I've been here for just over 2 months now. Sometimes it seems like I just got off the plane, and sometimes it seems like I've been here for ages. Maybe that's because the second coming of Christ is moving quicker than the average grocery line.

I digress.

After the newness wore off and I got more settled, I started to notice certain things missing...or, not where they're supposed to be. My good friend Shannen fits into this category.

I met Shan not long after I moved to Ottawa and we've been friends ever since. I've had the privilege of seeing her fall in love, get engaged and then married, and most recently become an absolutely amazing mom to Jaia.

For a lot of this time, we've also been MSN buddies. Day after day, week after week, we'd keep each other company during mundane work days, discussing topics infinitely more interesting than anything we were being paid to think about at the time. Every day, at some point, we'd catch up quickly online. Sometimes just a hello, most of the time substantially more than that. Even though I didn't actually see her as much as I would have liked to, I talked to her more than most of my other friends. Including my co-workers. Actually, she kind of was one, in that nine to five kind of way.

During the period we refer to as "the gray area", where Kurt and I were essentially homeless and not sure whether we were coming or going, Shan and I managed to squeeze in some pho at phive, followed by snacks and embarassing TV, with some Jaia time. We thought it would be a one-time thing, but as the Rock continued to make paper airplanes out of my work permit, we ended up with a whole bunch of extra nights to hang out. It was awesome. I was reminded (not that I needed to be) of what a great friend she is, and how much I wished we had started our weekly dates sooner. Pho at phive....peanut butter pie...whatever. Just more time.

Now, thousands of kilometres and a segment of ocean away, I miss her. My work computer is not MSN-equipped (it does, however, have Lotus Notes) and my internet connection at home is shoddy to say the least. At least I have her blog to keep me updated and give me my daily dose of Jaia, but it's still not the same.

I hope you have an amazing birthday, Shan. A virtual piece of scandalously good pie and a frosty drink (with an umbrella) is on its way to you, courtesy of moi. Wish I were there to share a real one with you.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! I hope it's as fun as this:

Ah...tricky.

Not because I'm predisposed to gorging myself on cake products and fries. In fact, I'm not a fan of cake, generally, and I will never order fries as my side dish unless suffering from a hangover of substantial proportions, in which case nothing but fries will do. Generally, I make healthy food choices. However, when my routine is off by a millisecond or I'm going through any sort of change whatsoever, I'm far too easily tempted to make the wrong ones.

The holidays are a time of excess...excess food, excess drink, excess usage of credit cards, excess family, etc. With the lack of family (andthe current lack of plastic...bye bye credit cards), we only managed to keep the excess food holiday rules alive. We did OK...but I'm anxious to clean out the kitchen and stock it back up with healthy munchables. Unfortunately, this is pretty difficult to do in a place where everything is imported and everything imported is expensive. All fresh fruits and vegetables, of course, fall into this category. So, it becomes a budgeting issue...cut back on something else to afford the fresh stuff. Having lived my entire life in a country where it was never an issue to find an eggplant, and an eggplant rarely cost morethan $3 or $4 dollars, this is tough to get my head around. I'm still aghast that people pay $1 for an apple. AN apple. Like...one.

Since the word 'diet' seems to cause Kurt to go spontaneously deaf, we're just "changing" things. Again. Wholegrain everything. Delicious brown rice. No red meat...actually, very little meat at all. More fish. No processed sugar, except for the occasional square of dark chocolate. Soy this, tofu that...if I can sneak it in without him noticing. Very limited dairy...none at all if I can establish a reliable source for soy yogurt. And somehow, I have to find a way to fill in the gaps with more fresh fruit and veggies...while still finding a way to pay our electricity bill. The needle on the scale has definitely crept downwards since our arrival here, at least there is some motivation to keep going.

AND...handy diet tip...watching an episode of 'Ramsay's KitchenNightmares' during dinner is a great way to curb your appetite. Seeing what he scrapes out of those disgusting kitchens (with his bare hands,no less) has caused me to put down my fork more than once.

So...remainder of the summer stress pounds...be gone. I'm so over you. And so are my pants.

I have always been a reader. When I was a kid, I was a certified bedtime abuser. In that, though I did have an actual bedtime when I was told to turn off my lights and go to sleep, I became a seasoned expert on determining the likelihood that my parents would check on me after that point and, if the coast was deemed clear, would find a way to read for hours past the point where I was supposed to be asleep. I guess I was also kind of a night owl. Looking back, and considering how much sleep I seem to require now to get through the day with any pretense of being alert, it's quite amazing how little sleep I functioned on as a kid.

