oh dear, it's been so long.....

hi all, i'm back from my mostly-unintentional absense. it's been a crazy few months since my last post. the last week of may up until the last day of june was spent recouperating from a series of unfortunate events. and then since july 2nd i've been immersed in a course at oise learning the ins-and-outs of being a teacher-librarian (my position for next year which i'm pretty thrilled about). it was a super-intensive course, normally a full semester, but for the summer session crammed into 3 weeks! needless to say, when i wasn't sitting in the ugliest, most uninspiring classroom at u of t for 5 1/2 hours a day or on fun class field trips to places like another story bookshop and the beguiling, i was completely immersed in projects, projects, projects! throw in an occasional stress-induced meltdown here and there and well, now you basically know what my july has been like.

the good news is that my course finished yesterday and there's still 6 weeks of summer left before school starts. yay!

i absolutely hate doing a post and not giving you any pretty pictures to look at so i'm posting just a few of the wonderful books i discovered (or already knew but re-discovered) in doing my final project/presentation about fractured fairy tales (stories based on original fairy tales but involve some twist...and often quite funny!)







that jon scieszka guy ("the true story of the three little pigs" and many other awesome books!) is pretty much a genius. if you don't know his stuff and you have kids, pick up "the stinky cheese man and other fairly stupid tales". so funny!

noah considers writing a novel

recently paul borrowed this issue of national geographic from the library. in the article about animal minds, it talks about a border collie named betsy who has a vocabulary of over 300 words! so over breakfast on saturday, paul & i started a list of how many words & phrases our little noah understands. we've been adding to it as we think of more but this is what we're up to so far. (oh, by the way, we only listed the word/phrase if he reacts to it in a predictable way. very scientific!)

*in no particular order*
1. stay
2. cookie
3. park
4. kibble
5. Noah
6. grandma
7. grandpa
8. car ride
9. later
10. hungry
11. outside
12. go (*see note below)
13. sit
14. come
15. nap-time
16. bedtime
17. walk
18. "go get the ball", "where's the ball?"
19. fetch
20. Patrick (neighbour)
21. Bettina (neighbour)
22. Portia (neighbour's dog)
23. Meg (another neighbour)
24. good boy
25. high five
26. shake a paw
27. other paw
28. down
29. "go get it"
30. enough
31. dinner
32. away
33. bed
34. okay
35. mommy
36. daddy
37. chair; "go to your chair"
38. no
39. bath-time
40. kitty cat
41. doggie
42. "go say hi"
43. bone
44. gentle
45. "drop it"
46. pill-time

*note: he actually knows 2 different meanings to this word and can figure it out based on the context. "go" when in the backyard means "go to the bathroom", while "go" at the park means "go run around and get your sillies out".

i'm willing to bet if you made a list for your pet you'd be totally surprised how many words he/she knows. i estimated 25 words for noah before we started this list!

the skirt that dreams were made of

one night last week, i was browsing through my most favourite online shop and happened upon the most beautiful skirt in the world! i was fairly certain this skirt would change my life. but i did the math and realized that with exchange, shipping, and possible duty charges, this skirt could potentially cost me $100 (canadian) or more. i was so tempted but just wouldn't let myself spend that much.

so i visited the skirt online over and over again for the next few days. and then i had a brainstorm...maybe i could find something similar on ebay! and i did... look!


so i set my maximum bid and actually won it! now i have to sit and wait patiently for it to arrive, to see if it looks as pretty in person as it does online. i won't lie...i'm a bit nervous.

it's not a perfect copy but i think it's pretty darn close. i have to admit, i still prefer the modcloth one, especially the waistband part. but i figure i can be creative and make this one work for me.

since the shipping was free (!!), i spent less than $22 (canadian). so in the end, i saved about $80 by not giving in to the skirt of dreams. and i can still sleep well at night....

