Congratulations are in order!

 

to 

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

 The Earl and Countess of Strathearn

Baron and Baroness Carrickfergus

Prince and Princess William Arthur Phillip Louis Windsor

With love from 

Countess Katrina Eugenia Santiagoskitt of Torontopool/HM Queen Sarah Pippa Santiagoton of Torontoton

P.S. How awesome are the two of you for kissing TWICE?! I'm all goose-bumpy, warm and fuzzy! (See video, 7s in and 2:20s in when Prince William says, "One more kiss?" and then they kiss again!!! AHHHHH!!)

I'll miss you, Michael Scott!

Today is Steve Carrell's last episode on The Office. I'm so sad, but at the same time, so happy for his character, Michael Scott, because he's finally going to get married (I love you Holly!) and have kids, and maybe realize his other dream of becoming a millionaire! The Office is never going to be the same, but I'm pretty confident that it'll remain one of the many things that keeps my Thursdays funny.

We'll miss you, Michael. It's gonna be really hard, but I know we'll get used to it...

Hahaha.

Have Faith

My niece asked me to be her confirmation sponsor. I am SO honoured. I love being a sponsor and godmother. It's such a huge responsibility and helps me re-realize my faith. I've never been a confirmation sponsor though, and so far, it's quite different. It's also because the process is very involved at her church and it's got me really examining my faith and learning more about our religion.

I went to one of the confirmation meetings at their church and it really opened up my eyes about our and others' perceptions of Roman Catholicism. We were separated into adults and confirmation candidates (or confirmande as our dear Friar Guy would say) and then further separated into groups. We all had to answer the same sets of questions, and the confirmation candidates presented theirs. When we were put into groups, it was amazing how complex we got, how critical and broad we got in our answers. Then when they presented, it all seemed so simple and straightforward. Some of their answers didn't even cross my mind, and yet I knew that if I was back in 8th grade, I would have had those same answers. It got me thinking -- when did all this complication and complexity come about? What happened to simple, straightforward thinking about our faith? There are so many misconceptions about our faith and so many things we, as Catholics, don't even know. I definitely need to learn more, which is odd, considering I thought I knew a lot.

I'm reading a book that all the candidates and sponsors received called, Have Faith (see bottom right). It goes over many things about our faith, Jesus' teachings and such and I'm learning quite a lot. Each section gives the candidate and sponsor an opportunity to go over what they read and really get in touch with each other. It's teaching me so much, and I've only started section 2.

While I'm expected to do some teaching in this role, I know I'm going to do a lot of learning too.

It's that day again!!!

GET YOURS!!!!!!!!

Good luck!

Time for a B&E!

I love breakfast. You'd be hard-pressed to find a day when I don't have breakfast, and if you were my husband, you'd be sick of me telling you that you should eat breakfast more often. We (er, I haha) plan to make it a rule as soon as our kids are old enough to possibly decide to leave the house without breakfast, that no one is allowed to leave the house without having breakfast. Mr.S better get on that.

Anyway, yes, I love breakfast. It's the most important meal of the day! Imagine, you're without intake of nutrients for however long you're asleep plus the time after your last meal and the time before breakfast. That's a long time for your body to be without nourishment. Time for breakfast. Break. Fast.

Anyway, a new breakfast place is coming to Canada and I'm really excited. I'm in need of a new breakfast place. We used to have one near our house that was there for ages, and it closed down and is now a Benjamin Moore store. What a let-down, although, I'm sure I'd have a field-day in that place pulling paint samples like no tomorrow (I love paint samples too).

Sunny Street Cafe. That's the name of the place. Hopefully it'll be a goody. It's doing well in the US, so maybe it'll do the same up here.

P.S. I'm celebrating breakfast with my immediate family and close friends for my birthday. I've wanted to do this for years. It's not at the best breakfast place, but it's big enough to accommodate as many people that want to/are able to come...IKEA!

I hate...

I don't use the word, "hate" very often and if I do, I almost never don't mean it, but one thing I HATE is wasting paper.

I especially hate when I have dispose of something that's been printed or copied in error and I can't even use the paper as scrap because the content is confidential. To the shredder it goes. What waste. At least it's being recycled, right?

We'd kiss in private first, if I was PrincessKate2B

Aw, no kiss at the royal wedding? And then a whole production for the kiss after?

No thanks.

Read here.

