Yoga x3

Hit up my third Passport to Prana class.
(Read here for my first post about it).
This one wasn't that great but I've got my yoga math down to...
$12.52 per class (now that I've taken three).
So I'm pretty much loving this Passport to Prana.
A totally reasonable way to practice yoga.

Picture from here

Yoga Math

Pic from here

I first wrote about the Passport to Prana here.
Do you have it in your city?
Here is the current list of cities...

In the USA.
ATLANTA
CHICAGO
DENVER
LOS ANGELES
MIAMI
NEW YORK
PORTLAND
RALEIGH
SAN DIEGO
SAN FRANCISCO
SEATTLE
TAMPA BAY

In Canada
CALGARY
EDMONTON
MONTREAL
OTTAWA
TORONTO
VANCOUVER
VICTORIA

In Australia
BRISBANE

So I went to class number two at Moksha Scarborough.
Bring my yoga math down to $18.79 per class.
Not too shabby because this is the price of one class in the more expensive studios downtown Toronto.  Here's hoping I keep getting that number lower.

Do you passport to prana?

Oh you fancy, huh?

So to prepare for my trip to Dallas (where I am RIGHT now!)
Saturday afternoon to get out of the house between napping and being sick I went with Laurel for a mani/pedi.
And OH I wish I took pictures to show you!

It was a Groupon.

Have y'all tried it?

I have yet to have a great experience with GroupOn.

Maybe I'm a snob when it comes to getting manicures and pedicures.
And well I certainly appreciated the $4 mani on the streets of Thailand.
There is something to be said of "you get what you pay for".

Looked decent enough...bright and clean.

I remember having a fantastic pedicure by where Taylor lives right now which is sort of the area I actually lived in for 2 out of my 3 years in Dallas.
It was so great.
We both loved how she would take a paintbrush at the end.
Dip it in nail polish remover to outline each toenail.
It made each one look PERFECT!

Or on my trip there in 2008 when Taylor and I went for Pedicures at Nordstrom's!
Or at my mum's place with the massaging chairs and jet tubs to soak my feet.
So this Groupon place it took us three days to get a hold of someone to make an appointment in the first place.

Then they told us they could only do 2 girls at a time.
We assumed it meant they only had to estheticians.
We originally had four of us going...then it was down to three (Laurel, myself and Laurel's sister-in-law-to-be who is also in the wedding party next year).

So that would be great because I would get to meet her.
So they way the receptionist had us schedule it was myself at 3pm and the other girls at 4pm.
I joked around that as long as they don't pull out a bucket with a trashbag in it we were good to go.

I shouldn't have joked.

Not only did they pull out a plastic bucket with a white trash bag in it with some blue cleaning looking solution but the water was cold.
The seat were just two leather armchairs side by side.

From their website...FYI these are NOT pedicure stations.

Pic from their website....their manicure stations.

Laurel didn't believe me when I texted her to give her the heads up.

Then I realize there is only one esthetician.
So when Laurel and her sister-in-law-to-be show up it looks like they will do them one after the other.
So our fun afternoon of getting mani's and pedi's soon was stretched out into an assembly line of let's just slap some crap on get it off.

With only one esthetician it took forever.
When we called we specifically said we wanted to have our services together.
We understood if they only had 2 staff that there would be some stretching out but this quickly became ridiculous.
If they had explained there was just one esthetician it would have been fine.

And it was SO weird because before we began Laurel asked "how many estheticians are working?  Can we get this done at the same time so as not to be here too long".
And the answer was the receptionist (saying "yes I will do at the same time, just give me five minutes") This five minutes turned into 20 so the other esthetician started on Laurel.

Then the receptionist came in and got started.
And we are pretty sure she probably is not a licensed esthetician.
But then started shouting at the other esthetician in another language.
SO then the esthetician starting helping her and it was poor Laurel's sister in law one foot in the bucket with a lady scrubbing kind of one foot in the air with a lady slapping on some kind of exfoliating mix and a lot of shouting.
We were flabbergasted! 

There was zero customer service.
I've never been to a spa that didn't offer a glass of water or anything.
I get it it's a GroupOn but aren't you trying to turn these clients into regular repeat clients???
The GroupOn was $29+tax for a Shellac Mani & Pedi.
But this service at this place is usually $80+ !

There is NO way I would ever pay $80 to have that experience again.
They were rough, brief and honestly didn't give a crap what they were doing.
As she was doing my hand she didn't even remember to do the final seal coat on one hand.
I had to tell her that she forgot.

Needless to say it was a ridiculous experience and we will not be going back.
Laurel was the first to check out (and yes I was there a full hour before her).
And the lady said "how much tip did you want to leave?"
Laurel said "none, I would like to pay the taxes for the service (GroupOn is prepaid)."

And the lady QUESTIONED her "what do you mean no tip".
Laurel explained, "a tip is for service, there was zero service here we have been here almost 3 hours!"
The lady then screamed in the spa "she gave you NO TIP" to the esthetician while Laurel's sister-in-law and I looked on wide eyed.
It was seriously a terrible experience.

