New Blog

With a new season of life and new endeavours, comes a...new blog!

I will be blogging at shellyspithoffblog.com from now on!

Thanks for reading!  See you over at the new site!

THE Dress

After we got engaged I told Tony that I was going to milk the dress shopping experience for all its worth.  I was going to go to as many boutiques as I could and try on as many beautiful dresses as my heart desired to find the prettiest one.
After all you only get married once, God-willing, but we won't get into that.

Anyways as I was saying, "milk it for all it's worth."  Famous last words.

After only one visit to a store I was done with dress shopping and was ready for it to be over.

We went to David's Bridal where they carried a line of Vera Wang gowns that looked ethereal and absolutely stunning...in the catalogue.

Beautiful, but only on the right body type.  Ex. not mine.
I was this close to buying the one on the bottom left.

On a wisp of a teen that was probably 5 inches taller than me, and about 20 pounds lighter.

Side note: throughout my life I've been blessed by God with a fairly healthy self-image so it was a bit of a shock and downer that I felt as ugly and dumpy as I did that night.
I can say that I've never felt ugly and dumpy.

Unhappy with caterpillar eyebrows and a strong jaw line in my teens, yes.
Ugly and dumpy, no.

But that night I felt ugly and dumpy.

Add in the fact that Lydia, Selina and I spent more time waiting around than trying on dresses,
and the fact that the dresses weighed a ton,
and the fact that with every dress, my indecision grew worse,
and you'll know why I was ready to never walk into another bridal store to shop for myself again.

Except I had walked out of David's without a dress so I still needed to walk into another store to get a dress.

So two days later I went to Becker's Bridal with my friend Steph where I tried on
beautiful dress,
after beautiful dress,
after beautiful dress...


...until I realized that there was going to be no end of beautiful dresses.
The more I tried on, the even more indecisive I became trying to find the prettiest one.
I could hear my mom's voice in my head saying, "There will always be something better."
There will always be a "prettier" dress depending on my mood no matter which dress I chose because let's be honest there were quite a few that I wanted.

So I decided to end the madness, and chose one that was beautiful that I loved among the many, many, pretty gowns out there.

This one:

Just kidding.
I would never post a picture of the real deal before the big day.

The Proposal Story

The proposal story starts somewhere in September of 2011 when Tony and I first started talking about getting married.

By October I was expecting a ring.

By November I was getting antsy.
We had talked about getting married sometime in the early summer of 2012, and I wanted enough time to plan.
Did I mention that I am an incredibly impatient person?
I am an incredibly impatient person.
Now you know.

So in November Tony promised that he would propose before 2012.

In the meantime to assuage my impatience I sat him down for two hours of ring browsing online.

"I like that. " 
"I don't like that." 
"That band is too thick."  
"That band is too thin."
"That's too tacky."


Meanwhile on one of our dates at a gorgeous waterfall, I commented,
"It would be nice if you had proposed here.  At a waterfall."















By December he was well trained in my jewelry tastes and I was jubilant because
THIS. WAS. GOING. TO. BE. THE MONTH!
I even posted something to that effect on Facebook.

So for every one of our Saturday dates I got gussied up, and patted him down when he came to the door.  And by patted him down I mean patted him down.  I even made him take off his shoes, and looked in them.

Horrible, I know.
For those of you who are not engaged yet, DON'T. DO. THIS.

Which is why my roommates rebuked me.
So I stopped the airport security treatment, and released Tony from the December 31, 2012 deadline, and we happily went on our Saturday dates to yummy brunch joints,  followed by some fun activity.

By mid December both my best friend Lydia and I had our bets on Christmas Eve.
And on Christmas Eve we had plans to go hiking at Webster's Falls.  Maybe....this was it...?!
I tried to keep my hopes down, and boy was it hard.
Trying to keep my hopes down was like trying to keep a lid still on a boiling pot of soup.
But Christmas Eve came and Christmas Eve went along with Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day.

By mid-January I had a freak out due to a miscommunication via text, which led to Tony disclosing the fact that he did have the ring, and that he had planned on proposing on Christmas Eve except he wanted to have my parents' blessing first and they haven't gotten back to him since December 17.

Tony had stealthily gotten their emails and my step dad's phone number from an email I had sent, and from my phone when I left it unattended, but the problem was that they only checked their personal emails once every ice age and he had copied my step dad's cell number wrong.  So some random person in California has a text requesting a phone date.

So the moral of the story is never discuss important things via text.
End public service announcement.

On with the rest of the story.

I knew it was coming some time in the near future when January 14, 2012 dawned even though it was a Saturday much like any other Saturday.

