Weekend Recap

Ahhh summer weekends. I think this weekend (in Toronto) was one of the best of the year, if not THE best so far (hopefully it's like this every weekend from here on in). It was beautiful, sunny, hot, clear skies...in other words: perfect. We hosted a BBQ for 12 on Saturday night - beautiful night, and great friends to catch up with. We served grilled chicken, Israeli cous cous greek salad, roasted eggplant dish (Imam Biyaldi), hummus and veggies, cupcakes and watermelon. Yumm. I don't know how some of you manage to capture the table all set, with the food laid out...I took some quick shots with my phone before anyone arrived, but after that it was all about eating and visiting.

 How was your summer weekend?

May 2-4

I love long weekends.

Especially when they are filled with sunshine and time outside. This weekend definitely fit that mold - it was beautiful in Toronto! Everyone was out in their gardens and at the garden stores stocking up for the year.

We did the same, although we are fortunate that our house "came with" a lot of perennial landscaping! We have added things here and there over the past few years, and we always plant herbs and some veggies. This year we have garlic (planted last fall), tomatoes and lettuce. We have room for a bit more, so I'm thinking kale or swiss chard, and maybe some potatoes (only because we have some in our cold storage that are sprouty and could do worse than being planted and seeing what happens!).

What did you get up to?

Birthday and a (non-bathroom) update

I know that ALL of my posts lately have been about the bathroom. Are you sick of it yet? I'm not...so excited to see it moving along :) It's interesting - I can be totally indecisive with little things (what should I have for dinner tonight??) but with both the kitchen and the bathroom I've had a good idea of what I want (white and marble....pretty simple :) ).

I have a bathroom update, but believe it or not we have had other things going on in our lives the past little while...on the weekend we helped a friend throw a surprise welcome home party for her husband who was returning from a 3-month work stint overseas (and it worked - he was very surprised!). Then on Wednesday, it was my birthday...27 AGAIN....funny how that number keeps on coming up year after year...

{via}

Other than that we're planning a getaway / vacation with some friends for the summer...anyone have any tips / thoughts on St Lucia (renting a house, not the all includsive route)? 

Family day french toast

Hi friends! I feel like it has been so long since I wrote a real blog post...I'm getting sucked into the winter blahs, and work is busier than ever (beyond busy) so when I get home the last thing I want to do is look at a computer screen.  But, give me a long weekend and some reno ideas and maybe, just maybe, I'll get inspired :) Today's all about food, but check back this week for some fun posts that relate to my 2013 goals.

It's family day here in Ontario (read: a holiday - woo hoo!) Who doesn't need a long weekend in February? We didn't do anything exciting, but the extra day and extra sleep was much appreciated. We celebrated with yummy food all weekend, including french toast for breaky this morning. Yumm.

And a few other photos from around here...

My lovely tulips from Valentine's Day

Weekend recap {mini-Christmas}

Hellllloooo long lost friends! Thought I would give a little weekend recap to get back into the swing of things on the blog...this past Sunday was "mini-Christmas" for me and the Mr. It's a way for us to celebrate Christmas on our own, since we typically spend actual Christmas with our families. In the past we have said that mini-Christmas day is NO chores, NO work NO projects. Welllll it didn't quite go like that this year, but we haven't had a project in a while so it was basically a "gift" for the Mr. to work on a project (or at least that's what I like to think...). Before we get to the details, let's talk food...

We had Green Eggs and Ham for breakfast

and Beef Wellington with roasted leeks and brussels sprouts for dinner (so good).

I will share some of my Christmas wrapping later in the week...but for now onto the project!

A couple of weeks ago we bought an over the range microwave - we are so DONE with not having a hood fan. When we did the kitchen we toyed with putting in a hood fan, but our microwave is currently above the stove...so where would it go? It would have to take up valuable counterspace which wasn't really an option. So a microwave/fan combo was it. Well, those things have plugs that come out the top (instead of out the back), and they need a cabinet above them to be secured into the wall. Enter, project. The Mr. and his friend figured out a plan to get a new electrical wire up into the kitchen, which was then used for a new outlet above where the microwave will be hung.

Now we just wait for the electrical to be hooked up at the panel, and for the actual install to happen!