In the end if you want to have an extremely slow service and crappy service.
Go the GroupOn route.
I don't do the mani/pedi thing very often.
I'd rather save up and spend a little extra and enjoy the experience.
For example at the Elmwood Spa (which is one of downtown Toronto's TOP places to go to a Mani/Pedi would cost you $110 which I think is much better spent than the $80 at this place).

I guess in the end it looks the same.
I picked the CND colour Gotcha!
I do love that your nails are completely dry when you are done.
I could comfortably did in my purse etc.
THIS is a HUGE deal for me as I'm terribly impatient and have multiple times ruined a freshly done mani or pedi!

Pic from here.

I think feet are kind of gross so I apologize...but wanted to show you the colour!

Definitely a lot of shine with the Shellac mani!  I'm a french girl all the way :)

But I think in the future I would rather enjoy the full experience.
Have y'all every tried a GroupOn and had it fail miserably?
Do you like the Shellac process/finish?

Because I think I'm YHL or something

Okay I admit it...like a zillion other people I love YoungHouseLove.
I love their style.
That they do things on a budget.
That they are a happy family.
And that they have a dorky sense of humour.

So anywho I always wondered if I could do something like they did.
Turns out I should be less ambitious like replacing knobs on a dresser (like my new one here).

I found these chairs at the Urban Barn Clearence Centre.
Where all damaged and display items from Urban Barn go to perish have handy people buy and refinish/improve.
Handy being they key word.

These guys were this price.
Note the usual price.

I loved the gray colou.

The tufting.

And the fact that they weren't like every other leather bar chair everyone seems to have.

Can you see the chips off the legs?
I figured I could pick up some handy fixing things at the store and try them out on all the scratches.
So I picked this up.

The verdict...
The wax crayons were USELESS do not get these.
The pen was decent...

from far (obvious from this shot).

So I was pretty proud of myself.
Until this happened...

I am so out of my league with this fix.
Sigh.
Poor Val had put her feet up on it and it stapped right off.

So maybe no one will notice if I keep them side by side until I can get them fixed.

And really they will go into storage because I'm moving to a smaller place.
That has no bar.
Maybe I can have my dad fix it.

I'm so not YHL.
I still love what they do but clearly I was too ambitious.

Biting the Apple

So my mum just called me at work.
She said that I needed to get my hair highlighted...I guess she isn't digging the ombre hair colour (I talked about the original conversation in this post here).
I simply said, "well I can't afford it right now"

She sighed deeply (and obviously) and then said
"well I will use a spa gift certificate for you".
I said "I still can't afford it".
She said, "it won't cost you anything"
And the voice in my head said...except your soul...(haha totally kidding).

So I bit...
I made an appointment for beginning of May.
Because I'm a shallow girl and I need to get my hair highlighted.

Thought it might just cost me a lot ...



Pic is the Evil Queen from Enchanted (surprize surprize one of my fav movies).

Weekend Update

I had a surprizingly busy weekend.

Friday
Normal kind of work day and then I made it to Yoga (read here) which was much better than Thursday's experience (read here).
I rushed home after yoga to shower and my cousin Bella and her friend came over to hang out, eat some food and watch a movie.

In true Bella form she showed up an hour late (I think I'm just a perpetually on time (which means 10 minutes early) person.  So sometimes I need to relax and realize that not everyone is like this).
She brought over something called WokBox which is a new Asian takeout place in town.
I'm probably hugely biased from living in Asian but I wasn't crazy about it.
It wasn't exactly cheap either but it was nice that Bella's friend treated us.

So then we opened a bottle of wine and decided to watch Black Swan which I've been anxiously awaiting its release.  Here's the trailer...

And it breaks my heart ot say this but I hated it.

****Warning: Movie Spoilers below.****
I thought it was an awful movie.  It was way way WAY too gratuitous I thought.
When I heard there was a lesbian scene I thought it would be some kissing etc...no it was a full on oral sex scene with an over the shoulder shot looking down.  How was this movie PG-13??? 
Then there was the weirdo mom who was in the room when Natalie Portman is Brooke-ing herself (haha One Tree Hill reference).
The random Winona Ryder stabbing herself in the face with a metal nail file was weird.
The use of MDMA (which from my understanding is a chemical pure form of Ecstasy) just added to all the hallucinagenic times in the movie.
The dancing was good (I just wish there was way more of this).
Overall I was super duper disappointed.  I'm kind of surprised it won all those awards.
I usually love love love Natalie Portman movies (besides Star Wars which I never really cared for the new ones).  But the whole movie she was either crying or on the verge of crying which just got annoying.
Out of everyone I thought Mila Kunis was pretty good.
I don't know it was just a weird weird movie.  So not my fav at all and I think it should have a significantly increased rating (I don't know think this is cool for a 13 year old).
To sum it up she is pretty much a schizophrenic ballerina who hallucinates a lot in discovering her role in Swan Lake (which coincidently is a ballet and cartoon movie I love...see below!!! Do you remember it?).