Even from the early days of enjoying the grammatically incorrect Go Dog Go* (clearly translated directly from Japanese, and quite obviously not by someone who spoke English), I always loved books. The first "chapter book" I ever read, with Mom's help, was Charlotte's Web, followed closely by Little House in the Big Woods. After that, I was hooked. I found books at garage sales, the local library (though I was terrible at remembering to return them), under the Christmas tree or wrapped up for my birthday. I had a huge floor-to ceiling bookshelf in my bedroom, where I carefully sorted them not by author or subject, but by how much I liked them. If I was going to read it again, it went to the top shelf. The ones I would use as trading material with my sister (though I did have a winning sales pitch) went to the bottom. They moved houses with me, went on trips, got lost and then found, and took me on adventures I still think about, from time to time. I loved them...and still do.

Throughout my teenage years, the late-night reading was swapped for late-night phone calls and my books, so treasured in previous years, remained for the most part on the shelf. I bought the odd one here or there for a trip, and used them as excuses when I didn't feel like doing homework, but it became much less of a valued way to spend my time. When teenage drama gave way to the harsh reality of textbooks which cost more than the course I'd purchased them for, all of the allure of reading was lost to me. After spending hours studying, highlighting, reading, and then re-reading (because so much of my first degree made absolutely zero sense), the idea of picking up a book at the end of the day could not be more unappealing. Drinking was obviously a much better use of that time. Or sleeping, for that matter.

Now, two years out of university, I've started to miss my books. I've spend a lot of time collecting cookbooks, but real, actual, sit-down-and-read-me books had completely fallen off the radar until very recently. It's not that I haven't read anything at all over the past few years, but most of the reading I've done hasn't been fiction. I love fiction. So, in an effort to get back to being that sneaky book-loving kid of the past, I've made my second New Year's resolution for 2008 (the first being my budgeting/saving goals). I'm going to read at least one book each month for the entire year.

This doesn't sound hard. In fact, it sounds ridiculously easy, but I know that things come up and because I know I will quit my resolution at the smallest sign of failing, I made failing virtually impossible.

In order to kickstart my resolution, and to inspire me, I have stocked my bookshelf with a selection of books that I have always meant to read, but never got around to for whatever reason. I figure that at my age I should have read at least a few of the classics, so I'm starting with those. I finished my first book, Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility, tonight (which was obviously started in 2007, so I won't be cheating and counting it as my January book) and it felt great. It helped that it happened to be a great book. Next up is Lolita.

It feels good to be reading again. Instead of spending the hours between dinner and bed mindlessly surfing the internet, maybe I'm actually doing something good for my brain. I've even lured Kurt into the reading world by putting a copy of 1984 in his stocking. We'll see how it goes. Nerdy sidebar thingie will keep me accountable.

Happy New Year everyone...stay tuned for Resolution #3.

*Shockingly, Go Dog Go was featured on the "Most Recommended" shelf at a certain big box book store last year. I almost choked on my certain brand name caffeinated beverage when I saw it, but was secretly glad that generations of children continue to put their parents through the agony of "Do you like my hat? No, I do not like your hat. Good-by. Good-by." Yes, spelling error intentional. It is a classic. It has even been shortened into board-book format, for convenience, though the condensed version unfortunately skips all mention of hats.

It's no secret that money, and the desire for more of it, provided a major shove for this move. I wasn't prepared for the amazing change in lifestlye that we experienced (conveniently timing our move to skip winter entirely...woo hoo!), but it's not like our lifestyle now includes the fabulous parties, Jimmy Choo pumps and designer handbags that we were lacking in Ottawa. Those things still...lack. Well, save one favorite handbag, perhaps. It does now include a fun ferry ride to work, sunny lunchbreaks spent wandering around downtown, and weekend swims in the ocean. Still, that original plan focused around our finances has been lurking around in the background of all of the fun, and now, with 2008 looming over us and me on a limited work permit, it's become time to buckle down and deal with it.

I am a spender. When I have money in my wallet, it's not there for very long. And, while the maturity that I've gained (??) in the past few years has encouraged me to be smarter about my spending, I think that the internal spender in me tends to rear her slightly-less-attractive head when opportunity arises. And...it has arisen. And...it's time to corral her to a budget, once again.

Since we arrived, we have spent a lot of money. It's expensive to set yourself up in a new place with only a limited amount of the complete household you once had. We needed first and last month's rent for our apartment, which, though cheap by local standards, would be a ridiculous amount to spend on rent anywhere else. Except maybe Monaco or perhaps downtown London. This is the most expensive country in the world...there is not much we can do about that. Still, it was unfurnished...we needed a car...and a scooter...and the actual move itself, including shipping and 25% duty fees on everything we own, took a toll. And after all that, we needed to eat. In the past two months, we have spent more money than in the past year back in Ottawa. Not all of it was necessary.

