us:

First off, my best friend Amber bought us one of these meal planner pads from Indigo for our fridge. Seems sort of silly right? A wonderful thing about best friends is, they know your need for crazy things like lists and goes out to get you really nice pre made ones, with a magnet attached for easy fridge access.
Seriously.  Our meal planning begins and ends with this pad of paper.

Every weekend, usually Sunday (we will aim to be better at doing this on a Saturday, or even a Friday night, once all of the farmer's markets start up again. Especially the Moss Street Market, which I'm sure I mentioned in a previous post), we sit down with the pad in front of us and talk about our week. Before we even think about what we are making, we figure out where we will be that week. Rob goes to Vancouver a lot midweek for a night or two, and I have evening commitments like Yoga, sometimes work, theatre community events and the odd night out with my book club ladies. Then we decide if I am cooking for one, if Rob is cooking, if we need a quick meal and as we go along what nights to slot in leftovers.

This process has become such a part of our week, that this week we ran out of leftovers by Sunday and our grocery bills per week are coming in under $100 (Under $100! for two people? That seems like a lot I know, but we like food, we like experimenting with food and we like good quality products as local as we can in our food, so with no kids at home, under $100 is a great place for us.)

Then I usually work from a list of things I want to try to incorporate into our eating habits.

I like the idea of having extra freezer meals in our freezer for busy times, but don't want to exist on freezer meals alone, so I have been browsing the mini meals at Once A Month Meals for ideas of a big cooking job I could do every few weeks to keep our freezer full of convenient food (that I have made myself and I know what is in it, with a large intolerance to dairy and beef this has become increasingly important to me). Because I have never tried any of the recipes on this site I am reluctant to make a whole batch of them for the freezer to discover we both don't like them that much. So I have been incorporating one new one a week into our meal plan to give some a test drive, and some time when life slows down a little I will pick a day to make the ones that we loved all at once and put them in our freezer to prepare for the next busy time.

A few other things I try to include are, one meal cooked in the slow cooker, one totally in season meal (this will feel increasingly important in the summer and the plan will likely include a lot more seasonal meals a week), one meal from the millions of cookbooks I have and rarely find the time to browse through, and one type of bread in the bread maker we have "fostered" from our friends Loukia and Roy. Making bread is really exciting to me right now, so I am trying to make time for one loaf of bread a week.

With that in mind, here is this week's plan. I will do my best to link up to recipes or include some of our own in case you want to try any yourself.

#MondayMealPlan

Sunday - Better Than The Freezer Aisle: Copycat Tyson Anytizers Honey BBQ Buffalo Wings - We made these yesterday and they turned out so good! We bought a combination of winglets and drumettes and used Bulls Eye Guinness Barbecue Sauce instead of the honey barbecue suggested in the recipe, because I am not a huge fan of honey barbecue, or anything sweet and savoury at the same time really... except for kettle corn, and salted caramel, and salt in chocolate... ok, its fine in a dessert, but not in my supper. Just like pineapples on my pizza. Pineapple on its own? Fine. Next to my ham and (fake) cheese, no thank you. We wanted any easy Sunday meal, so we cheated and bought a bag of pre cut dipping veggies and added some celery. I've been studying my ass off lately (I'll get to that another time, I promise), so Rob humoured me and made the cashew sour cream and cashew cream I've been meaning to try (the cashews have been soaked in water for weeks!) and added some pre packaged dip spices to eat for the veggies. We haven't figured out the cashew thing yet, but its the best alternative to no dairy yet, and the dip was really good, just not the right consistency. If you have any tips please let me know! We will be using the cashew cream later this week, so I'll let you know how it goes.

Cashew Sour Cream

The wings were excellent. Rob even thought they were better than any of the wings at his old Saskatchewan wing haunts. This one is definitely going on our freezer list.
* Courtesy of Once A Month Meals

Monday - Leftover wings, Baked Potatoes with Faux Sour Cream and a Side of Corn - Rob cooks on Monday nights and I go to yoga with Loukia. It usually means I snack first and we eat late. This is probably a bit too heavy for a late night dinner, but it is an easy way to eat when I get home.


Tuesday - Pork Chops with Mushroom Miso Sauce - This is a seasonal pick. Even though we can barbecue year round here, its nice to celebrate spring by planning a night to barbecue, and the shiitake mushrooms at the grocery store look amazing. We still have some pork chops left from our summer meat subscription and I will make a side of broccoli stir fried in garlic and earth balance (vegan butter). Technically we should have still had broccoli in season in our garden, but the abnormal dips below freezing here this winter took their toll on my poor winter broccoli. We had to buy bunches from the store. This is what the cashew cream will be used for.