That was our delicious and busy weekend (although, more busy on the Mr's side than mine)...how was yours?

Holiday kick-off

I hope you are all in the holiday spirit now that it's December! The Mr and I hosted our annual Christmas Open House on Saturday. It seemed early when we sent the invite, but now that it has come and gone, the timing was perfect. It meant I had to get my butt in gear with baking, house decorations and the tree! Fortunately the Mr. was insistent that the tree was up in time for the party, so we had the full nine yards.

I will cover some of the DIY details tomorrow, but for now here are some photos to give a quick recap!

About 25 adults, 4 children under the age of 2 1/2, one visiting dog, and a partridge in a pear tree took part. Here come the holidays!

Weekend recap

It was another busy busy weekend, but some very exciting stuff happened! Before I get to all the details...have you entered my giveaway yet?

Saturday I went to Queen West for litterally the 4th or 5th weekend in a row (I like it there...but I've been doing so many trips that way for fabric samples, returns, and ordering)! Anyways, this trip was to pick up the fabric for my chair! Yahoo...I then went up to RE:Style studio to put the chair and fabric in Lindsey's capable hands! Speaking of...did you see my giveaway from RE:Style?? Head to yesterday's post to enter.

Then we headed to the gym, and after we got home I got busy with Christmas baking! I turned on the Christmas tunes (fully aware that it's not even December...but these things freeze perfectly!) and baked for a few hours...here are my finished concoctions (if you follow me on Instagram you'll have seen these!)

We call these "almond mice" in my family! They were my dad's mom's specialty (almond shortbread)

Gingerbread...to be iced another day!

checkerboard cookies - this is the first time I've made these...Next time I would do it a bit differently, but they taste good!

Sunday I went (where else) to Queen West to meet up with a friend for brunch at The Saint on Ossington (so good!). We went antiquing after that where I picked up a snazzy little house treat...more on that later this week.

One more thing - Don't forget to enter my giveaway for One of a Kind tickets!!

Weekend recap

Phew...why do weekends go by so fast? If you are off today, hoorah for you! I was at work, so no extra time although I think I really could have used it this weekend.

So...here's the little weekend run down...

Friday night the Mr. and I went to see Rick Mercer film.  It's a super, fun thing to do (that's free!) on Friday night - make sure to watch it this Tuesday, you may see the back of my head! We also went to Milagro Cantina for dinner (tasty mexican).

Saturday morning, I went all around the city- hit up Home Depot where I got a wreath (it's on my porch but needs some zhushing...so be a bit patient on that one), then I headed to the salon to get my hair cut - usually it doesn't take long to do my hair, but I think my stylist was slow on saturday because I was there over an hour! Luxiourious, yes...until I started stressing that I would get a parking ticket (don't worry, I was safe).

Then I trucked over to the west end to order my fabric for my chair! yahoo...so excited to get that project off the ground (side note: these chairs became available again...and were on sale....but I was really looking forward to having a custom project that I'm sticking with the upholstery project!). I stripped and re-stained the legs of the chair on Sunday (with help from the hubby - he held the flashlight when I was doing the second coat in the garage at 9:30 last night!). After ordering fabric, I took a quick look for Christmas party dresses (if you missed my post here, I would love that blue dress but it's sold out). I saw this one:

French Connection via  

Loving this dress...it's more expensive than I wanted (particularly after dropping $$ on chair fabric), but it's a contender...ugh I hate waiting until the last minute to buy something...on the off chance someone else will wear the SAME THING to the party!

Anyways, after the no-luck-dress-speed-shop-at-two-stores, I went to a furniture store to look at a coffee table, followed by 1 HOUR in traffic to get home (grrr...a bunch of exits / on ramps to the Gardiner were closed, which meant Lakeshore (where I was) was a nightmare, and some north/south streets were also closed due to water mains breaking). Not the best traffic luck...but it didn't end there...Saturday evening we went to Costco and then to Ikea, where I was pumped to get a few fun details for Christmas.