Last year...or maybe the year before...we inflicted upon ourselves a fairly serious spending budget, compartmentalized for our lifestyle and with the intention of saving for a big trip. While we did buy ourselves a very lovely roof and contribute towards our trip to Mexico, we were simply unable to save anything. While we were excellent at sticking to the jar system, we have yet to go on a big trip and did require some financial assistance even to make this move. Not a huge deal, debt-wise, when I think about some of the conversations I've had with friends in similar boats. I've never felt like we were in any kind of trouble and I know that we have made a lot of very smart decisions when it came to what to do and how to deal with our money. But then, on the other hand, I did not need to spend $28.00 on a vegan cookbook yesterday. Or $16 on Chrismas candles the day before (since Christmas is officially dunzo and a peppermint candle will not have the same appeal in February), so it's become clear that we need to get ourselves (me) back on a budget.

In the past week, I did a tally of everything we owe (minus the mortgage, which someone else is now paying for us) and with our new salaries and a strict plan, my goal is to have everything paid off by July 1, 2008. This is an aggressive goal, but not an unattainable one, in my belief. I have not been without some form of personal debt (read: Visa) since I got my first credit card when I was 19 years old. I can't even imagine what debt-free will feel like. I have consolidated as much as possible and we're ready to go. Our main focus in coming here was to put ourselves in a good position to purchase a second home and open doorways for our future, financially. We have every possible reason to be able to do this successfully, so I'm putting this out there here, now, with the hopes that such a personal declaration will make me more accountable to it. I don't want to turn this into a strictly PF (personal finance) blog, but I will be updating on the situation from time to time. In the same way that I log all of my runs online to be able to enjoy the geeky monthly running total graphics, I want to be able to track our progress on this...our top priority.

So, blog friends (both virtual and not), wish me (us) luck. It's going to mean a lot of cutting back, but it's also going to mean that we get an opportunity to enjoy our new surroundings without spending money unnecessarily. I have no lululemon around to tempt me (though I still got my fix, thanks to my sympathetic mother), no Starbucks to eat up at least $10/week...nada. I do foresee more spending on books, since they are great for the beach AND the occasional afternoon indoors, but I figure I can write those expenses off as brain function enhancement. Plus, my current book - an 8-in-one compilation of Jane Austen's books - cost $20 and will last for months. This defines cheap entertainment.

I may put some snazzy debt tracker things on the sidebar, if I can figure them out, and have already started reading up on dedicated PF blogs for tips. I've found a few great ones already that I'm going to link to and blog about in a future post to pass their wisdom along.

Black Swede on a Budget.

P.S. Only JUST realized that my blog initials are B.S. Hopefully not applicable to the above goal.

My blog even bores me lately. It's been a bit hard to find the time (or an internet connection strong enough) to blog over the past few weeks, but I'm determined to rediscover my inner blogger. I think she's still entranced with turquoise ocean views and beeping frogs.

We're finally, FINALLY furnishing our apartment properly. We bought two enormous chocolate-brown couches yesterday, which are being delivered on Monday, and we found a funky coffee table, so now we will be able to stretch out and enjoy downloaded TV in supreme comfort. One of said couches happens to be a queen-sized sofabed...since we've never found ourselves to be more popular than since we moved to Bermuda. People who we couldn't even entice to our Ottawa home with free beer are going to be showing up...and we're excited. This is a great place to be a visitor because you can, literally, experience the entire country in a week. Actually, you can literally see the whole country in under two hours, but there's plenty to do as well. It's going to be fun to show people around and take them fish watching.

The remainder of our stuff has made its way here and is waiting for us at the local airport. The pick-up times are conveniently 9-4, Monday to Friday. This is just perfect when you work 9-5. One of us (Kurt) is taking tomorrow morning off to haul it from one end of the island to the other, where we live, and tomorrow night is going to be like Christmas. I'm almost tempted to save the boxes for Christmas morning, since I really don't remember what's in them. It was so long ago that I packed them, and I was pretty much the living dead when I did, so what's in them is anyone's guess. I know one of them is the rest of my clothes. I honestly don't recall packing the rest of Kurt's clothes. Don't tell Kurt. My memory foam pillow is definitely in one of them as well, which is pretty exciting for me. I love that thing. I wish my iPod docking station had made it in, but I have a sneaking suspicion that in my haze I packed it away, classifying it with the "unnecessary" items. It is, of course, completely necessary.

Besides that, it's pretty much business as usual down/over here. It's HOT though...22/23 degrees every day and we went swimming in the ocean on Sunday, which was nothing short of fantastic. The water is amazing...no weeds, no rocks...just white sand and clear, blue water. We're planning out our Christmas shopping right now, which is fun, but difficult when you only get paid once a month. You feel like you have all this money available to you, which technically you do, but it's easy to forget that there's not another paycheque coming until mid-January and that between now and then, we need to eat. And pay rent. Quite the switch from how things were for us in Canada. Still, a (careful) Christmas shop is happening later this week, along with my office's Christmas "cocktail reception", another corporate shopping night and...my birthday. Which I forget about continuously because I've never been this warm this close to my birthday. I'm turning 26 this year. Unless someone can convince me that 27 is actually still in my "mid-twenties", in which case I'll succumb to the truth.