my childhood online

i've been spending a bit of time perusing the vintage section of etsy and most recently ebay, looking for some good finds. i've been surprised to see some things i had as a child up for sale online. in a couple of cases, they were items i had totally forgotten about until i saw them.

a yellow ladder-style earring stand given to me by my piano teacher & family friend. this one was found at the butler and maid etsy shop.


this was the telephone we had in our living room when i was little. do you have any idea how much i loved to talk on this thing? so fancy! found on ebay.


and my most favourite of finds...one i really wish i had broken down and purchased. this picture hung in my bedroom when i was little. my mom and dad always told me it was a painting of me. i found this on etsy and now i know the truth. hee hee (found at a touch of vintage on etsy)


have you ever found any of your childhood possessions online? did you end up buying them so you could have them around again?

this weekend

hey toronto folks, i'll be at the clothing show this weekend in booth #523. stop by and say hi if you're around!

better living centre, exhibition place
fri. may 1st 3:00 - 9:00
sat. may 2nd 11:00 - 9:00
sun. may 3rd 11:00 - 7:00

saturday morning

-toasted pita with melted monterey jack and veggie salami
-strawberries & kiwi
-decaf tea with honey
-orla kiely dishware & placemat from target (thanks mom!)

long weekends were made for...thrift stores!

hope everyone enjoyed a nice and relaxing long weekend! mine was great...spent it up north with my mom and her side of the family. it was just what i needed!

a bit of the long weekend was spent at various goodwills north of toronto. i found some lovely treasures that i'm very excited to start wearing once the weather warms up a bit. i came home with the 3 dresses you see above, along with 2 lovely vintage slips, a really cute, nearly-new blouse by french connection, a white eyelet skirt to wear petticoat-style under dresses, and a picture frame.

does anyone else find thrift stores 1000 x more exciting when they're in an unfamiliar town or city???

i love the cbc

this is carla and i with our new bff's, steven and chris. hee hee (a girl can dream....) the truth is that carla & i went to see a taping of the steven & chris show at the cbc on friday. it was so much fun to see the "behind the scenes" at a live taping. i'm really bummed that the show has been put on hiatus, one of the sad casualties of the recent cbc cuts.

if i was a millionaire i would personally bail the cbc out of its financial woes myself...that's how much it means to me! but unfortunately i'm not a millionaire so i did what little i could do...i signed a petition started by avaaz.org asking the canadian government to help out cbc, especially if it's going to bail out mega-media corporations like ctv & canwest (as is rumoured...).

if you love the cbc as much as i do and are upset by the proposed 800 job cuts and major cuts to programming, then perhaps you'll want to sign the petition too.(almost 50 000 people have signed it in the last 72 hours!!)

ps: i don't think you don't need to be living in canada to sign the petition either.
you can find the petition here: www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_cbc/

etsy treasury #2

i made another treasury today. i called it "i haven't got a stitch to wear" after a line in a classic smiths song. i put together 4 cute outfits...it was so much fun to play stylist for a little bit.

it expires on saturday i think, so go take a peek while it's up there.

EDITED TO ADD:
i just checked my treasury before it expires in an hour and i had 24 comments. turns out it made it to the front page!! so exciting! i just wish i had seen it there myself....

craft show alert!

hey folks, i'll be at the *spring wake up* craft show this saturday from 11am - 3pm at hart house on the university of toronto campus. if you're in the city, come by and say hi!

******
details from the facebook group:
Spring Wake Up!
Celebrating Spring and do-it-yourself spirit!
Saturday, March 21, 11-3 pm
The Great Hall, Hart House

