Today I booked a meeting with someone and when she asked for my phone number I was so RELIEVED. In her email, she mentioned Zoom fatigue and I was like ‘YES I AGREE’.
We ended up having a great chat for 30 min before even getting to the meat of what we planned to talk about.
It’s amazing how wonderful a phone call with a friend or family member can be. I ring mum about once a day to chat about the day. Sometimes when I have a good day, I call her a couple of times!
I miss seeing people so much but there’s something so personal about a good old-fashioned phone call. These days gabbing with my girlfriends is the best way to connect, if we’re not able to meet for a distanced walk.
In other news, I’m on a good streak with Peloton workouts and discovered a new fav today. There’s a 20min Bad Boy Entertainment full body and it is SO GOOD. I’ve been a HUGE fan of Puff Daddy & the Family since the 90s!
Went out for a run at magic hour and she did not disappoint! The sky was so beautiful. As I arrived at the Dundas West bridge on my way to Roncy, the sun was just setting on the horizon. The cotton candy sky had me smiling as I ran the rest of the way home. I think this is gonna be my new thing, I usually run in the morning but a night run is a great way to close out the day. It made me feel alive and free!
I am living for these longer days when I can get outside AFTER Young & The Restless and it’s still light out. Hahaha!
It’s almost been one full year since this thing changed our lives and today we’re back in the month of March. Did it March ever end? ‘Pandemi Lovato’ is my new fav nickname for the Pandemic, others include panny, panini, pandemi, Patricia, borona, & pantalangio.
Over the next few days, I’m going to read over posts from the start of the pandemic and roundup some things to remember. Journaling is such a beautiful thing and I’m glad to have this space to share and document.
Thank you for reading and following me on this adventure. I know we’ve all gone through so much the past year and I hope that reading my blog has made you feel less alone at least once. We are in this together. The collective experience of Covid-19 has changed us, mentally, physically, and emotionally.
Feeling pretty happy today, I was excited for Monday meetings, getting dressed up (Monday tradition), and doing work after a relaxing weekend. I have definitely learned to slow right down over the past 12 months and have no problems creating time for rest. My skin and hair have never had so many masks and I make time for running, workouts, walks, and sleep as part of my routine.
The countdown to one year of the pandemic is on the home stretch and I’m sure we’ll see heaps of one-year roundups. Please don’t be hard on yourself if you don’t have a list of new skills or milestones to recap. Surviving is the greatest gift as so many precious people lost their lives and loved ones. Hopefully, we’ll have some more good news about vaccinations soon. I will 100% be getting the vaccine when my turn is called. Hang in there. ?
I love this March/James Franco gif so much. If you don’t get it, stop what you are doing and watch The Room (2003) and then The Disaster Artist (2017). It’s really quite the experience.
It’s only a few weeks until spring flowers start blooming, the days are longer, and we can pack away our toques. (HOPEFULLY)
Here’s to a great week!
P.S. I would like to note, we got snow in April 2020 (Day 32), so for everyone thinking it’s spring, don’t let ‘Fools Spring’ get you!
On Sunday I like to keep the day free for myself to charge my batteries for the week ahead. Sean and I spent the morning in the kitchen, he is an expert level sous chef so he prepped all the food ingredients. We made roast vegetables, crunchy roast chickpeas, rice, a lentil curry w/ sweet potato, falafels, and my fav spicy Mediterranean-inspired rainbow salad. ?
I love a weekend delivery and I was happy to get this beautiful art-inspired package from Pure Sunfarms in BC. They sent a few items from their new collection of apparel, accessories, objects & art inspired by their love of plants & modern life. I love the package design and art by Brooklyn-based artist Laura Garcia Serventi. I’m gonna frame the print!
“I draw inspiration from the natural world, both flora and fauna, as well as vintage botanical illustration and vintage books of science. I also look back at art history a lot. But botanical gardens are my favourite.”
LAURA SEVENTI
I’d love one of their ‘SUNSHINE’ shirts (obvs) and also their decorative ashtrays that look like a sun, see below! My gift included natural Palo Santo from Woodlot and their yellow Grower’s hand soap that smells AMAZING, it has lemongrass, turmeric, Balsam Fir, and bergamot. Sean is a big fan of Pure Sunfarms cannabis products and everything in their Marketplace is so artfully designed. I stan a weed brand that makes great, artful products. ?
“Nature has always been our greatest source of inspiration when it comes to both ingredients and scent. Our priority is to make products that are clean burning and made with simple, organic ingredients, but we’re also a scent company at heart, and we want our scent catalog to serve as a connection to the earth.”
SONIA CHHINJI, WOODLOT
I spent the afternoon watching Georgis & Ginny on Netflix and did a hair and face mask. The one I’m wearing here is the Black Charcoal by Boscia and it peels off leaving your skin feeling AMAZING. Highly recommend!
