new york, new york!

at long last, here are some pictures from our amazing trip to new york. i can't even begin to tell you how much fun we had! it's like we squeezed in a week's worth of fun into 4 days. and we stayed true to our mission of eating our way through the city, one veggie restaurant at a time. hot damn!!

here i am at the beginning of our trip, trying to look happy about the fact that i'm about to get on an airplane. little did i know at the time that i'd soon be in the smallest airplane imaginable sitting on the runway for 2 hours because laguardia wasn't letting planes land due to bad weather.


here's paul on our first night in the city. i think this is the coolest shot of him in times square. we passed through on our way to dinner at a veggie restaurant called zen palate. (the shepherd's pie croquettes were out of this world!!)


thursday's adventures started with a trip to curly's vegetarian lunch for our first meal of the day. mmmm...faux crab cakes. so delish! (that's my cousin michele and her husband deutsch, who we vacationed with in the city.)


after lunch we walked around and ended up at washington square park to see the doggies in the off-leash areas. we especially liked these guys in the "small dog area". eep, how cute!


then on we walked through soho (went into my first anthropologie store ever but couldn't afford any of it...bah!) and then on to little italy. i can't even tell you how wonderful it was to just walk and take in the city. i especially loved the beautiful architecture. i was overwhelmed by how old and lovely all of the buildings are! seriously...every building is old and gorgeous! i totally expected it to look like toronto but it's actually very different.




we walked over to the bowery and then to mooshoes...the mecca of sensible vegetarian shoes. ahhhhhh!


even the kittycats like to hang out there (there must have been about 7 or 8 hanging out inside the store). here's one snoozing on the shelf.


by this time we were all pretty much beat from all the walking (and walking, and walking....) and the stifling heat & humidity. luckily for us, teany was right around the corner from mooshoes so we stopped in to rest our feet and cool off with some iced tea and a cupcake (this one was coconut!)


no sooner did we walk in and paul spotted sofia coppola having cake with a friend. paul and i were a bit star-struck but michele and deutsch were totally cool...they live in l.a. and see celebs all the time. we weren't big goofs or anything but we did pretend to take a picture of michele and deutsch so that we could sneak a photo of sofia without bothering her. aren't we sneaky?!


after our little rest we were up again and on our way to chinatown to meet michelle, aaron, megan and her husband for dinner at vegetarian dim sum house. it was so nice to finally meet megan and to see michelle and aaron again. we had so much fun just sitting around and talking and laughing. (and eating and eating....) michelle and aaron are regulars there so they helped us pick out a bunch of great dim sum dishes to share including one with a mysterious name like "treasure balls with assorted flavour" or something equally cryptic. they were really yummy though...everything was! i could have happily eaten there every single night of our vacation but there were too many other restaurants we wanted to try.


after dinner michele, deutsch, paul, and i took the subway back to the hotel and rested a bit. we caught a bit of a second wind so we ventured out to find a pub for a couple of drinks before calling it a day.

*****
more pictures & stories to follow. there's too much to include in one blog entry!

how my summer vacation began

oh my gosh, i've only been on summer vacation for a few weeks but it's already started out amazing!! at the beginning of july, michelle and aaron came to toronto for a few days. now maybe some people would be hesitant to invite people they knew solely from internetland to stay over at their home but not me...i could tell they were going to be fabulous people. (and i was right!) so stay at our home they did!

their first day was spent in kensington market eating a table full of yummy food from one of my favourite veggie restaurants, king's cafe. more blog-worlds collided as we met up with michelle and her boy david, and tania.


after lunch we wandered around kensington, chinatown, and queen west. i love this picture of the michelles:


the boys were super patient as we stopped to look in windows, browse in stores and take pictures.


on tuesday we did a bit of thrifting at the local goodwill (and michelle scored two amazing dresses!) then explored little india. before heading home we got takeout thali from a vegetarian restaurant which we ate while sitting on the backyard deck. it was absolutely delicious.


later that night we met up with michelle, carla, vania and joel for drinks at the drake. here's a blurry picture of the fun.


wednesday was spent hanging out, taking noah to cherry beach, shopping for a mysterious spice in little india, and hanging out on the deck with michelle.






michelle and aaron had to head back home on thursday :( but they caught a later bus so that we could still get out and enjoy the city before they left. we started at a used bookstore in the annex where we all found some treasures (and michelle and aaron bought me a richard scarry book that i had as a wee one. it makes me so happy to look at and read all over again.). then we headed over to the fancy new juice for life digs at bloor and spadina for lunch.
i love this picture of michelle and aaron at the restaurant.


after lunch it was time to head to the bus station. we really wanted to check out the distillery before they had to go but traffic was bad and we ran out of time. click here for a picture of how we felt when we had to say goodbye.

it was the most amazing 4 days with michelle and aaron here but it went way too fast! there are so many things i wish we had had time to do. i miss them both a whole lot but hopefully they'll come back and visit all of their canadian friends again soon... (you will, right??)

taking a bite out of the big apple!

hey everyone! sorry things have been so quiet around here lately. life has been crazy busy here the last couple of weeks with school ending for the summer, michelle and aaron coming to visit, and doing fun stuff around the city like checking out the toronto outdoor art exhibition. so i actually have lots of news and pictures to share....

