The end of an era

After years of renewing aozora.ca I finally decided to pull the plug and let go of the domain. I don't know why it was so hard for me to save $50 a year and not renew the registration of the URL, but somehow I couldn't let go.

Seeing that my last post was almost 1.5 years ago, I think it's time!

If you are reading this and want to keep up with some of the stuff that I'm doing, you can find me here!

In February this year, we would have celebrated 11 years of intermittent blogging. That's over a decade! The internet has changed so much since then. Thanks for the ride!

clear night and shooting stars... aozora tomorrow.

new york!

Back in August, Andre and I took a whirlwind trip down to New York and thanks to Alana and Jake, we had a wonderful place to stay in the heart of Chelsea!!



Right after landing, we walked out to Pier 45 on the Hudson River Trail to check out the Kusama Yayoi installation which is part of her retrospective put on by the Whitney.

... and then we walked around everywhere!



Checked out a bike shop that was born the same year as we were!



And encountered lots of NYC doggie stuff. Which were all mostly happy ...









... but some were down right depressing.





That's an OCD puppy that isn't getting enough mental stimulation (let alone socialization) incessantly licking the exposed wooden board. Yuck!


Day 2 had us walking the High Line which is beautiful and gives you an interesting perspective of Manhanttan. The one downside is because you are high up, there is no shade and the sun really beats down on you.

Then we headed over to the east side to meet up with Andre's doggie teacher colleagues where I got to hang out with little Amos! Here he is working on a dog puzzle.



We used Alana & Jake's Met membership and ducked into the museum to escape the rain for the afternoon. It was here that I realized that I've been to the Met more than I've been to the AGO. I better do something to change this.

Then that evening Alana & Jake took us out Williamsburg to check out the Brooklyn Bowl. An all-in-one entertainment place, where you can eat, bowl and listen to live music. We gorged on yummy fried chicken and southern style sides like rice and beans, collard greens and slaw.

We checked out a battle of the brass bands for a bit at the concert area, but didn't stay too late because it was a work night.



Despite being extremely full, we couldn't resist trying gourmet ice cream from none other than a food truck!

Then, Day 3 was the biggest highlight of the trip for me. We biked around Manhattan and Brooklyn. A dream come true!





You can read more about my NYC biking adventure over on the Cupcake Ride blog.

What a short but intense and super fun trip - it was just what we needed!!

Coming from Vancouver where the streets get lined with pink cherry blossoms every spring, it was kind of a depressing shock to find that there were very few cherry blossoms in Toronto.

... but once you know where to find them, cherry trees aren't that few and far between in this city.

And the city just planted a bunch in Trinity Bellwoods. I can't wait to watch those trees grow over the next few years!

more from the happiness advantage

I'm almost finish the Happiness Advantage audiobook. In the most recent chapters Shawn Achor talks about why will power doesn't work.

• will power takes brain power, making you tired and affecting your performance on other tasks
• instead of using will power to change habits, use the 20 sec rule
• create a 'path of least resistance' to whatever habit forming thing you want to accomplish

There are many more things that are great tidbits to remember, but I guess what I found fascinating about this audiobook is that because Achor is an academic, he uses study after study to prove all his points instead of just relying on personal experience.

Three Good Things
1. Duke and Petey didn't eat ANY garbage on the streets during our evening walk
2. Dosa Mahal for lunch <3
3. Andre's TV spot on eTalk

a new layout for a kind of new year

I finally updated the layout of this blog and while I don't think I'll be posting as much as I used to, I'm hoping the fresh look will encourage me to post a bit more often.

I've recently started listening to The Happiness Advantage. In it, Shawn Achor, positive psychology researcher, outlines 5 things we can to do become happier which in turn will help us be more successful at work. It's interesting because he finds numerous studies to backup all his points.

Some take-aways from the audiobook so far:
• neuroplasticity can allow us to become a glass half full person
• ... which can be accomplished through practice
• happy people live longer
• when you get out of a negative mindset, you start to see opportunities all around you

There is one daily exercise the author recommends which is to think of 3 things that made you happy that day. By doing this, he says that within a week or two you'll start to seek out all the good things in your daily life, notice them more, become happier and start to see opportunities (even out of what may seem like dire situations). So here goes!

Three Good Things

1. Finishing up a big web project
   
2. Having fun fidgeting with Blogspot and my new custom layout by Pugly Pixel (it's a free download!)
   
3. Very cute, pink roses from Andre

I'm about half way through the audiobook and can't wait to finish it.

squamish meet up

Trainer extraordinaire, Katherine and I met on the internet through our love of beagles and working with dogs that have 'issues'. Through our blogs we learned that we (including Andre) were into positive reinforcement training and that we also have dogs that require a bit of extra care.

Last year our schedules didn't mesh, but this year I made sure to contact Katherine well in advance and to ensure I could meet her cute beagles and herself in person!

She took us to some magical places in Squamish that I never even knew existed in my 25 years of living on the west coast.

10 year old Daizy!



Duke was too excited to stay still for even a second for a photo - this shot is a good example of how he was during most of our hike.

Thanks Katherine for sharing your beautiful hiking spots with us! I hope we can do it again soon!!