Took some time to care for my plants, gave them all a nice spritz with moon water, and took a few cuttings from my Monstera. Michelle got me an amazing ice ball mold and I iced my face before bed. I am obsessed with icing my face lately, it feels so good and it great for depuffing.
Met up with Michelle to go for a nice walk in the sun. I was thinking of taking the King Streetcar from Bathurst back to Dundas West but changed my mind. Decided to follow the sun and head west on foot, picked up some flowers, and walked home. Went through Trinity Bellwoods then along Dundas, when I passed Lansdowne, the sunset lined up perfectly with the bridge at Sterling Road. Got home as the sky turned to night.
Was feeling big moon energy and said my 6 wishes under its bright light. Learned this manifestation from mum and always go out and talk to the moon, tell the universe exactly what I want. It’s amazing how fast the universe responds if you go confidently in the direction of your dreams, leaving doubt behind.
For the full moon, I attended on an online sound bath hosted by Sound Meditation Presents. A sound bath is an opportunity to travel inward, explore your thoughts and feelings through sound and breathing.
In January 2017, after 3 crazy days of CES in Las Vegas, I drove to LA. I offered to drive a friend back and he brought 2 friends for the ride. I was on a solo mission so didn’t mind the company. One of the friends was Suzy, who invited me to join her for Sound Bath LA. Had no idea what it was but I went. We grabbed blankets and pillows and drove with her friend to a dance studio. It was such an incredible experience, I wrote about it here.
I left that night feeling like a different person, I’d changed. Spent the next week in LA, alone, staying at different Airbnbs and going on adventures. There is nothing like traveling by yourself to rediscover who you are. I was forever changed by that trip and made some life changes the moment I got home.
Tonight’s sound bath was hosted by the same group that did one I went to in LA. The man making music in & hosting is Guy Douglas aka The Gong Guy.
This is what the livestream event looked like:
This practice has also been known as “Sound Healing” or “Sound Baths”. The beautiful sounds brings balance and harmony to the body, promote positive energy, and is a powerful way to cultivate a sense of well-being.
Sound Meditation is a very effective form of meditation, and as such, can help ease depression, anxiety, and addiction.
Guy Douglas & Simona Marie Asinovski
I put the sound bath on tv for Sean and went upstairs to listen in dim light with headphones. I wanted to go deep in the sound, it was great. I ended up falling asleep after 20mins and woke up just in time for the last 10 minutes. Had a lot of thoughts flying around and needed to calm the mind.
This is a quote from the Sound Meditation newsletter, I love it. They also have an app & if you’re looking to join one, visit soundmeditationsf.com.
“We are going to the moon that is not very far. Man has so much farther to go within himself.”
I attended the first-ever Clubhouse Prom and it was so much fun. Your girl even won Offical Clubhouse Prom Queen 2021!
The prom was hosted by Club F_ck It, the official home of Clubhouse’s longest-running party show. I’d joined the party a few times and was so happy to be included in the prom gang!
You might be thinking, isn’t Clubhouse an audio-only app? Yes, you are correct. I don’t really know how to explain it, but Clubhouse Prom was a real event, part performance art, drama, improv, and comedy. It was such a memorable experience. Virtual events have become our reality these days. As we’ve seen with Clubhouse, audio is emerging as a seriously cool way to connect.
On Wednesday before, there was a ‘Promposals’ room where people asked each other to prom. Before the night started, all the girls joined a room while getting ready. Before leaving to go to the actual event, we changed our profile images to hot pink Hummer limos. That way, we’d all show up in limos and reveal our outfits one by one. It took some time to coordinate the couples and order of guests on stage but the Mods did an amazing job.
I loved getting fully dressed up in an outfit with hair and makeup, it’s been so long! It was recommended that everyone dress up and change their profile photo to their look of the night. I picked up some drinks earlier in the day and was ready to party!
Prom dates had the same photo for most of the night, then changed them again to share stories about snacks, drinks, accessories, or just about anything else. At one point the room was at 1,200 people but it was a revolving door of Clubhouse users popping in and out from 8 PST until I left at 4am EST.
My fav matching photos of the night belonged to my IRL friends Affan and Meg Button, who captured the ‘Betrayal Under the Sea‘ theme perfectly. Runner up was Daniella and Diego!
— Daniella (is this thing still on?) Norling 🦚 (@gnilronalleinad) February 27, 2021
Aside from dance breaks, I spent most of the night smiling and laughing into my phone (like this ⤵️). I was anxiously waiting for the next PTR (Pull to Refresh) to see people’s new photos. IT WAS HILARIOUS.
Over the course of the night, people requested songs via IG DM to the hosts or on Twitter with the #ClubhouseProm hashtag. Everyone voted for prom king and queen at a specific URL. Around 3am, the winner was announced…..