Throw off your winter coat and get your sap pumping at Spring Wake Up! This is a great event to get juices flowing for all ages, and a great way to spend a Spring Break Saturday.
Sow the seeds of creativity in a series of do-it-yourself workshops hosted by artists and community members including
*Operation Sock Monkey’s annual Sock-monk-a-thon (Create a sock monkey)
*Make recyclable pots and plant seeds to take home
*Learn to knit with Streetknit
*Eat Organic and Fresh on under $25/week by the Daily Apple
*Bring your kids and enjoy Spring stories and create a spring flower bouquet and add a flower to the ‘Flower Power Mural’ with enchanting storyteller and artist Cath Campbell
*Discover fabulous handmade clothing and gifts made locally by independent crafters
*The Joy T-shirt Project* *Ella’s Botanicals* *Sweetie Pie Press* *Dear Sukie* *thingsbySLO* *Ratgirl* and more…

cookies

today just felt like a good day to make cookies.

ginger chocolate-chip cookies, that is. see that little mushed-up one in the corner there. i ate him right after i took this picture. hee!

head in the clouds...

tonight my timing was perfect and i finally had a chance to make my very first treasury over on etsy. a treasury is a little curated collection of items from other people's etsy shops, usually with a theme. some treasuries are even chosen to be on the front page. but i'll just be happy if a few others have a chance to see mine before it expires on wednesday (mar. 11th).

after spending a weekend either agonizing over starting report cards ("ughh...i really should be doing reports...") or agonizing while actually doing them, creating this treasury was a welcome break. i thought the theme of "head in the clouds" was appropriate after so much work (and the whole time wishing i was doing something else instead).

paper*cakes likes me!

my unicorn and rainbow hairpins were featured today on the super sweet paper*cakes finds blog!

thanks so much, chelsea!

movies i've seen recently

lately i've been watching more movies than usual. paul has band practice every friday night and i've found myself a lovely routine of curling up on the couch with noah and my favourite tattered quilt and watching a dvd, usually borrowed from the public library. it has become the perfect way to transition from the work week to the weekend.

two fridays ago i watched "the namesake", a movie based on the novel by jhumpa lahiri and it has really stuck with me. it was such a fantastic story and a beautifully shot movie. VERY highly recommended!
here's the trailer:


and this past weekend paul & i went to see the movie "wendy and lucy". i loved how quiet and minimal the movie was. a very simple story but completely intriguing.
the trailer:


any movie recommendations (either in the theatre now or something i can borrow from the library)?

-------
i had to edit this to add:
i just watched the trailer for "the namesake" just to make sure that the embedding worked above and was reduced to a blubbering mess of tears. this movie is sooooo good! it is definitely on my list of all-time favourite films.

sensible sandals

i know my last shoe post was all about the maryjanes and boots i've been coveting (update: i tried on the clarks cutebars last thursday and they were awesome. but....i chickened out after figuring out the price after taxes). however i did find some sandals last night and actually brought them home with me. i know it's a tad early for summer footwear but i didn't hesitate a minute when i spotted a selection of worishofer sandals out front of a little store on the danforth.

i have a slightly uneasy feeling they may be knock-offs and feel a bit concerned that i may have just given 20 bucks to a terrorist cell. clue #1: they were $19.99 and the ones i've been coveting online for almost 2 years are much more than that (usually $70-ish). clue #2: they say "made in italy" and i'm pretty sure they are actually made in germany. clue #3: instead of a worishofer shoe-box, they came in a shoe box that just said "made in italy" in great big letters. hmmm....
but a great deal of googling this afternoon didn't confirm my suspicions. in fact, i couldn't find anything about "fake worishofers" at all.

please let me know if you find anything before i go and purchase a 2nd pair.....

i listen to this song (track 4) several times on my way to work and then i listen to track 7 a bunch of times too

some are lakes by land of talk.

i am obsessed.

never met a cupcake i didn't like

seems like a harmless little thing, right?

it's a cute enough little cupcake with a sad lopsided heart of cocoa and cinnamon/ nutmeg mixture. all it wants is some love.

desperately craving homebaked cupcakes after enjoying a lovely chocolate-mint one on sunday afternoon during tea with kim, i ventured to my local public library and found vegan cupcakes take over the world. i took it home with dreams of making some delightful cupcakes. after consulting with paul i decided to try the chai latte ones, page 109. no sooner did i arrive home from work on wednesday afternoon and i was in the kitchen baking up a storm! it all seemed to be going so well!

