eau

Vacation stop in Telegraph harbour

I've more or less been in or around water my whole life. Growing up in BC, my parents had a 26 foot cabin cruiser that we spent most vacations on, cruising from island to island. I guess that's where both my love & respect for the water started. It seems almost natural that from there I got into competitive swimming. I swam for years. & I don't regret a minute of those countless hours I spent swimming back & forth. It seems only natural that from there I went on to swim varsity, which eventually lead to coaching & now teaching swimming lessons as well. It seems I just can't stay away from the water. I'll be the first to admit that most water related activities come much easier to me than those one land - I aced my scuba diving tests despite sleeping through long periods of the class for example. & stick me on a wakeboard & I'll impress you far more than I ever could with it's snowier counterpart. I'm awkward on land, to say the least & anyone who knows me well will undoubtedly agree. I can point out at least 2 bruises from a land related activity on my person right this second, in fact.

Lake Okanagan

Skuba diving in Thailand

So it comes as a bit of a surprise that I've taken up running. I've always been a pretty active person & I do venture away from water sports from time to time to take in a hike or a bike or to eat my way through a city. & I didn't used to be a terrible runner. In fact, I used to be a really strong runner. I'm going to have to blame 10+ years of swimming on my more recent failed running attempts. So when I recently decided I was tired of hitting the pool or the gym every time I wanted to work out, I turned back to running. Don't get me wrong, I do love a good swim but everything about it is time consuming & time isn't something I often have a lot of during the school year. So running was calling my name.

Shuswap Lake

In the past I've never run much more than the occasional 1 or 2km to get warmed up for whatever I was doing next. & I struggled through those short distances. But this spring, I decided to give it an honest shot & started running a few times a week. It was fairly slow & painful & I rarely got in much more than 3km, but it was happening. Then the boyfriend came to visit. Unfortunately for me, the boy is a natural runner. Unfortunately for my poor body, I am an extremely competitive person. Every time we ran this spring, he hopped & jogged along - barely breaking a sweat. Despite the fact that I was running at least twice a week & he rarely ran, I just couldn't keep up. & honestly, I probably still can't. But I have a goal now & between the drive to keep up with him & the sheer boredom of living on my own this summer, I've made a pretty huge improvement. I went from barely being able to make it over 3km (& moving at a snails pace) to running over 5km for the first time last week. & then over 6km a few days later. & today, one of those sticky, disgusting Montréal summer days, I did a whole 7km. & despite the fact that it was 40c & I decided to run uphill for half a km out of the blue at around 3km, I actually made it. So I have to say I'm pretty proud of myself.

Wakeboarding this summer

Maybe by next summer, my tan won't be decorated with black & blue bruises...or at least perhaps not as often....

We talked about feelings :)

I don't get it when guys freak out, I really don't. For the longest time (measured in years), D wasn't ready for me to meet all his "people". And then all of the sudden, in the past month or so, I've finally been able to put faces to names, and he didn't act like it was a big deal. And then when I suggest we have dinner with a friend of mine? He gets all slippery, like, "Oh, you just have fun. Don't worry about me." What the eff? Does he not want to meet my people? Is he just nervous? Does he think that I don't really mean it, or that I just feel obligated to reciprocate? He's so important to me, and I'm dying for everyone to finally get to know him. Why won't he just go with it - why does he have to make it into a thing? Argh.

Opulence

noun
1 the opulence of the room luxuriousness, sumptuousness, lavishness,richness, luxury, luxuriance, splendor, magnificence, grandeur,splendidness; informal plushness, classiness, ritziness, poshness,swankiness. antonym simplicity, restraint.2 a display of opulence wealth, affluence, wealthiness, richness, riches,prosperity, money. antonym poverty.
Last week, I went on a trek of sorts up to the Westmount Lookout. If I only had one word to describe Summit Circle & its surrounding streets, it would be opulence. Once I get to editing the photos I took, I will post them & talk a bit more about my walk, but until then here's a teaser. 
Just North of Westmount Park I ran into another park (the name of which I'm drawing a blank). There were the most gorgeous flowers & I got a few good shots. Here are a few of my favourites. Not sure I even did them justice. 

Photo du jour

I got my hair cut today & I thought I'd share. I took some somewhat decent self portraits with my DSLR yesterday afterwards. My photography teacher always talked about making sure eyes don't look dead - catch light he called it. It took a few attempts, but my massive sliding door proved pretty useful for it.

She blow dried my hair out in loose waves & I so wish I had the skills to ever do it like this myself. I don't even wanna wash my hair because I know that I'll never be able to do it!

Alanna is full of plans & expectations.

The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth

One of my favourite things about summer in Calgary is the Stampede. I didn’t grow up in Calgary so I never found it lame or dorky. It was all new to me when we moved in 1995. Like snow & Chinooks, I fell in love with it.

Part of the draw of the Stampede is how completely ridiculous it is. For 10 days of the year, everyone pretends to be a cowboy. People don boots, jeans & cowboy hats instead of their usual suits to go to the office. There is a higher concentration of plaid than at any other time. & most offices find an excuse to throw a big party & spend the day drinking & socializing instead of actually working.

Arguably, one of the best things during Stampede though is the free pancake breakfasts that pop up in parking lots all over the city. There is one every morning in some community. People volunteer to make pancakes or hand out juice or plates or paint faces or lead ponies around. I’ve worked a few myself & the amount of people that show up is astounding. I guess it shouldn’t really be, seeing as it’s free. There’s usually a band & activities for kids & line dancing.

This year, I told Mom to find us one to go to the Saturday I was back. We headed out to Coventry Hills in our cowboy boots & Stampede gear & joined the masses in line for our free pancakes. Luckily it was a gorgeous day (unlike most of the rest of the summer in Alberta this year) so we enjoyed our pancakes on the curb in the parking lot.

Pancake breakfast is the very best way to start a long day of Stampeding, if you ask me.

deltiology

I don't exactly study them, but I suppose you could say I do collect them. I love Postcards & I have tons from all over the world - some that I've collected from my own travels & some that others have sent me. The back of my door of my room in Calgary is covered with them & I had begun a small collection in my room in my old apartment in Mtl.

This new place, however doesn't really have a bedroom door. & tacking them to my back door is entirely too tacky for my liking so I've come up with a better solution - the ugly glass topped table I have from the old place. It's perfect, especially seeing as I have no table cloth & the paint is peeling and chipping. On top of this, my awesome boyfriend sent me a postcard from pretty much every place he visited, so I have plenty of postcards to cover the whole thing. Ingenious! No?

Do you ever just not know how to feel??