Sunday we had a nice breakfast (homemade waffles and bacon anyone?), hit the gym (had to after that breakfast), and spent some time outside because it was warm and nice. I stripped and re-stained the legs of the chair, and then we made a delicious dinner which included stuffed squash:

Yumm....From the new issue of LCBO's Food & Drink (available in Ontario)

Sunday night was topped off with Amazing Race, and like I said before, a couple coats of stain (and yes, we could have had them done with the re-upholstery, but we wanted to have some hands-on involvement in our project!).

Hope you all had a great (albeit maybe more relaxing weekend)!

Taste of fall {butternut squash + carrot soup; and roast chicken}

This past weekend Sunday was all about cooking (and a little pumpkin carving...you'll see that tomorrow). We like cooking, but especially in the fall and winter because it feels like spending a few hours in the kitchen working on dinner is totally legit (especially on a non-stop-rain weekend that we just had). The leftovers that come with them are pretty sweet too.

I made this "creamy" (no cream) butternut squash and carrot soup (and added ginger, black pepper and a bit of thyme for flavour). This recipe makes a tonne of soup (about 8 or 9 cups I think). I started it in my biggest pot and by the time I got all the veggies in I saw I would have to swap to my stock pot instead! Since the soup doesn't have any cream in it, I kept some in the fridge and froze the rest. Easy and impressive soup to have on hand for cool days or as a starter for a dinner party.

As a side note...I usually puree my soup using an immersion blender, but this time I actually scooped out the cooked veggies, let them cool a bit, and pureed them in this puppy (batch by batch):

This may not be my best kitchen fancy, but it still does the job! Using a blender to puree the cooked vegetables (with a bit of broth to help the blending) make the soup so smooth. It's worth the extra time to do it this way.

The Mr. made a delicious roast chicken with carrots, onions, and parsnips (it was our first time cooking parsnips - they are amazing!). The chicken came from my sister's friends' farm and it was very tasty! The bones and skin are in the freezer to be used for broth soon.

What have you made / tasted lately that gave you a taste of fall?

Living room update {curtains}

How do Mondays come up so quickly?? I had a great weekend, but spent a lot of it running around the city (depsite the rain). Oh, and last week I noticed that my rainboots have a leak! Help! Frankenstorm (Hurricane Sandy) is coming up the NE coast of the US and I have leaky rainboots...what's a girl to do? I slapped on some crazy glue to the small slit I could see on the bottom of my boot...think it will hold? Let's hope so...from what they are saying we might have to swim to work tomorrow.

Anyhoo...despite the rain I am happy to report progress on my living room! A couple of weeks ago I bought these curtains / drapes from West Elm:

Scribble Lattice - by West Elm

They are a good weight, have hidden tabs, and are ridiculously reasonably priced ($44 per panel...for $88 + tax (less the $20 gift card I had!) I couldn't have even bought fabric to make them).

Then came the curtain rod search - THIS proved to be difficult. We did the easy thing and picked up a rod at Homesense, but it was cheap and way too thin (and black...which was too stark against the curtains and our wall). Then I went to Designer Fabrics to look at their options - they have the most customizable options, but obviously that comes at a bit of a cost. Then we even considered making our own rod out of electrical conduit (bloggers never fail to amaze me with their resourcefulness!). We went as far as being in the electrical aisle of Home Depot, looking at conduit, and then me being worried that the rod would be too heavy (heavy wall hangings + plaster walls = potential disaster). So we wandered over to the home decor section and low and behold, they had a rod. A rod that I actually *liked*. It's antique-brass looking, with large glass (acrylic) ball finials. For $40. Sold. Although the Mr. was a bit upset at not being able to do this DIY, it was a pretty easy decision to pick it up (and finally get these curtains hung!). 

There they are! I still have to hem them and adjust them a bit on the rod. You can't see the finials in this photo, but they are there. Warning to others considering acrylic finials - they do tend to fade into the background in dark conditions. (Speaking of...all the rain this weekend made photos in my house with my point and shoot next to impossible. Time to start thinking of a fancy camera!).

As a reminder - the pillows and coffee table (and very eventually the flooring) will be changing in this room.

Thankful and a reminder

{via}

So many things to be thankful for this weekend! I was in Ottawa for work last week, and stayed there for the Thanksgiving weekend. The Mr. met up with me, and we hung out with family and friends, visited some of our favourite areas in Ottawa and stuffed our faces all weekend. All in all a great little Thanksgiving! So thankful for everything we have, and most importantly all the caring people we have in our lives.