Wednesday - Chicken Agrodolce - Rob picked this from our fanciest slow cooker book. Whenever I leave Rob to pick the recipe he always picks the fanciest and then is the first t grip about the grocery bill ;) ... But I love that he keeps us on our toes in the kitchen.

Thursday - Leftover Night - By Thursday we should have accumulated enough leftovers that we can take it easy in the kitchen.

Friday - Pizza! - Rob's pick again, he had it written before I could even suggest anything else. We will try out pizza dough in the bread maker for the first time, and bought a mix of italian meats. We have discovered a pizza with enough flavour in the sauce and meat doesn't even need the cheese. But I guess the italians knew this all along.

Saturday - Anything Goes! - We like to leave at least one day up to chance and are finding Saturday is good for this. We don't always know what our weekend looks like and this gives us a chance to use up whatever food that has accumulated during the week.

I realize I haven't left you any recipes, but I will try to get better at expanding on that in the future. If there are any here from this week you would like to see right away, let me know in the comments section and I will make sure to post the recipe and the finished results!

Phew, maybe I will have more time to add recipes if I don't have to recap months of my life everytime I show up ;)

So stay tuned for next week's Meal Plan. And who knows, maybe even more than that.

January Cure and more more more

Two things I am about to embark on for January I hope will make my presence here rise.
I promise not to try to be perfect at any of them. When I try to perfect at things they don't get finished, or written about. This year I am going to try to learn how to be a better work in progress. That is my one resolution, and to let what may come of that come.

There are other things that make me feel better about taking this time to be a work in progress. I will get to them in more detail in time, but the highlights are...

I am taking some time away from work, not all of my time, but enough.

In this time I will be taking two classes from Grant MacEwan's Arts and Cultural Administration program. Last semester I took one; Accounting. I was very happy with how it went and I am really looking forward to having the time this semester to really focus on continuing my education. Last semester when I was totally overwhelmed with the learning curve of my new job and coming home to finish work or study every night, my counsellor recommended I look at this program and work as a Master's Program, with an end date and a finite goal. That has helped a lot.

This semester I will be taking Business Computing and Human Resource Management. Two things I am really excited to know more about.

But the things that I hope will bring me here blogging more are two challenges, one for the year and one for the month.

Grateful For: This little girl, who is my whole world.

For the year I plan on undertaking a #365Gratefuls project. When I took my job at SKAM, I promised myself I would not become the full time theatre person that lost perspective and hated what I do. I promised to remain grateful for all that I have. But I haven't. I grumble and I complain. I stay home instead of seeing theatre. I don't cherish my time with Rob like I used to and I curse our big house and the work it takes. So this year, every day I will have to identify something I am grateful for and take a photo. I will post them to Instagram daily (or at least catch up quickly if I miss a day) and here when I get to it. I am looking forward to looking at the things in my life with grateful eyes again.

For the month of January I am going to finally participate in the January cure from Apartment Therapy. I have meant to join for the last few years but always get around to it to late. And my nomadic lifestyle stopped me from caring to make anywhere a real home for a while.

I will post more about this later today or this weekend, but Rob and I have whittled down our list of projects for the house and its making me really look forward to getting started. I love that this weekend's assignment is to buy flowers. I marvel at how fresh flowers seem to always be in season

Grateful For: Time in my beautiful home.

here and that there are flowers at every corner store, but I never stop to buy any. It will be very nice to clean up the dining room and put flowers on the table before having Rob's family over for dinner tomorrow night.

And company tonight as well! I am going to try my hand at making fancy Italian Stuffed Pork Tenderloin for Rob's birthday and his friend Ryan is coming over to celebrate. Nothing like eating what other people tell you to eat for two and a half weeks to make you really appreciate cooking in your own kitchen again :)

I also might attempt to join a 2nd Book Club. If any of you are also following Annie, you know that I am part of a Ladies Book Club in Victoria and I love it. It has been the first group of people I have found here that feel like the right fit for me and I love love love our Book Club nights that are now expanding into movie nights, board game nights and other social ventures. But I also know that I am capable of reading more than one book a month and would like to challenge myself more this year. I have started my new Goodreads Challenge for the year. Last year I challenged myself to 14 book and read 16, so this year I hope to read 18. So I plan to read along with A Beautiful Mess , who are my favourite bloggers. Their first pick looks right up my alley. I also hope to read all five Canada Reads contenders this year before the debate in March. Last year I almost got them all read, but after the fact. I have had Maddaddam on my shelf for months now, and I am excited to re read the first two books in the trilogy before reading it, so I'm glad Year of the Flood is one of the contenders!

