House of Dosas!!! Woah baby!!!!

Today was a crazyyyy day! I was running from place to place and was exhausted. Let me just give you a run down. After work, I went to my second job. After my second job I had to go to run to the grocery store to get groceries for my lunch! After that I had to run to my uncles house to run an errand. After my errand I met up with a friend for dinner. When I came home I started making my lunch. Then I took my shower and did some trip planning with my friend. The conclusion is that I am going to Chicago in a month! Woot! I can't wait. Soon this blog will have a review on deep dish pizza because I HAVE TO TRY THAT! Now it's 9:00 pm and I can finally relax. I like busy days! Being busy is good.

Tonight, I went to dinner with an old friend that I haven't seen for several months. We went to House of Dosas on Kingsway and Knight. It is at 1391 Kingsway to be exact. I've been to this place before but never on a Monday! Some highlights of this place are that the staff are super friendly, the place is open 24 hours and dosas are pretty cool things. On Mondays dosas are even better because they are only $5.99. That's right! $5.99!!! I paid for my dinner with the change in my purse. Woot!

What is a dosa? It is a basically a chickpea flour based super thin crepe that is rolled up with some curry inside. They give you three dipping sauces. The red one is spicy, the white one is made with coconut and the one in the middle is perplexing. I'm not sure if it's a sauce or a soup, but it's super spicy.

The most obvious thing about a dosa is that it's GIGANTIC!!! Mine looks bigger than my friends but that's only because she started eating hers first. I ordered a dosa called paper masala with veggies.  It has an assortment of vegetables including potatoes, cauliflower, peas and a yellow colored curry. It's very good and spicy. The wrap itself is very crispy. It's thinner than a crepe but in some parts it has the same thickness of a crepe and when you eat those parts it tastes a little tangy. I love it! I dipped the crepe in the sauces they gave us and it tasted sooooo good. By the time I got to the middle where the curry was I was full. I did eat a couple of teaspoons of it though. I will have dosa for lunch tomorrow. Yay!!!



It was such a huge dosa I had to take a picture with it. I dare you not to take a picture with such a monstrosity! It looks like I'm eating the worlds largest spring roll.


I recommend you go try a dosa even if it's just for the opportunity to post your very own photo on facebook and totally freak out your friends. When I posted mine today I had 8 comments in 5 minutes and two friends made a date to eat there next Monday. The power of the DOSA!

On a side note...

Here is what I made for lunch for the week. Black Beans!! It's my own recipe which basically means I threw a bunch of veggies (onions, garlic, red and orange peppers, carrots and celery) and water and black beans in a pot and simmered it until I remembered I was cooking something. I also added some paprika, cumin, pepper and cayenne pepper. I also accidentally added some cinnamon (a lot actually). When I did a taste test it didn't have any flavour so I added more garlic, some onion powder and some mole paste. Now it taste savoury and spicy. I am happy with it. Mole Black Beans???

So on a crazy day like this (and my days are often like this), I must remember always... go at your own pace. That's why I love this photo. Some days must be slow, some days MUST be fast. Just accept every moment. Bounce Bounce Bounce!

Impermanence: word of the day

So... Sometimes no matter how beautiful a day it is there is a feeling of overall disappointment and a lingering sadness. Don't get me wrong, I am not depressed but everyday I have to remind myself not to resist the past and other people's decisions. It's very hard to do. I have to remind myself that impermanence is a part of life and I have to enjoy it. There is something more for me out there. Life isn't so random.

Today has had more moments of sadness. I don't know why some days are harder than others. My mind just won't stop thinking about who I am missing right now. I am more able to push the feeling away though. But never the less I miss him. This too shall pass. One day I will have no feelings for him. Feelings can change as they changed for him, they can change for me too. This too shall pass.

Sometimes I read my horoscope for inspiration. I have found to be quite accurate recently. Here are two versions I found in the newspaper.



After reading that I paid my credit card right away and then cleaned my house (which I was planning to anyway). However I don't plan to seclude myself. Though I love the last two lines. "Listen to the stillness. Give thanks."



