Are You Looking for Balance?

With so much on the go, all of us end up feeling a little unbalanced from time to time. If you’re looking for some tips to help achieve balance in your life, I encourage you to check out Basically Balanced. It’s a blog dedicated to providing tips and tricks to help you achieve a more balance life – and who doesn’t want that? 🙂

Here’s an excerpt:

“The goal of this blog is to show you the steps you can take to establish the balanced life you have wanted! This includes your environment, which is why I will talk a lot about home décor and design as well as the types of people and relationships you surround yourself with. This includes health and fitness, which is why you will see a lot of easy to understand information about developing healthy relationships with food and exercise on my blog. This includes fashion and beauty, because when done in a balanced way these can enhance the way we feel about ourselves and allow us to be creative and express our unique taste. And of course this includes mental health which is why there is an entire section of my blog dedicate to this topic which is where I hope to share information, resources on how to get the help you need, and tools for practicing the strategies that we know work to help us establish balance and overall happiness!  We have to strip away all of the demands, stress, and expectations in our life and really get down to the basics to establish thriving balance. And remember… i’m in it with ya! I am not there yet,  but for now I am ok with being Basically Balanced.”

I feel more balanced already! 🙂

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Blog Report: 2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 17,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

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Blog Stats: 2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 83,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

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I know, I know!

I’ve been super busy lately and have neglected my blog. Yes, I feel terrible. 🙂 Here’s a recap:

My husband and I celebrated our 9 year anniversary earlier this week. I bought Chris 2 things – one has yet to arrive. The 9th anniversary traditional gift is leather and I bought him a bracelet that’s got metal and small leather inserts – it’s very cool-looking and was to replace the last bracelet he had that broke after several years of wearing. I also got him a leather toiletry case which I know he’ll love since we travel regularly. He got me a new office chair to replace the squeaky monstrosity I’m using now – I’ve had it for years… We went out for dinner last night to celebrate and I enjoyed one of the best Italian meals I’ve had in a long time! We went to Trattoria Timone and even though we didn’t have reservations, they were able to find a table for us. I started with one of the best caesar salads I’ve ever had – super garlicky! followed by the jumbo seafood ravioli – truly decadent and really delicious. Shrimp, scallops and lobster wrapped in one massive ravioli in a tasty rosée sauce – perfection. Paired with a yummy Malbec. Tiramisu and a cappuccino for dessert. I blew my whole bank of WW points on that meal but it was worth it! 🙂

Last weekend, family came down to visit from Montreal and we took them to the Badlands – I love this place, I feel like I’m walking on Mars…  My sister-in-law and I did some fall shopping as well and I think I bought out the entire RW & Co store. Ha. Just kidding. But I did stock up on work clothes for fall including 3 skirts, 3 tops, 2 cardis and 2 pairs of pants. I’m all set – except for the elusive hunt of the new handbag for fall. Must find this soon now that the weather is cooling down.

We closed the pool (snif) but we’ll be back in sunny climes soon enough during our cruise in October. Funny story – a rep from the cruise line contacted me asking if we wanted to upgrade our ocean suite to the grand suite for an extra $720. We countered that we’d do it for $300. We’ll see what happens. 🙂

I’ve been hooked on a book series by Jean Auel about caveman times – it’s really a very engrossing story that’s set about 25,000 years ago when both Neanderthals and Cro-magnons lived at the same time. The characters are very interesting and I’m enjoying learning about the way of life back then which mainly focused on survival and finding food, shelter and surviving the elements. I’ve just started book 5 – highly recommend for something a little different. I watched the movie they made of book 1 (The Clan of the Cave Bear) with Darryl Hannah back in the mid-80s but it doesn’t do the book justice.

I think that sums it up.

I feel much better now – you’re all caught up! 🙂

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Postaday2011 – In Review

As many of you know, this year I was participating in the WordPress blogging challenge Postaday2011 which was to post at least once a day.

Although some days I didn’t post anything, I usually made up for it with several posts on subsequent days. Here’s the tally as of December 28th (including this post):

January 2011	32
February 2011	36
March 2011	35
April 2011	31
May 2011	28
June 2011	31
July 2011	27
August 2011	37
September 2011	21
October 2011	22
November 2011	19
December 2011	37
	356

Not bad at all! And yes, I’m going to make sure I hit 365 posts by the end of the year, just for the principle. 🙂

Some other fun facts are:

# of followers:  198 (including WordPress, email and Facebook followers) (wow – Thanks everyone!!!)

Total all-time views to date: 83,594

Average views per day: 177 (lowest avg/day January 59, highest avg/day November 388)

Day with highest # of views: November 27, 2011 with 688 views.

Most visited post: Owls. Weird ass birds. (I suspect it must be people searching for owl photos on Google images).

Second most visited: Home page

My Christmas-related posts are quite popular too.

 

 

 

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LCBO Contest Gift Basket Arrived!

Remember this post about the LCBO (the Liquor Control Board of Ontario) hosting a contest for bloggers who love Ontario wine? Well, yours truly won an honourable mention which consists of a $200 gift basket – and it arrived yesterday! I had it shipped to the office to avoid missing the delivery if they passed by the house and no one was there. It was a voluminous gift basket filled with fabulous loot, perfect to enjoy with a bottle of wine. I had to take it apart and bring pieces home separately. 🙂

The base of the gift basket was the bowl, which was seated on a serving tray (still at the office). It came filled with 2 tea towels, a package of cocktail napkins, a really nice glass wine bottle topper, a small olivewood cheese board, a white serving dish for antipasto/spreads, 4 plastic wine glasses (also still at the office), and the following goodies: lemon & fennel olives, mushroom with artichokes antipasto, current in the rye crackers and procini mushroom & white truffle oil bread dipper.

SO AWESOME!

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Winner

Remember this post about the LCBO (the Liquor control Board of Ontario) hosting a contest for bloggers who love Ontario wine? Well, yours truly won an honourable mention which consists of a $200 gift basket!

I’m stoked! 🙂

Thanks everyone who voted for me!

I’ll post a pic of my prize when I receive it – stay tuned!

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