The Silver Linings of being back at work

I've been back in the workforce for over a month now, and as bittersweet as it was to return, I am enjoying myself, have adjusted and I have accepted that I did not leave it for good. My heart still belongs at home, but that's not stopping me from enjoying my time at the office. I have pretty full days and do a lot of running around, which prevents falling asleep in front of my monitors, and I have a big window to let the sun shine in (it faces the street, but not any other buildings, so I don't have any problems of people spying on me through other windows). I've been working with amazing people too, and that helps make it easy to come in every morning. It's actually the busiest time of the year, and yet, everyone is STILL nice despite the high levels of stress!

Anyway, quite possibly the best part of working, is the not working part. It's the times I get a taste of home in the middle of my day. Could be a call to Mom-in-law, my sister, and my Dad to see how little D-nut is doing (and to see how they're doing too) and if I'm lucky, a little bit of conversation from the Big Boss himself. I'm so excited for when he's old enough to understand what the telephone is used for and to actually have conversations with him about what he's doing. Also, since I'm not too far from Mr. S, we meet up for lunch every so often (lately it seems like more often than not) too. It's funny because we both know when we didn't bring something for lunch because we both know when there were no leftovers, and so one of us will usually contact the other with an inquiry as to if they're free for lunch. It works out well, and for me, it's quite energizing.

We actually met up today for lunch, and it got me thinking, which got me writing this post. I was approaching our meeting spot for today and remembered all these things about how great it is to be meeting my husband for lunch on a day when we usually wouldn't have lunch together. I guess the realization put a smile on my face because when he spotted me, he started smiling too and asked what I was smiling about. So I told him about how happy I was that we were having lunch together...and of course, that means "insert smart comment here" and he says "but we had lunch together yesterday and the day before and the day before..." He makes me laugh. Lunch was good.

Today's a good day.

KAMILLE!!!!!!!!

Warning: You're going to think I'm crazy after this post.

Have you ever found something that is the perfect manifestation of one of your favourite things? Something that you loved so much, you would marry it if you could and if it weren't an inanimate object? Something you thought of in your head, and BAM! There it is, available to you. Someone made it and it was like it was just for you?

Well, a few months ago, I saw this while going down the stairs at Indigo.
 I spotted it from the top of the stairs (okay, near the top of the stairs) and had to get a closer look.

Read more »

Working Mother...

...a reprise to Time to go back?!

So...I love my new job. I have to say, as many others have told me, in the working world, this is the perfect job for me, or and the perfect organization. I've never really felt like a career woman, driven and looking to climb up the corporate ladder to the top. It's just not me. And it still isn't. HOWEVER (BIG however), where I am working now makes me want to do better, learn more, and do some climbing up that ladder...while throwing a fork in the middle of my life plans! (I'll get to that if I need to.)

It has been an adjustment, but I'm working on it, and enjoying myself at the same time. I bumped into an old friend with her daughters on my first week and she nailed how I'm feeling now: it's nice to be Katrina for 8 hours of the day, and for the rest of the day, be the best mother to my son.

And so, that's my life right now. It's also an adjustment, just working here. I came from a small organization and am now in a large one...you know the deal -- big fish, small pond, and now small fish, big pond. I'm in a much more densely populated area of the downtown core, and have yet to get used to the sound of sirens, emergency alerts and such (I'm in the healthcare field now), as well as the yelling of protesters (I'm close to the provincial legislative building as well). I have 3 walls surrounding me and huge window behind me, so it's really nice to be able to look out at the city every so often.

But the best part of my job, something that everyone here reminds all staff of every day (excellent morale boost, seriously), is that everything we do helps better the system, helps find the cure, and helps improve the situation of those affected.

I sleep very well at night, and I'm so grateful for this opportunity.

Yack...

I just upchucked a whole bunch of posts that I had been writing over the past month or so. Publish! Publish! Publish!

Enjoy!

There are more coming!

If we ever won the lottery...

I used to have daily conversations about winning the lottery with my coworker. Actually, she'd talk about it and I'd listen. On the rare occasion, if I participated, I'd always say things like I'd buy a house, pay off debts, donate to charity, etc...many of the same things other people would say, or I'd talk about opening my own bakery and baking all day long.

But my real answer, the one I would do for sure, provided it would happen in the next few years, is that I would work hard with my husband to grow our family.

Read more »

My endowment

I haven't been the most proportional person. Whatever, scratch that -- what I'm trying to say is that I've had bigger boobs than a person my size proportionately should. (No point beating around the bush!)
As I may have mentioned in a previous post, I've completely weaned my son. He's hooked on his bottles and sippy cups and my boobs have become mine again...only I think I only got half of them back, if that. I was warned about this.

"Your babies will suck the life out of your boobs. Literally."

Read more »

Awesome April Fool's