OMG! I won prom Queen of @joinClubhouse! I'd like to thank all my high school haters for giving me the motivation to not be like them. Thank you Clubhouse gang, the realest of the real! #ClubhousePromhttps://t.co/tBVN6pl0Vq
A special congratulations to Adi, my reigning Clubhouse Prom King 2021! We had so much fun! Aside from being a super nice guy with a great accent, I think he secured his King status when he revealed a new painting he did for Prom in his PTR.
Thank you to all the hosts for a great event and to everyone who voted for me. I’ve met so many really great people on this app.
I can officially add Prom Queen to my list of accomplishments!
We had a GREAT chat about blogging and how as a creator, it’s important to have an online home for your content that you own. When it comes to social media, it’s more like renting space as you do not own the platform and you can’t control what happens on IG, Facebook, etc.
This week I was a guest on the Rebel Mama Hotline podcast where I talked about Instagram filters. I love these ladies, their group is the one for ‘mom group’ dropouts, the badass, rebellious women out there like us. They’ve also got two books The Rebel Mama’s Handbook for (Cool) Moms and Get Your $hit Together: The Rebel Mama’s Handbook for Financially Empowered Moms.
I started creating IG filters about 2 years ago using a free program from Facebook called Spark AR. I made a beauty filter called LoLo Lash, inspired by my bff, Lauren O’Neil. I drew the lashes in Procreate with Apple pencil using a face mesh rentering then created the filter in Spark AR and added skin smoothing.
This filter has 2.2M impressions, 99% of them are women aged 25-35. I understand this is (prob?) the biggest demo on IG but it also goes to show who is using beauty filters the most. In this ep of The Rebel Mama Hotline, we talk about how filters can create unrealistic beauty standards especially when the filter drastically changes your face shape.
People are now going to beauty clinics with a filtered image of themselves saying ‘can you make me look more like this?’. I have a filter on this post from Day 341 and deff thought about how botox or filler could enhance my face to make it more like this ‘pretty’ filter. One of my filters that is just the smoothing effect bumped way up (Smooth AF) has almost 400K impressions. I often use filters and other beauty filters, I like the way they look, the creativeness of them, and a lot of them hide when you look tired…or feel old.
Tap the play button below to listen to a snippet of the podcast or hit play below the phone to hear the whole 20 min episode. There are a few great experts including someone who worked at Snapchat and a doctor talking about the effect filters have on body image.
I turned right from our walkway to the path and heard the loudspeaker with messages about wearing a mask in both English and French. The rail path is extra busy today at magic hour with the air at a warm 5 degrees. Everyone keeps their distance, some people smile. I’m in my own world listening to classical music, taking in every detail, dressed in all black with a fur coat. It was my second walk of the day, I love getting fresh air. In an effort to avoid other humans I zig-zag the streets, taking breaks to walk on the road just avoid people on the sidewalk. This practice would have been so rude two years ago but it’s common now.
I didn’t bring my phone because despite being home all day, I seem to have let it die. I’ve got music and route tracking on my watch so I’m blissfully disconnected from wifi & LTE. Out of reach, on DND.
The sun is so beautiful setting over Dupont, I always stop and stare at it.
This week I’m feeling more content than I have in a while. Have been getting 8hrs sleep pretty consistently for about 3 weeks and although I’m still tired, my body and mind are rested. Drinking less and working out more also help. I track everything these days on my watch or phone; sleep, meditation, breathing, steps, stairs, workouts, period, heart rate, oxygen, fasting, and when to water my plants.
In other news, I’ve noticed I’m consistent with updating the blog for a few days, but if I skip a day, I skip a few days and batch update before my fear of forgetting kicks in. I take photos every day in an attempt to keep more memories and often upload them to a draft so I don’t get too behind.
It’s hard to believe we are almost at one year from our first lockdown and the start of how this whole thing changed our lives forever.
Since Friday (Day 341), Sean has been up at the cottage solo and I’ve been home alone. It’s actually been really nice for both of us to have the time and space to be alone and do our own things. He loves being up at the cottage, chopping trees with the chainsaw, doing woodsy things. I love being home with my things and thoughts. I had such a relaxing weekend and felt refreshed and ready to start the day today.
After work, I had A&W with April and it was so nice to laugh together. I decided to get ready for bed nice and early after a bath and a full face care routine. I’m still working my way through Younger on Prime and have been REALLY enjoying going to bed early.
In other news, I re-pierced my own nose today. I had this piercing for AGES but took it out a couple of years ago. I also have a septum piercing in the middle cartilage of my nose but rarely show it. This little stud is barely noticeable and I like it. I’m dying to get a new tattoo and might buy a stick poke kit. I did a tiny one at the start of the pandemic but want to try something more artistic and professional.