after scarfing down dinner in anticipation of those spicy little cupcakies i was terribly disappointed to bite into a tough, doughy little puck. blech! so very, very blech.

i didn't even eat it. in the garbage they went...all 11 of them (paul politely ate one). i have a few ideas of where i may have gone wrong. that doesn't help ease the pain of throwing away a batch of cupcakes though.

sadly, these vegan cupcakes did not take over our world.

sensible shoes i'm currently obsessed with

throughout the last 2 months, i've spent countless hours online trying to find the perfect pair of shoes to replace my two beloved mary-janes from payless. they've lasted about 4 years or more, which is forever in payless shoe years. but now the pleather is lifting off, they're scratched down to a white layer, and just generally look awful. it makes me so sad because i still love their style.

for about a year now i've been wrestling with the decision of whether or not to purchase a pair of leather shoes. see, i haven't bought new leather in about 11 or 12 years, ever since i went vegetarian. about 3 years ago i started buying second-hand leather shoes thinking that second-hand anything is better for the planet than new stuff, leather or not. and after researching non-leather stuff a bit, i realize i'm probably exposing myself to a lot of nasty off-gassing from pvc. so i think i'm ready to try a pair of leather shoes in hopes that they'll last a bit longer than 4 years.

here are some of the shoes (and boots) i've been obsessing over for the last couple of months. hopefully i'll work up the courage to buy a pair soooooon. (it's so hard to think of spending this much money on shoes after so many years spending $25 on footwear.)

clarks cute bar


danskos lotus


gee wawa minute (it's the black ones i love)


naot motiff


el naturalista dryland


blowfish quizz


gee wawa topper boots


miz mooz blitz

pretty papers make interesting pictures

i've spent the last few weeks taking advantage of our cloudy skies by snapping photos of my jewellery to upload to my etsy shop. but i started getting really bored with the white background i was using. after browsing around etsy i had a lightbulb moment and decided to search for some intersting papers for backgrounds. luckily there's a fantastic scrapbooking store near my home and even though i don't scrapbook, i always feel like a kid in a candy store when i go in there. the endless racks of pretty papers is almost overwhelming. after an hour of browsing on thursday afternoon i settled on the handful of papers you see above.

i've only taken a few photos with these backgrounds so far, but i'm already excited about the results! my favourite so far is this little russian doll brooch. i love how it looks against this needlepoint-looking paper.

soup for a winter cold

hi! i'm back!
hopefully for awhile, although i've come to the realization that i'm not the most um...consistent blogger. (no kidding, right?) but acceptance is the first step. and so here i am to try again.

after making it through a very long while without a cold or flu to speak of (haven't had one yet this school year), i finally felt something coming on yesterday. i started mega-dosing on cold-fx, which i swear is a wonder drug. and then today after a nice long nap after work, i made a lovely, hearty, and delicious soup that i think is going to help me kick this cold in the butt!

i modified the "miso soup for one" recipe in la dolce vegan.
here's my recipe:

Krissy's Kick-Your-Cold-in-the-Butt Winter Soup

2 c water
1" fresh ginger, peeled and cut in chunks large enough to fish out later
1/2 tsp veggie bouillon
1 carrot, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
handful frozen shelled edemame
small handful dried wakame (seaweed)
5 cubes dulp pock (puffy tofu)
2 tbsp miso

Boil water with chunks of ginger. Throw in chopped carrots and celery and cook until softened. Add veggie bouillon to water. Throw in frozen edemame and dried wakame and cook 3 minutes. Add dulp pock and cook a few minutes, just long enough to heat through. Remove from heat and stir in miso. Let stand 3-5 minutes. Stir well and enjoy! (Don't forget to fish out the ginger as you eat!)

Mmmmm...

Also pictured: 2 steamed vegetarian bbq pork buns.