Weekly Bests 2019.24,25

This is how I’m feeling this week.

What feels like months of burning the candle at both ends, juggling relationships, wedding planning and festivities, networking, my job, work for my women’s advocacy group, and a marathon of job interviews (7 in the span of a month-ish!!) – is all starting to pay off. I landed an incredible job opportunity.

I think the stress and anxiety which has been snowballing for a long time is going to take a little while to melt off – case in point, imposter syndrome immediately kicked in (Why did they choose me?! Am I going to be able to do this?!). I’m going to take a short break to allow myself to do…nothing. Nothing except allow myself to feel joy. I’m a worrier by nature, so this is not easy for me to do.

A few highlights that have been getting me through:

Retail Therapy

Aritzia had their Clientèle sale, and I treated myself. It’s my favourite time to pick up basics for work and putting together simple, stylish looks. My two staple pieces from Aritzia are the Akira blouse and Conan or Cohen pants. I wear them together for a very clean, sleek look (bonus that the pieces are so comfortable to wear!), and they each separately pair well with other tops and bottoms. I also invested in another Kahlo jacket, which is a beautiful drapey trench. I have it in black and it’s so easy to throw on top of jeans and a shirt to make the outfit look more polished. I picked it up in this gorgeous white snakeprint! Dreaming of all the new looks I’ll be wearing this summer….

Date Night with My Mom

My mom picked me up from work one day a couple of weeks ago, and we spontaneously decided to go to the beach for dinner and a boardwalk stroll. The weather was absolutely perfect! We had salmon at the Green Eggplant (a go-to for us in the area, if only for the free dips), and then headed down to the water. High school students were out celebrating the end of exams, there were lots of cute dogs enjoying the sand, and we enjoyed the breeze. Thank you for the lovely date <3

Mid-Week Catch Ups

I say it all the time, but I LOVE my girlfriends and feel so surrounded by support and love. I had a lovely time catching up with one of my friends at Bar Reyna recently. Good food, wine, and conversation! What more do you need in life? We even had good entertainment provided by the couple sitting next to us who engaged in aggressive PDA, including the woman picking food out of her beau’s teeth. Delightful. 😀

Bar Reyna is gorgeous, and they have a nice little happy hour menu that I’ll be sure to revisit. Their French fries are more like hickory sticks (you know when they are super short and really skinny?), which I’m not the biggest fan of, but everything was big on flavour and presentation.

Cocktails at the Shangri – La

I met up with another girlfriend for bougie cocktails, fries, and catching up in the lobby lounge at the Shangri-La recently. We chose that spot because the pianist that will be playing at my wedding was performing, and it was a lovely way to meet him and hear his set list 🙂

I highly recommend the cocktails at the Shangri-La! Pricey? Yes. But the wonderful service and atmosphere made it well worth it. I think we’ll be trying their afternoon tea next time!

Monster Jam

For our June outing, my bestie came up with the brilliant idea of going to MONSTER JAM. What is Monster Jam? For the uninitiated, this larger-than-life event is not a costume party (as I had assumed for a brief second), it is in fact a monster truck rally smack dab in the city centre. Monster trucks dubbed “Grave Digger” and “El Toro Loco”, along with their drivers, perform insane tricks and races for a crowd of kids eating hot dogs. And us 😀

It was so much fun, and SO LOUD!! I was cheering for the lady drivers, natch.

Peonies in Bloom

My ah-kung (grandpa) grows the most gorgeous, lush peonies in the prettiest shade of pink. I love when they’re in full bloom. I stopped by his house on a walk and sat in the garden to soak them up. They’re here for such a short time, but they make me so happy.

Encouragement

I would not be able to get through the ups and downs of my life without my girlfriends. Whether it’s adorable gestures like the photos above, or one of them literally pulling over to the side of the road in New Zealand to listen and give advice, or responding to texts and sending hilarious memes, I am truly #blessed.

Sweden

A whole post will be dedicated to our recent trip to Sweden that Azim and I went on to see two of our favourite people tie the knot! It was absolutely incredible from start to finish, and the perfect way for me to unplug, get a good break in, and be happy. A few highlights that I’ll be writing about: Swedish wedding speeches, fika, incredible tour guides, latte-papas, and Designtorget. More on all that soon!