Tourists in our own neighbourhood

My friend Shannon is here for a few days from Toronto with her fiancé Sunir. It was a beautiful afternoon so we decided to walk down to Granville Island and explore. We started at the Kids Market and of course spent ages at the puppet store.

Pinocchio

Alex and his piggy friend

Sunir found Sunny, his puppet alter ego

Shannon looks for her puppet alter ego

Sunny the puppet is introduced to Queen Shannon the puppet

And one thing leads to another!

When we decided it was time to be grownups again, we ventured off to the market and drooled over the yummy fruit.

cherries

raspberries - golden and otherwise!

Alex's favourite - the fresh pasta

fishy delicacies...notice the chocolate sardines in the middle at the top!

Having successfully tempted our salivary glands, we wandered over to Rogers chocolates and then to the Sandbar for a yummy dinner followed by crepes...mmm...food!

You know it's cold in June when...

• not only are you wearing three layers, but people around you have hats and gloves on.
• you get off the bus at 9:30 in the morning and you can see your breath
• the extra blankets that have been off the bed for weeks/months, suddenly reappear

Summer, or even spring, please come soon!

Beyond inappropriate tile

So last week we looked at a place that went beyond the inappropriate tile. The building was nice, it had been recently redone - roof and all - and it looked okay on paper. Before we went in, we were warned by the seller's realtor that we should:

a) ignore the mess
b) ignore the woman in the suite.

Apparently she is very unfriendly and they had spoken to her a few times about being civil to the people looking at the place.

So we thought maybe she was a tenant and was worried that she might have to leave if her place sold, but the realtor told us, no, she was actually the one selling the place.

Anyway, it was a total disaster, there were some very strange features, the lady was most unfriendly, but the best part was the flooring. Even better than the place was completely tiled, this place had no floors at all. Gone. Right down to the concrete. Needless to say, we had vetoed it before we got past the foyer.

Changing up the meal plan

Alex and I have started making a meal plan. Which means we plan out our menu for a couple of weeks. We have a handy calendar that we've put up inside one of the kitchen cupboards (thank you cellular telephone provider for thinking we need multiple calendars in our household) and we write down lunches and dinners. We don't stick to it exactly because sometimes recipes make more or less than we thought they would or we decide to eat out (which happens way less now that we have a "plan"), but it's a good guide and makes grocery shopping much easier.

But we were getting bored. We were eating essentially the same things on about a three week rotation...blah...so we decided to make each week a cookbook week. We got three or four yummy cookbooks as wedding gifts and I have another four or so that are great, but we rarely use them. Rarely as in I have made maybe four recipes out of each cookbook and maybe one or two of those I make regularly.

Our first week was supposed to be Rebar week, but it's been a tad busy around the pink palace what with some major editing I've been ignoring, the hunt, and life in general. I made two recipes from the Rebar cookbook though - the Bombay Roll-ups and the Chocolate Chip Cookies. I know cookies don't count as a meal, but boy are these ones yummy. We decided (well, me since I do the cooking) that while many of the Rebar recipes look yummy, a lot of them are just a bit too time consuming or have too many strange ingredients to make on a "school night." We also love the spring pasta (I don't know if that's what it's called - the one with asparagus, spinach and vodka) and the green rice. LOVE GREEN RICE.

So we supplemented this week with the Moosewood cookbook and Alex happily ate spinach and rice casserole. Rice seems to be a theme in our lives right now...

Anyway, next week will be another cookbook - maybe something that is a bit more "school night" friendly...

But those Rebar cookies, they really are spectacular. You know.

That's all.

Stupid squirrels

So this morning, I got up and started my morning routine. I was in the kitchen when I heard some very strange noises coming from the bedroom. Now, Alex was in there, sleeping, I thought. The window was open, so I thought maybe it was the wind, pulling the metal blinds against the window, but the living room window was also open and it's relatively still. So, I went to see what Alex was doing. As expected, he was sleeping, but there was a horrible racket coming from our window.