We were baffled at the whole movie and disappointed.  I had been really excited to see it.  I would have rather found a copy of the 1981 cartoon and watched that.  But before we knew it it was 1am and we were all super tired...they headed home and I headed straight to bed.

Saturday
I woke up fairly early and spun yea!
Then it was spring cleaning time.
There will definiteley be a full post about that...you see it all started off with a rather involved lie which was needed.  I will post about it later.

I didn't go to yoga...but I did have a good excuse I couldn't go to the class because with the spring cleaning everything was on the front lawn and I couldn't leave the house all open with all our stuff (people might mistake it for something else and help themselves to stuff).
So later that night instead I did P90X Kempo with Shelby.
Then we made BBQ asparagus with lemon and beef shishkabobs.
We watched part one of the season finale of Project Runway and then we were so so tired that we had an early night.

Sunday
I woke up early and spun (yea spinning).
Chatted with one of my flatmates from Singapore via skype.
He was all happy because India won the Cricket world cup :)
We talked about me planning a trip to India which I'm dying to go do.
Then I had to leave my place by 10:30am to head to Bella's for her Stella and Dot Party.

She had an awesome spread of cupcakes, squares, veggies, cheese, crackers, wine, sangria, juices and water.  We got it all set up in under an hour and then had a chance to chat.  The lady came to do the jewellery party and set it all up.  The pieces were gorgeous just totally not in my streamlined budget.
My favourite pieces were...



Petra Bracelet $108



The Bracelet is prettier on then just on blank background.

Rachel Necklace $98 (Can be worn single or double strand).

I love love LOVE this jewellry travel case but at $98 it seems overpriced :(

You can be proud of me though I didn't buy anything (and Bella totally didn't care).
I sure was temped though...I just think it is not a "necessity" right now and I need to be all about necessities.

Then I tried to leave for Yoga but Bella and my other cousin Melody wouldn't let me.
In exchange for not going I made Bella promise me a hot yoga first class (she has never been) and a prenatal yoga class (Melody was twelve weeks on Sunday with her first).
So instead we made chicken soft tacos and watched the Apprentice.

It was a great night (besides the hail and snow that pounded down!...it's freaking April no more snow please!)  So that was my full and fun weekend.
Last night sleep wasn't great due to a huge thunderstorm that left my poor dog shivering with fear. 
Before I knew it though it's Monday morning and I'm back at work...back to yoga today too!  (Another mom day so let's hope this one goes better than the first).

Stepping Forward

"Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation." - Brian Tracy

So real quick.
This morning I went to the lawyers to get my applications, pictures etc. notarized so I can begin my career in Canada (yippee again!!)  Another step forward in the right direction for sure.
Yesterday I tried to call Spencer and just left a voicemail...saying "Hey we need to talk to get everything finalized.  I would really like to move forward with everything as soon as possible.  Please call me back when you get a chance."  Because I haven't heard from him since February (read here) and he obviously doesn't give a flying fern that he said he would get back to me on March 10th!  What.a.jerk.

Anyway moving on and back to me...I felt like I was a super savvy saver because the application requires a 2" x 2" photo.  So instead of going to get a random passport photo taken I just used photo paper on my home printer and printed off a picture (instead of paying $16.99 + 13% Tax).  Also I think it is important to have a nice photo for things like memberships, student ID cards, etc because you never know what it may be used for.  For example based on my student ID card photo in Texas I was picked to be photographed for the new campus campaign in my last year (which was so fun and as close to modeling as I will ever get). 

Anywho my usual lawyer wasn't there so his hotter younger associate filled in to get me all "notarized".  He looks at my photo (don't cringe...it totally was one of my individual shots from my engagement photos (but it doesn't look engagment-ey. I like it because my hair/makeup/lighting is pretty freaking awesome!))  And he said, "wow that's certainly not a driver's license photo you look great!"  I blushed and said, "thank you."  As he walked out of the room to grab his notarizing instruments I glanced down at his left hand and yes...totally married but I just took the compliment and cherished it. 

We chatted for a bit after that and he asked me about my career in Canada and if I was just beginning to practice so I gave him the "cover story" (read about that here where I tried it for the first time) and it seemed to go pretty well again.  I think it is a positive enough story anyway.  When I left he said, "welcome home Teagan."  I actually felt pretty good.  How do I judge how good I'm interacting with people?  I totally have a system.  Well you see I have some people that I know that have the BEST interaction skills with others.  You know those incredibly social people who are just amazing and friendly and everyone instantly likes...that is my bestie Taylor.  It is impossible to meet her and not instantly like her and she can get along with anyone.  Well... I felt like Taylor as I was conversing...I felt smart and bubbly and pretty and friendly.  So when I walked out I noticed the sun was shining (albeit on the snowy walkway).  The air is still cold and crisp here but when I looked up to the sky I could feel the warmth from the sun on my face.  I took a deep breath in and smiled ...welcome home indeed.

Pic from: http://www.flash-screen.com/free-wallpaper/uploads/201005/imgs/1274770418_1280x1024_winter-sunshine.jpg