....but it's going to have to wait just a little longer. tomorrow afternoon paul and i fly to new york city for 4 days! i'm soooo excited! i've never been to new york before. expect lots of pictures and stories when i get back.

hope everyone's enjoying their summer so far. it's been quiet out there in blogland lately, so i can only assume you are!

see you next week!

xo krissy

ps. vania, if you're reading this....have a wonderful day on saturday! i'll be thinking about you and joel and sending you lots of great celebration vibes!!!

'sup?

did you think i had been buried under the stack of marking and report cards? not to worry...after i finally finished i felt kinda burned out. sorry for being so quiet over the last couple weeks.

*****

on saturday we celebrated my nephew aaron's first birthday!

here he is enjoying the bubbles his uncle steven blew for him.


we had such a great day...it was warm and sunny. everyone just sat outside in the lush backyard and chatted the day away. so relaxing.

my brother-in-law, brian (aaron's dad) is a rabid collector. he has a way of finding the most amazing gems in thrift stores, yard sales, you name it. one of his latest lovely finds was a "lot" of 5 vintage eyeglass frames for $7 at a neighbourhood yard sale. he knew his growing collection would make me salivate so he brought them out to show me.


then the ladies got a little goofy trying them all on and posing for the camera:
me


lana (my step-sister)


mary (brian's mom)


when we got home from the party we found this little guy on the roof outside our window:


so cute. but so bad!

absence makes the heart grow fonder?

...(hopefully)

i have to take about a week off from blogland as i'm up to my ears in report card madness. i'm feeling way behind...even more so than usual! so to ease my panic a bit, i have to duck out of the blog world until these awful things are out of my hair. that means i probably won't be around to check out what's happening with you for a bit either. i'm so sorry. i'll catch up with you soon!

have a good week, everyone!

xo krissy

ps. while i'm gone, have some fun over here. i quite like this one even though i'm terrible at it.

(part 3)

the busy weekend that i've been telling you all about ended with a fantastic sunny sunday afternoon. i visited a few local buildings as part of doors open toronto, an annual event in which hundreds of local buildings open up their doors and let people tour them for free. it's one of my favourite toronto festivals. since i got a bit of a late start, i only had time to visit a few.

first stop: the fancy-shmancy new bmw building (click link for a better picture of it). since it's located in my neck of the woods and i've always wondered what it was like inside i figured it was a good opportunity to check it out. (especially since if i ever tried to walk inside any other time of the year, i'd likely be treated like julia roberts in "pretty woman" pre-makeover.)

i'm not really into the cars and since this is mainly a fancy showroom, i didn't take many pictures. but it was a lovely building with glass everywhere. including a completely glass elevator that made my stomach lurch when i took it up to the 5th floor.



cute vintage "beemer"


then a few blocks west to the national school of ballet. and a big lineup to get in! (but it was so worth it)




my bad ballet form...but look at the cool reclaimed wood flooring


and then a quick walk north to tour 2 historic mansions (now both inns):



cute coach-house behind the mansions:


just one short year until next doors open! :)

ps: (sorry for the picture-heavy post!)

last weekend (part 2)

so despite going to bed at 3:00am on friday, i woke at 6:00am on saturday morning when the alarm clock went off. i had set it the night before so i could get up in time to hit the massive number of yard sales being held in "the beaches" (local neighbourhood near the lake). there were something like 300+ sales being held with all of the proceeds going to fight breast cancer. so after 3 short hours of sleep, paul and i dragged our sorry asses out of bed and off we went.

i was surprised to find that people were still setting up the sales at 7:30. back in my hometown if you waited until 8:00 to go to a yard sale, well...things were pretty much picked over. here, paul and i actually had to kill time before the shopping could begin.

it was all worth it though. we found some great stuff!

this massive hardwood mirror that weighs a tonne!


this cute pyrex (or fireking?) bowl

and two matching chairs for our deck. we think they may be teak. they are also incredibly heavy!


along with that, we also got some magazines (incl. 2 martha stewart's) and i got 2 cute skirts.

satisfied with our purchases, we headed home to bed to catch up on some much needed zzzzz's.