Though not applicable to today that is always good advice. Sometimes horoscopes are random but also random with good advice. What can go wrong if you follow your intuition?

I also read on my horoscope app that I should go buy a lottery ticket because for some reason I am very lucky today. Also, when I checked my email there was an email about Hometown Heroes. It's this lottery for a house. So I bought some tickets for that as I do each year. Maybe I'll win a big house!!! Or maybe not... but it all goes to charity, so it's no loss either way. Wish me luck!!! 

I'd like to mention some nice discoveries about today.

First one: a student of mine whom is limitedly verbal looked very upset and kept repeating the same phrase over and over again. The phrase sounded like "hippos swim!" It was very odd. But I found a picture of a hippo swimming, showed it to him and be immediately stopped. The picture was sooo funny. Here it is.


Very cute. Hippos have really big asses. I can stare at this picture a lot.

Also I took a photo of an awesome snack I think everyone should try. I got it in Costco in the states. Maybe they have it here too? So yummy. I shared some at work and everyone liked it.






Those peanuts look radioactive but that's only because I edited the photos. Don't worry. They are safe to eat if you don't count the burning sensation in your nostrils.

Lastly, I made raw zucchini hummus today and it was easy and tasty. Please try! It is probably less fattening than chickpea hummus and tastes almost exactly the same. I got the recipe from this site: http://makeeverydayraw.blogspot.ca/2007/06/zucchini-hummus.html?m=1


Goals:
Figure out how to get into a legit mystery shop in Vancouver... wanna start getting paid for eating and shopping as it's all that I do.

Go research a volunteer position where I can learn something. I read in A New Earth that if I felt like someone took something from me, or wouldn't give me something I wanted  I need to go out and give that same thing out to the world. Giving and receiving are the same thing. GIVE and see what you get back in your heart.

Songs of the day for me:
1. Wild Country by Wake Owl.
2. Somebody I used to know by Gotye.

The lyrics stood out to me especially these ones by Wake Owl.


If I wanna leave I will
Stand on my feet I do
Only takes these words
You never believe are true
I'm never gonna chase something
It's a total waste running
After what they take hundreds
Look at what they praise, nothing

Oh we go where we don't know the way
Fire meets fire we run and it's all the same.

Maybe tomorrow will be a lighter song.

2 great things about JJ Bean

To showcase some of the great coffee of Vancouver I am currently sitting at JJ Bean on Main Street. This is a usual hang out place for me when I want to do some people watching or just read a book at some place other than my bed or sofa. I ordered an iced coffee today. It's a bit different than the usual fare because the drink I love the most here is the Fresca Medici. I just didn't want to be wired for the rest of the day.




There it is on this sunny/overcast, slightly humid day. A nice light and fresh iced coffee.
I also picked up this grilled cheese sandwich. :)


In terms of coffee shop grilled cheeses I think this one takes the cake. It's creamy goodness. It is made with two cheeses, tomatoes and some super savory garlic spread. I am trying to just eat half of it and save the rest for later.

General feeling for the day: Today has been a good day. The weather turned out better than anticipated and I was in a good mood in general. I felt like I got the jump back in my step. Is that how the saying goes?  I even found a guy online I found super cute. I have a very particular type so I'm very excited.

The last two months my heart has been heavy but today I felt lighter in my heart. Maybe it's just that summer is around the corner and I'm starting to look forward to it. Or maybe I am finally not resisting the changes in my life. The feeling of the "freeness" in my heart inspired me and I felt really happy. While I was working with some of my students we took a moment to find something to be grateful for. I think I will encourage that more. Teaching students to be present and grateful is a good thing. We all need to be present. They both said they were grateful for the weather because the sun was starting to pop out.

It was a beautiful moment. More little moments need to be cherished.

3 years later.

It's been 3 years since I have posted. I started this post today because Facebook had changed its settings and all the notes I had written for the past 8 years or so had shown up on my timeline. I reread them not knowing what they contained.  I was fearful that they contained things I didn't want the world to know but when I read them I laughed. My old thoughts aren't that different from my current thoughts but I seemed much wiser then yet more naive and innocent at the same time. 