I'm long overdue for one of these.

It's now been a month since I moved and that month was full of new places, new food and new things. Some have been great. Others have been just OK. Some were terrible. However, in the spirit of consumerism and my current obsession with online shopping (which never actually results in a sale, since 99% of places won't ship here, but I have loaded virtual carts everywhere!), here is my current list of faves.

1. The "have-it-built-by-a-professional" lunch salad bar. I'll blog about this separately, but I am loooooving the chicken, asparagus, sundried tomato, avocado and feta combo, with balsamic dressing on the side. It's like discovering salad all over again.

2. Perfume. I'm not really a big perfume person - mostly because I'm always afraid of being "that person" who overdoes it. Even one spray in an inconspicuous place can cause major discomfort for someone else, and since I've been that uncomfortable person many times, I'm pretty conscious of pungent perfumes. That being said, I'm actually allergic to a lot of perfumes (like, anything made by GAP, which is unfortunate when you're a teenager and the GAP perfume is the only stuff you can afford), but every once in awhile, I come across a few that are awesome and don't leave me with a splitting headache. This normally happens around this time of year, when most department stores are shoving beautifully packaged gift sets at you, which for me, has resulted in more than one purchase of a perfume that I actually hated. Like the 'L'interdit' episode of 2002. Yikes. This year, I am fortunate to live in a place that sells high-end beauty products at surprisingly low-end prices, so I've started shopping around again for a new bottle to sit next to my Jean Paul Gaultier 'Classique'. My top picks:

Vera Wang - 'Princess'

Escada - 'Island Heat'

and...perhaps surprisingly, perhaps not...

'With Love' by Hilary Duff.

The Duffster has actually rolled out something pretty sweet. Maybe I was biased given that it shares its name with her catchy little tune (however overplayed), but I was impressed. I do enjoy the occasional stuff by Duff.

3. TV via the internet. I'm totally caught up on the Hills and don't actually own a TV. How great is this?

4. 'The Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook' by Tosca Reno, which was recommended to me by Laila when I was home in October. Full of great, easy, healthy recipes. We have been enjoying her recipe for baked oatmeal for a month now...you can change up the ingredients and make it differently everytime.

5. Facebook. Ever heard of it? After two months of waiting to get on a plane and living like a nomad, and probably because I chose to wait out the remainder at home, somehow I ran out of time to say all of my Ottawa goodbyes. Thanks to Facebook, I've been able to say virtual goodbyes and keep people updated on everything with minimal effort. Not to sound lazy or anything, but I do admit that it's made everything just a little bit easier.

6. December NOT in Ottawa. Seriously. I would highly recommend this product to anyone. After 5 complete winters in my nation's capital, I was feeling pretty seasoned to the whole ordeal. Until I went for a walk this morning at 6:30 a.m. wearing only a light shirt. And then got to work to find an email from EXH in Ottawa about some further 30 cm of expected snow, expected to fall on top of the existing 30 cm of snow. As much as I miss how pretty snow looks with Christmas lights, I really don't miss one flake of it.

7. 30 Rock. I've been a longtime Tina Fey fan, so it's not a big surprise that I love this show. Hilarious and so smart.

8. Home-made salsa. Armed with a can of diced tomatoes, a small can of pineapple, some chipotle chiles, part of an onion and some Epicure salsa mix, Kurt mixed up the most amazing salsa last weekend. We've been eating it on everything...pita, chips, chicken, a spoon...it's seriously delicious. He's under strict instruction to ensure that there is a container of it in the fridge at all times.

9. Fish-watching. This may sound like a downright retarded way to pass time, but scarily enough, we're getting into it. It is amazing at how much time Kurt and I can kill watching fish. It's like birdwatching, but instead of looking up, you're looking down. There is some great fish action off the various docks and wharves around our place, so often on our morning walks we will stop and check out what is going on below the surface. It's amazing to watch fish interact, who eats who, which ones swim how fast and wonder why certain fish seem to always be alone. I'm seriously thisclose to picking up some sort of regional fish book so that we can identify our scaley friends. Is that weird?

10. A good loofah. A good loofah, in my experience, is hard to come by. Either they are far too stiff and scratch the hell out of yourskin, or the bristles fall out constantly. In fact, I was completely turned off of loofahs until a new friend pointed out a brand that she'd tried and loved. So, I tried it. And I loved it. I haven't gotten into the whole dry-brushing thing though...I'll save that for another UPE (or the UPE vice, the Unsolicited Product Critique - these are always bad).