The plan was to:
Sleep in.
Eat at a local brunch joint.
Go hiking at a local waterfall, which was unfortunately named Balls' Falls after Mr. Balls.

Which we did.

Snow had fallen just the night before so everything was perfectly covered in an untouched layer of white when we arrived.  There was no one else there.  Just us, the silence of the forest, the beauty of the snow, and the dull rumble of the waterfalls in the distance.

There were two waterfalls at the conservation area.  One was near the ruins of an old mill to the north.  One was near a mini village of historic buildings that included a mill that was intact, a church, and some barns.

We hiked to the former one first.
Explored a bit.
Took a few pictures and turned around to go to the other one.












By the time we got to the second waterfall I was cold even though I was wearing two layers of socks, boots, and all the typical winter gear.  I was content with a few look arounds and was ready to head back to the car so we could get some ho cho.  That's my short form for hot chocolate.

But Tony dillied and he dallied.
Could it be...?

Finally I was too cold to stick around so I was more adamant about my requests to leave and get hocho.

At which point Tony said,

"Before we go I have to ask you something."


And he pulled out a beautiful sapphire ring from his pants pocket.

"I'm not the type who's big on speeches.  I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you..."


He kneeled down in the snow.

"Will you marry me?"


To which I responded with,

"REALLY?! REALLY?! REALLY?! REALLY?!  REALLY?!"


Times 100 or something like that.
The "really's" went on for a few minutes while I still left him kneeling in the snow.
I was just flabbergasted that THIS. WAS. ACTUALLY. HAPPENING.

WE'RE GETTING ENGAGED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I eventually got a hold of myself and said,

"Yesssssssssss."


And we celebrated by telling our family and friends and clogging our arteries with two delicious burgers from the Burger's Priest.












The End.

The New Neighbourhood

Sing to the melody of "12 Days of Christmas".

On the first day of moving to my new neighbourhood I found:

5 restaurants
4 coffee shops
3 pharmacies
2 small grocery stores/ adult shops
1 TD bank/ art gallery/market/ indie bookstore

...within a 5 minute walking distance.

Looks like we're going to have all we need at our finger tips.

Despite my reservation or maybe because of my reservation of having to move out of Toronto, I feel quite blessed with our new place.
It's like God saying, "See, I'm taking care of you."
(And Him knowing what a wimp I am, but that's another post for another day.)

Our apartment is in a very beautiful, classy neighbourhood*, with plenty of amenities and beautiful old architecture.  For the first time we decided to move to Hamilton I felt a bit of excitement and hope that I might enjoy living in Hamilton after all.

Coffee shops and a bookstore within walking distance.  I can't ask for more than that.  It's definitely an upgrade from my current neighbourhood, which is literally on the wrong side of the tracks.

Anyways I am thankful.

Here is a picture of the outside of our digs:

*Classy with the exception of the adult shops.  It was such a shock to the system to see them.  I remember thinking "I don't want Tony to be walking by these all the time", but it was also a bit funny that they would be in the kind of neighbourhood that has cute coffee shops and trendy bistros serving ethnic food.

Five Good Things [Tony Edition]

1.  He will always cuddle upon request.  

2.  When we stay at his parents to commute to work in the morning; he always gets up before me, wakes me up, and packs my things and puts them next to the door so they're ready to go.

3.  He is superb @ Excel and financial management, both of which I suck at.

4.  He does not freak out when I freak out.  

It's a very good thing one of us is emotionally stable.

5.  He teaches me patience.  

Five Good Things

1. A full return on a pair of rubber boots that cracked after 4 months of wear. Hunter you disappointed me, but at least I got my moolah back.

2. A rich Georgia Mud Fudge Blizzard on a relaxing train ride.

3. $4 tank tops.

4. The Bookseller of Kabul. Heartbreaking, but good.

5. Sun, sun, suuuuuuun!!!!!

Five Good Things

My taste buds have been going crazy every since T and I got back from China.

I've been craving Asian food so badly.

1.  Ma La Food.
Roughly translated this means numbing and spicy food.
It's the specialty of my hometown, Chongqing.
What can I say?  I miss heartburn.

2.  Creamy Taro Bubble Tea.
Not all bubble tea are created equal.  Some are more watery than others.  I crave the creamy type.

3.  Edamame.
I think I've killed this craving by making 3 bags full of edamame and consuming them within 48 hours.

4.  Tofu.
And I'm not talking about the white soft ones.  I'm talking the chewy yellow-beige ones.

5.  Rice.
Oh, good old rice.  I love filling my stomach with you.
But alas you're so carby!