Whew. May this year be a year of doing things for me.

Party Planning Committee Overload.

This is what I wore today to go out to a Birthday Bash Party Committee meeting at a board member's house.

There are several photos because I was critiquing Rob's unsteady hands.

The t-shirt and the belt are new. It's hard to tell here, but the t-shirt is a sweater like knit.

This is me exasperated with Rob's picture taking skills :) And by that I obviously mean his entire lack of desire to take these pictures. ( he then told me to sit up straight )

Not from the swap, but Rob bought me this necklace and earrings for my birthday and I haven't found a lot of opportunity to wear or show them off yet.

Just a quick little bit of background on the Birthday Bash:

It is our companies biggest fundraiser.

SKAM is 19 years old this year, and every year in January the board throws us a birthday party to raise money for us. The party takes place in the Oddfellows Hall  a grand ol' forgotten about hall in downtown Victoria. With a Billiards room, parlour room, ball room and Oddfellows temple it is an amazing place to throw a party. And the Bash is fun. Or the Bash is supposed to be fun.

Last year's volunteer orientation in the Ballroom.

Party in full swing.

Matthew and I's first portrait. Done in the lovely Pamela Bethel's Luxbooth.

Party clean up.

Since I am committing myself to being more honest and talking about what's overwhelming me... this party overwhelms me.

Now, I love parties. Little get togethers in my house, I get to cook and decorate and take care of everyone all night, no problem, yes please.

150 people showing up to play games, dance their butts off and have a good time. Also, not a problem.

Until I am forced to be responsible for 150 people, the liquor permit, and have to stay to the bitter end making sure drunk people get to where they need to be. All a big big overwhelming problem in Erin land.

Also, this party is a board lead activity with Administrative support, but last year when I was just figuring out what a database looked like or how to open Microsoft Excel, any administrative support was daunting. But one meeting in and I feel a little more in control of it than last year. And this year I should have two paramedics accompanying me (Rob's friend Ryan joined our board of directors). So. Its bound to be way better right?

Also, I now have just the dress.

This is Good Enough

I keep coming on here to say I'll start posting more. Promises, promises, promises... and this time isn't really any different.

Here's the thing though. I may never get around to it. Posting more, I mean.
Because, I'm overwhelmed.
By everything these days.
And I think that is what keeps me from here, in more ways than one.

But largely because instead of using this blog in the way that I used to use a blog, I've done the opposite to myself. I've given it rules.

I moved out here and started this new blog to stay linked to home, in my new life. Somewhere in the distance between here and there I decided that no one should read anything in here but the good. Positive, positive, positive. But not real.

A week or so ago, listening to the CBC we heard an episode of (DNTO I think?) about being good enough, and it was exactly what I have been feeling. I spend so long in a day thinking of what to write in my blog, and what photos I need to go with it, that by the time the list is done of photos that need to be edited, collaged, captioned... after I have already stared at a list that never ends and battled the clock at work... it makes me exhausted. 

And the last thing I want is for this blog to make me feel exhausted. I wanted this place to be a place to tell you that I am exhausted. 

Who reads this anyway? 

The people that want to know what my day looked like right? Did our niece trick or treat at our house? Did I finish the book for book club? What new things have I cooked? And that doesn't mean that I also need to write a review, link to a recipe and collage Halloween pictures to write about it. 

Cause guys. I'm exhausted. 

Its also a thing I've had a hard time writing here because I want to be perfect at this new life. 

The new job, having a house, and creating this grown up life, but I'm not perfect at it. So on top of it exhausting me, I'm exhausted from the strain of never saying I am exhausted. 

I need to stop more at work, and at home to say, "hey guys... I have no idea what I'm doing and its making me so tired."  Because that is why I'm really here right? So you guys can help me sort it out. So I can sort it out by writing it. 

I will write about what book I'm reading. I will write about things I cooked. I really hope to write about my new sewing hobby with my new friend Loukia. 

Because when I can, I love all of these things and I love writing about it. But instead of making it perfect I plan to trust that if you want the recipe, or you are thinking about reading a new book, or you just in general want to know more, you will ask me. And I will be so happy to share! 

One thing I can't wait to share! I went to another Clothing Swap! And this one was with two new friends I have made since moving here. Loukia, who does my hair and nails and her sister Soula who is my new Yoga instructor. Amber came along and it was fun. It was I live here and these are my new friends fun. (I have also made some new friends at my Book Club that I am really excited about too). 