And when I opened the blinds, well, there was a squirrel hanging off the open part of the window. The noise startled it and it jumped back to the roof next to us.


Then Alex pointed out that all of the neighbours windows were also closed...so there's a chance the little pain in the butt had been tormenting them too. The building is stucco and I've seen squirrel scramble along flat walls to windows, so it wouldn't be unheard of.


I wish I had a trap like my parents and a forest up the road to dump the silly thing in...The last thing we want is a squirrel loose in the house, so who knows when we'll be able to open that window again.

More about Project 365

I've been finding it harder lately to get my picture taken every day and I'm not sure why...partly I think because we now live in an apartment and I don't go outside as much (I have just noticed this...) and the apartment doesn't have as many cool features as the blue house did. Anyway, I've decided that maybe having a weekly theme might help me take pictures every day. So, this is where I'm asking for your help...I need some themes. Please leave suggestions in the comments and as time goes by I will make my way through them. I am hoping that maybe a theme will convince me to post the pictures every day instead once a week or so when I decide it's time to empty my memory card...Anyway, suggestions, pretty please!

Cross posted at Nanny Shanny's Project 365

A different take on Project 365

Last January, I decided to challenge myself to Project 365. It worked well enough that I kept it up this year. Some of my pictures suck, some are super blurry and every once in a while there's one that I love.

I've seen this girl's work before, but stumbled across it again today. She took a picture of herself everyday for three years and then created this video - there's a long version (2:30 minutes) as well as a shorter version on You Tube.

I love how her hair grows and shrinks and her glasses change. She must have the floor and the place where her camera sits marked because the pictures are remarkably close in placement (I know, Photoshop can work wonders too).

I have a hard time getting my picture a day done; I can't imagine trying to take a picture of myself every day...especially right now...you'd get to see the ever growing black circles under my eyes and my face getting puffier and puffier as the weeks go by!

Smells like Pax Lodge

You know how you can smell a smell and it immediately takes you to some other place or time? I know I've written about the Pax Lodge smell before and how it's one of the things I really like. I don't think I've ever smelled Pax Lodge outside of Pax Lodge before. I have smelled London outside of London, but not Pax Lodge.

Until today. Today I was in the little coffee area at work boiling some water and washing out a mug to make hot chocolate (because it's WINTER here again...what's up with THAT?) and the dish soap fairies bought a new brand of dish soap. It's some environmentally friendly something or other. And it did a nice job of cleaning out my mug.

And then, well then, I felt like I should be running Tilly and cleaning out Oscar and ironing to Classic FM and making endless beds and hoovering at 7:00 am and putting the flag up before breakfast and after putting in an hour and a half of work already and drinking wine on the Heath and vodka and tonic in the pubs and buying huge cans of beer, 3L bottles of Strongbow or individual Archers cooler drink things at the off license after last call. Yeah, if you lived or worked with me at Pax Lodge, you'll know what I mean.

Turns out, it was all because of that new dish soap.

Crazy.

And yes, yes I am procrastinating.

Memory Lane

Alex called me a work this morning with news that he had secured two tickets for us to go back to our early teens. In November we're off to GM Place for an evening of late eighties boy band nostalgia with New Kids on the Block. I don't know if you can consider them "kids" still, but I'm sure it will be an entertaining evening.

End of an era

London has a new mayor, Boris Johnson, and he has decided to ban alcohol on public transit - trains, tubes, buses, etc. The ban doesn't really bug me since I don't live in London anymore and I'm used to Canada's more restrictive alcohol laws anyway, but in true London style, some people got together and organized one last party on the underground before the ban came into effect this morning. It sounded like a super idea, but apparently it ended in a less than positive manner. Why? Why do people do stupid things and wreck a great idea/time for everyone else? Oh and apparently it's Mayor Johnson's fault too!

Why?

For more, just Google london underground last party or visit the facebook group.