Week of "Awesome"

One of my favourite books is The Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha. After having read it I've come to appreciate the little things even more. Over the past week during an amazing vacation, here are my top "awesome" moments:

1) Jumping into the perfect wave. I love big waves not far from shore. Some are too high with their white caps, and you basically have to dive under them or you'll be swept along their path. But if you're lucky, you get the most perfect high wave, just high enough to barely jump over; your feet lift from the sandy bottom and you just ride over that wave - hopefully without having lost part of your bikini (which yes, happened quite a lot to me). Awesome.

2) Laying your beach towel on the sand and having it actually be comfortable. We were too cheap to rent beach lounge chairs and so we went old school and laid our towels on the sand. We're also very cleaver so we dug little ditches in the sand with headrests and made a "built-it" sand chair so we could lay comfortably and still see the ocean. Awesome.

3) The feeling of a cool/warm shower after a long day on the beach. On day 1 I came back from the room with seashells in my bikini. I seriously don't know how I brought them back with me, but my suit was full of sand and shells. Washing all the sand off and cooling my sun-bronzed skin... awesome.

4) When you're stuck with American change and actually get a chance to get rid of it at a toll booth. Awesome. Equally awesome: knowing I get to go back to my Canadian "monopoly" money and not having to worry about $1, $5, $10 and $20 bills all looking the exact same!

5) Biking 40km along the coast and feeling amazing afterwards. Our muscles may have been super warm and tired (actually I would say that my quads were burning and my butt was so effing sore from the bike seat), but biking along the ocean and coming back with a "runner's high" made it all worth it. Awesome.

6) When your flights are all on time. And they board early. And there is very little turbulance. And the screaming children are sitting nowhere near you. Awesome.

7) Getting upgraded on the plane to a seat with more leg room. Awesome

8) Remembering that you have "Finding Nemo" on your laptop and your plane has power outlets so you can watch your own movie during the flight. Awesome.

9) When you're trying to do a self-portrait photo of you and your boyfriend and someone walking by you just offers to take the photo for you. Thank you to the man at SailFish marina for taking some beautiful pics of us without me having to figure out where my finger needs to be to push the "camera" button... while trying not to cover the lens... and trying to make sure we're both in the shot... Awesome

10) Coming back to the room after a very long day out in the sun to the most incredible pillow-top (king-size) mattress with fluffy pillows!! and because it's so comfy, you have the most amazing sleep ever. Awesome. (Not awesome: getting back home to reality and realzing how terrible your real mattress is. And small. Any mattress is small compared to a King-size one. And my pillows aren't as fluffy...)

11) Going to bed and realizing that you didn't burn out in the sun at all! Yay sunscreen! Double awesome: you actually got an pretty nice tan and actually look like you were on vacation.

12) Finding out that the airport sells gluten-free chocolate chip cookies. And eating that delicious 200-calorie chewy cookie. And it's delicious. Awesome. 

I'm so grateful to have had the chance to go to Florida again this year with my Honey. It was a well-needed break and our next adventure (clinic) starts this week. Back to the real world!

Suck it

There will always be people who come into your life (in some way, shape or form) who doubt you; And will tell you this to your face. They're not necessarily always negative people, but because they aren't capable of accomplishing something, they don't believe you can either.

The sad thing is that some of these "downers" actually have a big enough effect on people. The more you listen to them the more you think huh... maybe I can't do this afterall...

These downers are poison! Seriously. Like a Basilisk.. you have to go Harry Potter on their asses and get them through the head with the sword of Griffindor (figuratively speaking, of course).

We encountered a Basilisk downer yesterday morning before we were about to conquer biking the ocean-side. She was a sales lady for timeshares - your typical pushy rude saleslady. But what made me the most angry wasn't the fact that she made fun of our "lifestyle" of naturopathic medicine by telling us to take the stairs up to the second floor. It was the fact that when we told her we were going to bike from our resort to Jupiter which was a 25 mile or 40 km round-trip, she didn't believe we could do it and then told us to be careful not to die.

Seriously?! What gives people the right to tell me I can't accomplish something? Well, we did that bike ride, we got amazing sushi, we went to Juno beach, swam in the ocean and biked all the way back. So all I have to say to you downer Basilisk is SUCK IT! Not to mention the fact that after we got back, although our bums were very sore from the bike seats, we felt amazing!

Let this be a lesson to you all: if you have a goal (especially a workout goal) and someone doesn't believe you can do it, prove them wrong. Just because they aren't physically, emotionally or mentally able to do something, they have no right to put you down and say that it's impossible. It's only impossible to them.

Looking back I almost feel sorry for her. Knowing that she doesn't have goals like I do... knowing that she doesn't believe she can do something. It's kinda sad. But then I remember how rude she was to my boyfriend, and I'm more than happy to pull Griffindor's sword out on her (again, figuratively speaking).

The day of napping

Well, we made it safely to Florida! Day one of vacation I would call "The day of napping." Traveling all through the night was exhausting (it was 12 hours of driving and flights and stop overs and a shuttle bus). I fell asleep at every chance I got but I know I had some REM sleep debt to pay off. So by the time we finally were able to check in I just fell right on the bed. What was suppose to be a 15-minute power nap turned into a 5 hour sleep... We woke up at 7:30pm and panicked for 2 reasons:

1) We had free drink tickets that expired at 10pm
2) We still had to do grocery shopping... and liquor shopping before sundown. But apparently in the USA you can do both in the same store. So bizarre.

So by the time we were done shopping it was already dark outside... and waited 30 minutes for a cab that never showed up. I was shocked that a few people actually offered to drive us home. One of which we actually took up on the offer.

Now I know what you're thinking... You're not suppose to go with strangers. And you're right. But I felt okay with the decision for a few reasons:

1) My boyfriend is a ninja... like seriously.
2) The sun was long gone and there was no way we were going to walk back.
3) This lady was hilarious... She didn't exactly know how to work the lights/high beams on her car... she was yelling at her husband in Spanish out the window - while he was in his own car with the window rolled up; and the music that came on in the car was this mellow cabana music... the whole situation was hilarious. But she was the sweetest lady and we were sooo grateful for the safe ride home.

Unfortunately we never did get to claim our free drinks, which is painful to someone like me who loves free stuff!

Day 2 was a much more "productive/fun" day. We took an amazing walk down the beach in the morning and went on a biking adventure all afternoon. The ride was awesome! We passed a state park which was just a jungle of palm trees.

The one thing that I have noticed in the states is that they have no problem writing "high fructose corn syrup" right on their labels. THEY PUT IT IN THEIR APPLESAUCE! That's just crazy! The first day we had lunch I checked the label on the ketchup bottle at our table and sure enough it's there too. I just don't understand. I know it's a cheap sweetener and corn is subsidized by the government (which still infuriates me), but why would people buy it if they can read right on the label that it's there? Not just corn syrup but high fructose corn syrup. You might as well just start injecting yourself with diabetes.

However, we did find gluten-free flax crackers for our guacamole and my FAVOURITE Sahale snack almonds, so I have to give America credit for that. And although I'm still trying to get used to America's traffic lights (which are much more complicated here  than in Canada), biking has been one of my favourite things to do so far- made so much easier with bike lanes! More adventures to come...