Thoughts and Nationals

Heyy Everyone,
It is finally the weekend. Yay! Although I have a lot of work to get done, I am looking forward to sleeping in.

Please bear with me, I have been wanting to post about this little girl I met at work, and yet for some reason everything sounds better in my head, and way cheesy when I type it out. So there is your warning. It's not really writers block because I know what I want to say, the real problem is how to say it. Part of me thinks that I should wait until it sounds right and part of me feels like I should just write it from my heart and leave it. I think that I might go for a Goldilocks compromise and meet somewhere in the middle. Okay well here goes:

I teach skating, and working with young kids is fun, but sometimes they can really get on your nerves. I teach this one little girl who caught my attention right away. Sometimes I forget that I am with kids a lot younger, who need a lot of encouragement to keep motivated. While I was given my group corrections on how to do a certain move, she said yes but at least I got part of it right. It made me stop and think that while it was my job to give them corrections it was also my job to praise them when they did something correctly. It helped me to make sure that I congratulated them on what they had done right as well as help them fix what they had done wrong. Throughout the entire lesson she never complained or whined about what we were doing (And even if she did, she was really an angel next to some of the others in her group). As a skater one of the things that shocked me the most was she had new skates on that day, and hardly complained about them. She fell countless times that session and I remember her saying "well the one good thing about falling down is at least I am good at getting up." That honestly blew me out of the water, while most people would have been discouraged, she just looked at the positive side. It is strange sometimes where your life lessons come from, she has taught me to be more patient and that if you look you can see the positive side to a situation.

Keeping with the skating theme, as I mentioned in an earlier post Nationals were a little while ago. I was going to post about them that week but there weren't any great pictures up. So I decided to post about them now. Those that placed well at Nationals will be moving on to compete at Worlds in L.A. in March. I think that Canada has a pretty strong team and I can't wait to see how they do internationally. I would like to congratulate all those who competed in Nationals.

Here are the winners of...

The Men's Event:

1st - Patrick Chan
2nd - Vaughn Chipeur
3rd - Jeremy Ten

The Women's Event:

1st-Joannie Rochette2nd
2ed-Cynthia Phaneuf
3rd- Amélie Lacoste

The Pairs Event:

1st - Jessica Dubé / Bryce Davison
2nd - Meagan Duhamel / Craig Buntin
3rd - Mylène Brodeur / John Mattatall

The Dance Event:

1st - Tessa Virtue / Scott Moir
2nd - Vanessa Crone / Paul Poirier
3rd - Kaitlyn Weaver / Andrew Poje

*all photos from Skate Canada Website: here.*

My school's semi formal is in a week, so I should have some pictures of my dress within the next week or so. I hope that everyone has a restful and relaxing weekend (or an exciting and action packed one, if you so wish).
Love,
Belle

Beauty Post

Heyy Everyone,

I haven't done a makeup/beauty post in what feels like forever. The cold weather has taken a toll on my skin. It has been really dry lately. My skin care army consists of water, lots of moisturizer and lip balm.

I got a new Mac Pallet for Christmas and I have been meaning to share it with you. The pictures aren't great, but the colours are better then the ones from the site ( I find that they are always off). The gold pallet is the one I got last year and the red one is this years.

These are the colours from this years pallet. The thing I love about the pallets is that all the colours go nicely together, and you can easily create many different looks. The green in this pallet is really pretty, its a bit brighter in real life.

Even the design of the pallets are beautiful. I like last years design better then this years.

I really like these colours and tend to wear them on a daily basis. The dark blue is beautiful as well as the silver.

I don't have much time to post this week. Hopefull I will have more time next week.
I hope that everyone is almost done their exams. If not good luck.
Love,
belle

Granted

Heyy Everyone,

I have had a very busy past week. I am in my school play and we are getting into the thick of rehearsals. I was hoping to post this earlier this week but I didn't get the chance. The Canadian Figure Skating Nationals just ended, they were in Saskatoon this year. It was a very exciting year, and I spent the entire weekend watching skating. It is freezing here! My hands are all chapped from the cold. The weather makes it seem like an appropriate time to post about Canadian Designer Granted.