Clothing Swaps are such an amazing renewal on your closet and your spirit without having to spend any money. It was so much fun to have Loukia and Soula tell us stories about the clothes we tried on and to give something someone loved so much a new life. So I hope to wear a new piece of clothing or accessory every day until I run out again and blogging them. I also sort of went to a swap in September that I both haven't blogged about, nor managed to wear everything from. It was held on my birthday and so was SKAM's AGM.

Jenny held it at the Makehouse, just like in the spring and I had stopped by earlier that day. Matthew phoned ahead to tell her it was my birthday, so it was a very nice surprise to be greeted with an enthusiastic Happy Birthday when I walked in the door. I told Jenny I really wanted to come to the swap and she said that since there was always so much left over, I should just drop by at the end of my night and take what I wanted. She had everything packed away real nice and Rob was very bored (Jenny found him ice cream so I could stay longer), but I did manage to go through a couple of bags and take some great pieces of new clothes.

It was after this recent swap that I realized that by not taking the time to integrate these new things into my wardrobe I didn't really appreciate them in September (and as a result haven't wore them because I promptly forgot about them). So, this time I am leaving everything in the bag and wearing them one at a time. 

So. That said. I will try to blog a new outfit every day. It won't be perfect. Somedays it might just be a picture and a note. And, to be honest it might not be every day. The important thing is, I'll try.

I went back to find what I had heard on CBC to link to here. Before I had even started the post. And to be honest, when I couldn't find it, I was going to close my computer and yet again not write this post. I did find this though, which referenced what I think it was that I heard. It is just as apropos.

In Support of Settling

And a new sweater! The best part of this sweater is that it was Amber's, and it didn't actually make it out the door to the swap. ;)

New earrings too!

The jeans are also new from September. 

It felt good to get dressed in all new clothes this morning. 

Isn't it funny that sometimes all it takes to get you excited to get going again is something new to leave the house in?

A SKAMy Summer: The Recap.

And just like that, its fall. The flurry of activity it took to get here, and now we all just sink back into budgets and rain and statistics.

Although today the blue skies and fluffy clouds are trying to convince me it is warm outside, when in fact, today feels like the first clear sky cold crisp day of fall.

A Recap. This summer we currated and produced a festival with 16 performance companies. Rob and I's basement was a revolving door of friends come to stay as artists for Theatre SKAM. That was an overwhelmingly wonderful experience. Before I even had the time to count the money or play the bills from Bike Ride, Marcel was on his way home from our basement to Toronto and Jay was moving in to start rehearsals for Smalltown: A Pickup Musical.

SKAM got a truck. Then SKAM built that truck into a stage and 10 people performed a beautiful little play on the back of it.

We toured that play around parks for four days and then ran it for two weeks over at the Victoria High School, right beside The Belfry Theatre. And we partied.

We partied before the show opened.

We partied because the show opened.

Saskatoon Berry Pie

Rob and I threw a party at our house to wind down the run.

And then we partied when it closed. And the next day everyone went home and it was all over. It felt like summer ended right then and there. Another week went by and SKAM's summer staff went back to school. I took a week off to recover and here we are in a quiet office with the heaters on post CRD Operations Grant trying to sort out the mess that was left behind in the whirlwind.

It doesn't normally look like this, but there is some major storage reconfiguration going on back there.

Please don't call Work Safe. 

Panoramic.

Now if you excuse me, if you need me, I will be under the pile of paper work on my desk.

(I apologize for a lame post that says much of everything I've said before)

But now that life feels routine again, I promise to be back more often

(yeah, yeah.)

Proud.

Monthly Curtain Call

Something I Saw

When I was 13 years old, my mom told me that she was gay. My parents had divorced a couple of years prior and Mom and I were going through a lot of changes together. The biggest changes of all though were attributed to the fact that I was 13 and my world was changing. 

I stole my poor mom's thunder that day when we had an arbitrary fight between teenager and mom and Mom said, "you don't know everything about me, you know" and I retorted, "What? You're gay?" And stormed off to my room leaving my mom's mouth hanging open. 

We laugh about it now, and even then, my world wasn't shattered because my mom was gay, it was because she wasn't letting me do whatever it was I wanted to do.

What I didn't know then (and probably neither did Mom), was what growing up being an ally to the most important woman in my life would mean. 