*******

much later that afternoon, i went back to "the beaches" neighbourhood to check out crafternoon tea. i was sad that i missed the winter one so i made sure i went this time.

not only were there lots of amazing local crafters selling their goodies, there were also free workshops being held each hour. i was sad that i missed the bookbinding workshop but i did make it in time for the tutorial on how to sew a tote bag. that was fun to watch and i got instructions to take home and try it out (now if i could only figure out how to wind the bobbin on my machine...)

i didn't want to spend any money but one thing was way too tempting. a woman was there selling her handspun and hand-dyed wool. i swear it all looked like candy! i broke down and bought this:


*****

i did some fun stuff on sunday too! i probably won't have time to post about it tomorrow but will definitely get around to it this weekend. stay tuned...

last weekend (part 1)

in case you didn't see my post in my comments section, thanks again to everyone for their sweet birthday wishes! every single one of them made me smile...

*****

so this past weekend was probably my busiest one in a very long while. i did so many fun and interesting things that i think i might have to devote most (if not all) of this week's bloggy entries to sharing it all with you.

FRIDAY

after work i got the windshield fixed, which was neither fun nor interesting. but what i did immediately after picking it up from the shop, was! i headed over to the annual textile museum yardage sale. i was a bit bummed because it started at 11am, and if i hadn't had to get the blasted window fixed, i could have been there by 12:30 before things were picked over. as it turned out there were still lots of goodies to be found at 5:30.

vintage patterns were 5 for $1! since i don't sew, i wasn't worried about finding patterns in my size or styles that i liked. all i did was pick out the ones with lovely retro illustrations so they can be turned into something cute and crafty.


i also bought about 5 vintage magazines, 3 of which were these vintage needlecraft magazines. i also scored an issue of martha stewart. (if you look closely you can sort of see the stacks of patterns i picked up...i think i got about 20 in total)


and most of you have probably figured out by now that i am totally and completely obsessed with vintage buttons...especially the pretty plastic ones. so i had to get these (total $1.50 for the whole lot)


in all, i spent just over $6!!

as if that wasn't fun enough, i went out friday night to a massive houseparty (300+ people) to see paul's new band, soft copy, make their live debut. they rocked the house!

then to bed at 3am...and up the next morning at 6:00am! stay tuned to find out what was able to get me out of bed after only 3 hours of sleep!

35

as much as i tried to pretend it wasn't, yesterday was indeed my birthday. i turned 35 (although i told everyone at work i was 70 and added, "see what a vegetarian diet can do for your skin?!").

paul gave in and let me celebrate in the most low-key way possible. he did manage to eventually convince me to at least go out to dinner. however, we got into the car and quickly realized our windshield had a massive crack across it. unfortunately, the stress of worrying about how much it would cost to replace sort of killed our appetite. we decided to abandon the idea of going out for a slightly pricier meal at pulp kitchen and got indian takeout at our local cheapie digs instead. it was still yummy though.

paul surprised me with carrot cake from the restaurant we had our wedding party at


he also got me some great presents (stars cd and a cookbook)


noah joined us at our quiet little party (and even let us put ribbons on his collar).


and the good news is that my insurance is going to cover most of the cost of the windshield.

***********

now for the really exciting news: this afternoon when i got home from work, i was browsing through the latest NOW magazine (local free weekly) after i ate lunch. just like every other week, i opened it up to my favourite section first. as i was reading, something jumped out at me...i thought i was dreaming when i saw that my name was in the style section!!!


eeek!!!

because you have a long weekend to get sucked in

ok, my latest obsession has even caught ME offguard.

the cutest video game ever with amigurumi characters!!

i'm so not the video-game-type...or at least i haven't been since about 1982 when i spent hours in front of the tv playing pacman, space invaders, and asteroids.

but these cutiepie amigurmi critters are what have me hooked, i think.

you need to try this!

spring storm

it started to thunder a bit just as i was about to take noah for a walk this afternoon. i figured i'd better stay put and wait it out. we got caught in the rain yesterday (without an umbrella) and i didn't want to get soaked again. good thing we stayed inside because a few minutes later the skies opened up and a massive hail storm pelleted our neighbourhood for a good 10 minutes or more. it stormed for such a long time that the hail actually started to accumulate on our deck and lawn! (i had a dreadful snowy february flashback looking out at the backyard!)



here's a closeup of the pellets


poor noah was a bit freaked out by the noise (it was thundering a lot plus the hail hitting the roof was quite loud). i brought him up to the studio and bundled him up in his blankey to make him feel safe. i think he liked that.

spring cleaning

some of you may recall my obsession with "before" and "after" pictures. i haven't done one of these in awhile but cleaning up my desk in the studio was waaaaayyyy overdue. i had to take a picture of what it looked like before, mainly to prove to myself afterwards that there was a huge improvement.

BEFORE





AFTER



yeah, a bit of an improvement...