Granted produces all handmade products right here in Canada.

This sweater looks super warm and soft. When I am freezing all I want to do is put on a warm cozy sweater, like this one.

These leg warms are really cute, and the look warm. I would love to get a pair.

If you would like to see more check it out here.

I hope that everyone has an amazing week.

Love,
belle

Photos and Tag

Heyy Everyone,

It has been just over a week into the New Year, and so far no complaints. Over the break I got some time to catch up on my blog reading, and I read some amazing blogs, with beautiful pictures. They inspired me to take some of my own. I am not very good, and I played around with my camera a bit, but I'm still kinda proud of them. I choose to do a dancer theme, because something about ballet shoes and tutus really interest me. Anyway here they are:

I really like watching old movies. The other day I watched For Keeps? with Molly Ringwald, it was cute and funny. There were some pretty epic scenes right from the start. Stan's little sister was super adorable and amusing. I recommend it for a night when you want to watch something light hearted.

I saw this Tag on The Tiffany Tree, and decided to do it, it looked like fun.

The Rules:
1. First, state the rules.
2. State four talents that you happen to possess.
3. State four random facts about yourself.
4. Tag four other bloggers and state why you tagged them.

Talents- I'm not the most talented person, I don't play any instruments or do anything special, but here goes:
1. I can pretty much recite any episode of Gilmore Girls to you.

2. I am very good at Dominoes, much better then Monopoly.

3. Can biology be a talent? As in the course... If not I'm making it one.

4. Baking chocolate chip cookies. The secret is to under cook them, so they are chewy and taste more like cookie dough

Random Facts (I always blank on these, sorry if there are any repeats):

1. I can't stand it when my nail polish chips. I have to take it off right away and redo it. I hate looking at my nails when they are all chipped. The really sad part is that I didn't have this until I was reading a magazine and I think Hillary Duff's pet peeve was chipped nail polish, and for some reason after that I was like wow, I really hate it when my nails chip. Now I have spent way too much time on this subject.

2. I have an American Girl, even though I am Canadian. I was a doll person. I loved to dress her, and I used to take her around with me everywhere. I got her to look like me and everything.

3. I didn't cry during the Notebook. I am one of the only girls I know who didn't. I really didn't find it that sad. I don't really cry during movies, I cried in Finding David's Heart (some TV movie) and in Titanic. I tend to cry more in books.

4.When I have nothing better to do I bake cookies, cakes, pies or muffins, then I proceed to eat them all. Seriously the fact that I am not 500 pounds surprises me on a daily basis.

Now then onto the Tagging:
I tag...

1.Ambigous Alleration Abomination - I discovered this blog not that long ago, and it is quickly becoming one of my favourites. It always has amazing posts with beautiful pictures.

2.Say Pleats! - She has a great sense of style, and honestly her room is gorgeous!

3.If you made it through my paragraph on chipped nail polish consider yourself tagged.

4.Everyone Else- I read a ton of blogs, and truely enjoy reading everyone of them.

I hope everyone has an amazing weekend.

Love,
Belle

Journals and a DIY

Heyy Everyone,

So I must confess, I have an obsession with journals. I love them. I love the idea of an empty journal and all the possibilities that it holds. I however always start writing in journals and then stop halfway through them or after a couple of weeks.

Each journal has a different use, and therefore they never get used up. Some are travel journals, some are regular journals (the diary kind), a few are blank, one is full of lists, and the one with cat on it is full of quotes, pictures and other random things.

Lately, I have become obsessed with making journals. The blue one is an old journal that I covered in felt. The polka dot one has post-it notes in side (originally posted here) the other one is made up of random scrap paper (originally posted here).

My new obsession with making journals lead me to make this:
The front
The back

I got the idea and instructions on how to make it here.

Well tomorrow is back to school. I'm really not ready for the break to end. I have no idea how I am going to wake up tomorrow. I really want to post at least once a week this year, hopefully I will be able to keep it up.

I hope everyone has a good day back,

Love

belle