Some smaller everyday items I am thankful for: flying home to Toronto instead of enduring a long-weekend-trafficy-drive, bringing home tons of leftover turkey, gravy, and stuffing (thanks mom and dad!), seeing my bestie's new house, having some time to catch up on blogging and magazines, seeing the beautiful fall colours in the trees, and having time (because of said flight!) to get to the gym today after a week away from it.

And, to end off - a quick reminder that Blogger Book Club is back on October 15th! We are reviewing Zadie Smith's On Beauty in a week - that means get reading! (Including me...my library book is officially late...but I have to finish for next week's review! Shhh...don't tell them I will purposely be incurring late fees to finish it).

Happy Monday which feels like Sunday, folks.

I can taste fall {lemon cranberry loaf}

Another weekend come and gone...can you BELIEVE it is October?? September flew..and I mean flew by. I remember the first week of September being at work and thinking, wow everyone is on full-speed-ahead-mode. That has not changed but it's now October...we'll have to wait to see what it brings.

Let's rewind a little bit for a weekend recap...The Mr. and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary that I mentioned last week with a phenomenal dinner at Ici Bistro on Friday night. It's a small french bistro with excellent service, great wine seelction, and food that is to die for. If you are in Toronto and looking for a special meal I highly recommend Ici.

Saturday we did tons of errands and wandered Queen East to see if these chairs were still available...needless to say almost a year later they were nowhere to be seen, but it was a nice afternoon walk.

Sunday was the day of domesticity! It started with the Mr. making eggs benedict for breakfast (he's the best), then we did some yard work, laundry, ironing, and I started on a little fall project that I hope to showcase after the craziness of my upcoming week(s). In between I got into fall cooking - roasted butternut squash soup (if that doesn't scream fall, I'm not sure what does), pork with maple mustard sauce, and glazed lemon cranberry loaf (recipe here).

Hope you had a delicious weekend as well...

Back to school, back to blog

Hi friends!

I know I have been...hmmm...here and there, let's say, over the last month or so. It's just that with the summer weather being as spectacular as it was (is??) I really have relished outdoor unplugged time. It seems like that was a bit of a trend amongst my bloggy friends and really - summer only lasts so long so I decided to soak it all in.

This past weekend was no exception. The Mr. and I stayed in the city which is lovely because you do not need to fight traffic. My weekend started with an early escape from work where I did some shopping and picked up these beauties:

The plan was never to keep both...cause I don't think I NEED 2 ostrich bags this year...but the winner of this duo is the teal bag to the left...I wasn't sure about the size (it's pretty big), but I like the size with the structured shape and I LOVE the teal, and how it will look with my trench in the fall. Hooray for back to school shopping!

Another hooray - that couch you see in the background is no longer in my living room...it has been replaced with a similar, but larger and more loungey version...will post soon, promise.

 

Aside from this little shopping expedition, the Mr. and I spent about as much time outside as we could over the weekend. We logged serious km's on our bikes: Saturday we biked out to the Scarborough Bluffs (GORGEOUS), Sunday we biked to the west end of the city for a picnic in High Park, and Monday we biked not too far to our friends' rooftop pool. Great way to spend the weekend in Toronto. Here are some of my photos from the bluffs - who said Toronto doesn't have beauty??

 









 

 

Happy September, y'all!



Weekend recap: road trip + wedding = tasty treats

Ok, so I know a week and a half ago I made that big I'm Back! proclamation...and proceeded to not post anything since...I really am sorry...but I've been using my time to catch up on rest, friends, summer, reading blogs and other things like working, laundry, cleaning (blech).

I'm back with a quick little weekend recap post today...

On Saturday I was so excited to attend a great friend's wedding. It was out of town, so involved a little road trip, a cute B&B, and amazing times with friends (why do those times always fly by too quickly?)? Along the way I took some shots of things that I thought were fun...and looking through them they are basically all food-oriented..right...so if you're hungry right now you may or may not want to look away. There's your warning...

I'll share my favourite first - the bride's father makes honey and keeps bees, so he graciously put together many jars of honey for the wedding and we got to take them home!