I had crazy passion for so many things. I had written posts with so many vivid emotions. I saw that I was struggling in the past with trying to always accomplish my goals and have hope for the future. This is technically the future of the past. My life isn't quite where I thought it would be. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I don't know. I know I had some extremely valuable experiences, learned some hard lessons, and started to value different things in life. I look at how I tried to plan life. I am nowhere close to that. Life is unpredictable. Even I can't predict myself. Now what has happened in the last 3 years...

I no longer have passion for water kefir, ornate fish or corals.These were things I use to blog about a lot. When I read about those interests I remembered how those activities gave me an escape from the current weather. I got a high and excitement from them that I don't get anymore.

I read one post that I wrote about marking a moment in history. All it was about was a fungia coral that had blown up to the size of a doughnut and looked billowy and cute. It looked so cute I had imagined fish bouncing up and down on it. I actually remembered that day after I read about it. It WAS really cute. I remember how much enjoyment I got out of that. Such pleasure in small things. That's one thing I had forgotten how to do.

Since then I have taken up jewelery making, Netflix, my PVR, Zumba, antique teacups, and vintage Pyrex... amongst other things. There are so many cute things to be excited about it can be endless. It also helps that the internet is a great resource to meet others just as crazy as you are about such obscure things. I've also been up to many things. Here are some examples of things I've been up to.




I rode in a huge glowing orange balloon in Orange County.




Went to Disneyland!!!




Got beamed up aboard the Starship Enterprise.




Took a painting class.




Took a drawing class.











Drank a Lot of beer!



Started a garden and with a neglectful hand the garden turned into a strawberry patch.




Went to some awesome concerts.

And love love love... I met someone special and lost someone special.



If I posted all the pictures of what I've been up to in the last 3 years I would run out of space on my Google account. Actually, all the photos I had up there were only from the last year. That being said, it's nice to see, I realized I am and was always up to something. I felt a little bit more grateful for the experiences I gave myself in life. I went on many vacations, saw many concerts, spent time with people I loved and just tried to enjoy life. I also picked up a book called A New Earth and my life changed for the better.


I had several more significant changes in the last three years of my life. I switched jobs and met some people who have changed my day to day experience in life. I started to enjoy everyday. I also became an aunty not one but two times.







Family became so much more important to me. When I fell in love and got my heart broken for the first time the experience had changed me completely. When I was in shambles, my real friends also became so much more revealing to me. I am a lucky girl.

Now that I am back on the up and up I see that life has surprised me in so many ways. I learned so much about myself. I am still trying to adjust to some of those changes and understand life. I learned there are things you can't control. That is something very hard for a Leo and a control freak to understand. Right now I am trying not to resist life. That's a tough thing to do but a very important thing to be persistent about. Do not resist what life gives you. Life has much joy and much pain. I guess it's all part of growing up. Nothing went according to my plan yet it was a great adventure anyway.

However, reading about who I was before, I felt inspired. I had a lot to say regardless if there was anyone listening to it. I had things on my mind all the time. There were things I logged so I wouldn't forget them. This led me to want to start blogging again. I had read a lot of blogs on the internet myself, especially when I was experiencing a lot of emotional pain. They really helped me and I want this blog to be an outlet for my emotions and sharing myself. It will also be about the things I love. Why not? The whole world is doing it.

 Maybe the record of my thoughts will be healing as I can see my evolution and learn that all we go through is actually for a reason. Maybe it will make someone else feel like they are not alone in their thoughts. Or maybe it will just be a fun way to pass the time. This will be my new project. Let's see how it turns out.

Oh, on a side note, I voted today. I have not voted in a long time but that's because it was very hard to vote when I was never in my voting area during voting times. I love this new system where you can vote anywhere!! ANYWHERE! So I voted right after school in the school gym. Love it! That's how it should be. People should not choose between work and voting. In our culture it's a right, so they should make it accessible to everyone and now they have. Good on you!!!! Thank you. For now my vote is a secret. I wonder who will win.
Good luck British Columbia.

Update: Liberals got it again for the next four years. I voted NDP.