And it was a struggle for the first years. We lived in a small town, I had struggled in that town a lot with my reputation to begin with, I wasn't athletic and didn't fit in with the cool girls. But I had great friends. Some of which are still great friends today. One of which moved all the way to the west coast to live in our basement suite. So we told a select few and let the rest of the world think what they wanted to think. It was a big moment for me at my high school graduation, when I knew I was getting the hell out of dodge, for my mom to wear a tux and bring her lesbian partner at the time to the ceremony. Nobody pointed, or stared, or even asked (well maybe they did, but I didn't care enough to notice) and then it was just out there. No more whispers and rumours in high school hallways. No going back.

The amazing thing about being the child of a gay parent, especially then, especially when that parent came out late in life, is that you come out too. And you keep coming out, to new friends, co workers and eventually the new family of your partner.

I saw this yesterday: 

And immediately joined the community. The resources that exist now that weren't even a glimmer then for gay families fill me with so much pride and hope.

When I was 18, I was lucky enough to meet two amazing little girls that had to go through it all yet. And I stood by them, we marched in parades, we went to family drag shows. We banded together and when the three of us put on pretty dresses and makeup we joked that 'gay skips a generation'. I remember having a conversation with an old boyfriend about how the youngest would have no father figure to scare of future boyfriends. And then he met Kell, who crawled out from under her pickup truck covered in grease and gave him the firmest handshake he's ever had and he took it all back.

And those two girls, they are in healthy happy heterosexual relationships. So am I. We weren't ruined.

So last year shortly after moving here, when Rob and I went to the Pride Parade as allies, alone, I felt very lost without my big gay family. Rob was lost in general, having never participating in Pride before. Not homophobic in any way, but his world was blown wide open :)

This year, my mom is here, and I am starting to find a big gay Victoria family of my own. I ASM'd the big Drag Show kick off to Pride, Cabergay, and while joking about never ever wanting to Stage Manage drag queens... Stage Managing is what I do and what I can give back, and it felt good to give back. 

But the most amazing Pride I've ever had was taking Mom to Vancouver this year for the their enormous Pride Parade in the Davie Street Village. We met my boys Niko and Adam and in all of my years at Pride, I felt like the Proudest Gay Ally that I've ever been.

Here are some moments from that:

My mom in the village where they were painting the boulevard in chalk rainbows.

Across the street from us were pranksters with water guns spraying the parade as it went by (they sprayed a drill sergeant police officer on his motorbike and got a stern talking to), most of the parade people were prepared and sprayed back. The best though was when the Vancouver FD stopped their truck, screwed on their hose and sprayed them down, creating real rainbows in the street!

BC Ambulance represent.

The best part of the whole parade for me, were the rainbow epaulets on the BCAS shoulders. Rob should be so proud to work for and be leadership in such a foreword thinking EMS community.

This brought tears to my eyes.

Orange Crush

So pretty.

This one is for Anne and Shauna, BC Corrections Officers! Loud and Proud!

My other favourite Pride Float, and also for Anne...

It's a Vancouver curling club!

Niko and Adam's landlord was festive.

Adam surprised us with a Pride candy apple from Rocky Mountain House.

We got to walk across Vancouver's new permanent rainbow crosswalks!

The festival goers.

And my absolutely favourite part of Vancouver, all dressed up for Pride.

I seriously visit these guys every time I can, they make me so unbelievably happy.

Which is actually sort of their purpose.

So you can imagine my squeal of delight when I saw them in their rainbows!

They were protected by a fence this time though, too much traffic with Pride and the International Fireworks competition, so I couldn't run up and give them a hug.

I'll give them an extra big squeeze next time. To thank them, for being so supportive.

First Ever Monthly Curtain Call

To try to keep my blogging up, I plan to post a roundup of the month in the last few days of every month. So here is my very first Monthly Curtain Call!

I'll start it off with Something I Ate!

One afternoon when I had to be downtown for something, I happened to be parked next to one of my very favourite diners in Victoria. QV Cafe & Bakery. There is nothing particularly special about it. It is open 24 hours and it was an old garage.

Which makes it very charming to sit in in summer time with the big garage doors open. It looks out across at China Town, and at night the gates and paper lanterns are lit up. One of my favourite views in the city.

And they have Amazing Enormous desserts.

This one was chocolate mousse for Rob.

And a homemade oreo cookie the size of my face for Max!

And I bought the world's largest cupcake.

Seriously. I had to give half of this way!

If you come to visit, I'll be sure to take you to QV's!

And of course we ate figs.

And more figs

And more figs

Did you eat anything interesting this month? Maybe some fair food or bush pies? Share your favourite food and recipes with me!