*All graphic design done by the bride

 

There were tons of cute details at this wedding - not the least of which are the yellow and white gingham runners and honey toppers.

 

The couple provided "wedding advice" mad-libs to include in their guest book. I have to say my table came up with some pretty hilarious ones and I hope the bride and groom get a kick out of them. They also had a digital photo printer at the guest book table - you plug in your camera, choose a picture of yourself to print, print it, afix it to a guest book page and sign. This is the first time I had seen that and I thought it was brilliant!

 

Some of the other things we got up to:

Schnitzel house where we had lunch in Eganville on Saturday

 

Poutine stop on the way home on Sunday! SO good...

 

Wild blueberry pie purchased from the side of the road...tasty...

 

So there you have a little taste of our gluttonous weekend...how was yours?



Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian friends and readers...and to people not in Canada? Raise a glass and cheers Canada for us today :)

It's ANOTHER glorious weekend (if you're not having a good summer move to Toronto...or anywhere else in Ontario...I'll pretty much guarantee you sun and fun :) ). We're heading to a BBQ with friends this afternoon, and have already hit the beach on Friday and a Blue Jays game yesterday - good little weekend we have going on.

I hope everyone has a great Canada Day wherever you are and whatever you are doing. Oh, and for all my readers in or visiting Ottawa - you're in the best place in the world for July 1.

via Martha Stewart



Nuts over doughnuts

This past weekend the Mr. and I went to Ottawa to visit our families and some friends...as usual, it was a jam packed weekend! Gotta fit in as much as possible while there, right? Whenever we go back to Ottawa we always make sure to buy some Kettleman's bagels to bring home, and also some baklava from Brioche bakery (both located in the Glebe)...well now we may have to add another stop to our list. Friends that we visited on Saturday recommended we stop in to SuzyQ doughnuts...they raved about it, and it was just down the street from them, so stop in we did.

If you are in Ottawa and haven't been - GO. It is ah-mazing, drool worthy deliciousness in a fluffy doughnut. The back story is pretty cool too - this business was just started last year by going to the Lansdowne Farmer's Market, and now has a "shack" in an up and coming neighbourhood in Ottawa. When we popped by at 3pm it was lined up 8 deep, and people kept on going in after us.

Here's what all the fuss was about:



Yes folks, those are flavours like salty caramel, toasted coconut, and blood orange. Are you drooling yet? They also had smoores doughnuts. AND you could get any doughnut cut in half and they would put soft serve ice cream in the middle to make an ice cream sandwich.

Are.you.kidding.me.?

Our choices were dirty chocolate and maple bacon:

Believe me - it was TOUGH to remember to stop eating and take a picture of these beauties.

I hope you're drooling now...if anyone knows of a place like this in Toronto - let me know! Otherwise...road trip to Ottawa??









Long weekend recap - sugar and spice

This weekend has been fantastic so far, and it's not over yet! Happy Victoria Day to all of my Canadian friends, I hope you are enjoying this long weekend.

This is the best weather we've had for a May 2-4 weekend in a LONG time. Sunny, hot, and just so perfect. I have tried to make the most of it...here's a glimpse at what we got up to...

Saturday started off with heading to the fabric store to finally look for some fabric options for the stools I nabbed from the curb a while ago (more on that later this week).

Then we added "spice" to the weekend - we hit up the garden store and got planting! We planted some herbs and a few potted plants (tomatoes!) to kick off the planting season.

pretty picture of a chive flower

chives, mint, basil

oregano, thyme, parsley

rosemary, tomatoes

Sunday we hopped on our bikes for some sugar...Sugar Beach that is...

we just love biking the Don Valley trails down to this beach in the middle of the city!

Sunday night we had friends over for a BBQ:

ribs cooked low and slow on the BBQ with hickory chips (sorry...didn't get a photo of the finished product!)

homemade butter tarts, made by yours truly...yumm...

Our al-fresco dining was topped off with a fireworks show at the end of our street! These people are serious about fireworks, way better calibre than you would expect from a random end-of-street showing!

Today I'm realxing (aka blogging), and then we're heading out for our first golf game of the year...if you're on the course hopefully you don't hear "FORE" from me too much :)

Hope everyone had  / is having a great long weekend....off to enjoy the sun!