Blogger book club - Day After Night (Review)

Happy Monday blogiverse!

This weekend was a busy one - the Mr's parents were in town, so among other things we went to watch the Blue Jays game on Saturday. Bonus: the Jays won 11-9 - which means a lot of runs, which for me equals excitement! A home run ball even came into our section (thankfully a few rows in front of us so I didn't have to shriek and dive below my seat show off my catching skills).

Today is another Book Club review! Did this book come up quick for you? I tell ya...I read it quickly but can't believe how quickly July 16th has snuck up. We read Day after Night by Anita Diamant:

Click over to Carol's blog The Design Pages for her review (I've added mine to her comments).



My first Aberfoyle adventure

On Sunday the Mr. and I ventured out to Aberfoyle!! For those not from 'round these parts, Aberfoyle is a huge outdoor antique market near Guelph ON and until Sunday I had NOT YET BEEN. There were definitely some amazing pieces there and a whole range of prices (some ridiculously good, some just ridiculous!). All in all it was fun to spend a sunny day there looking around.
I'll get to some of the fun stuff we saw in a second...but first I'll show you what we bought:

Yes ladies and gents...that rust sodden pan is all ours (and the only thing we came home with). There is a little story to go along, obviously :) It starts with the Mr. wanting to cook everything on the BBQ, and me being concerned about ruining our pans. Our compromise / conclusion was that we needed a cast iron pan, one that can withstand anything! Well...new cast iron pans are expensive, so we tried searching for them at garage sales with little luck. The Mr. spotted this beaut at Aberfoyle and decided we had to have it. He was excited about the project that lay in cleaning it up and de-rusting it, and excited about bartering for it at Aberfoyle. So, he knocked the seller down to $5 from $10 and the pan was ours.

Excitement reigned until this:



Why, yes, that IS a pristine cast iron pan that you see (same size)...it was priced at $15. With the steel wool attachment the Mr. has to buy for his drill to clean up the rusty one this one would have been CHEAPER. We had a good laugh about that...but the end of the story is that we have the rusty one...so keep an eye out for a Mr. before and after guest post :)

In the meantime, here is some of the fantastic stuff we saw at Aberfoyle. To be honest I expected more furniture, but there were mostly small trinkets. There were also a TON of doors, banister posts, and some smaller furniture (e.g. vintage crates). I'm sure it changes from week to week or month to month as well. If you haven't been I recommend it as a fun afternoon!

Thinking back, I can't believe I didn't buy this squirrel nutcracker. You put a nut in its mouth and then move the tail to crack it. How funny is that?

Chocolate cinnamon poufs

If you read my post on Friday, you would have seen these delicious lovelies:

via MyUnionJack

I made these little puppies on the weekend. Delicious. And oh-so-simple. I had puff pastry (which the Mr. and I like to call "pouf" pastry - makes it fancier, non?) in the freezer since Christmas for a little while. So I let it thaw and made some of these puppies. I did half with the chocolate and cinnamon sugar (I didn't really measure anything....but mine were gooey chocolate goodness), and half with just cinnamon sugar.

You roll this goodness up, cut the log into equal pieces and pop them into a muffin tin:

Bake, and you end up with this delicious poufs:



Happy Monday :)









Friday faves - pin-to-the-rest

Hello Friday!! I love short weeks, don't you?

This week I was pinning a fair bit over on Pinterest and I realized that I pin a lot...but I rarely go back through my pins to see what I have! So I did just that and picked some of my favourite pins for this week's Friday Faves.

Enjoy the eye candy :) (All images via my Pinterest - if you are going to Pin anything please go to either my Pinterest page or the source to repin)



my Pinterest via all-things-kate.blogspot.com

my Pinterest via sweetiepiepumpkinnoodle.com

my Pinterest via Houzz

my Pinterest via SadieAndStella

my Pinterest via theaestate

my Pinterest via GalleryNoEight

my Pinterest via ADelightfulDesign

my Pinterest via CasaSugar

my Pinterest via MyUnionJack

my Pinterest via VintiqueObject

How do you like that pretty?

Happy weekend all.

What are you reading?

I hope all my Canadian readers had a great long weekend - it was a beautiful one here in Toronto!

I'm sure a lot of you spent time up at the cottage this long weekend, or some of you may be delving into beach reading as we speak...what I want to know is: What are you reading?

The Blogger Book Club is working on our third (and in my opinion, best book yet) right now (review coming up July 16th!). This means we're at the exact right time to pick some new books for future book club reads.

What have you read lately that you loved and would want to see as the Blogger bookclub series? What book do you want to read and need an excuse to pick up and chat about with other readers?

Let me know via comments some titles you want to see on the upcoming bookclub list!

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