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)?

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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.

busted!

what you see above is the last picture i'll ever take at the local t & t grocery store. i went shopping there yesterday to get stuff for making inari and maki rolls for dinner. as i wandered the aisles, i took some quick pics of things that caught my eye. just as i finished taking this picture, an employee came up to me and said "no pictures". i was caught so off-guard that my only response was, "really? but it's so pretty!!"

oh well. at least i got this one last picture before being busted.

and really...isn't it so pretty? i imagine the liquid inside those bottles must taste like fairy water.

breakfast of champions

summer is sadly coming to an end and i'm headed back to work next tuesday after two glorious months off. so this morning as i fixed my breakfast, i realized that in a few days i probably won't have time to linger over the lovely meal i've been making for myself for most of the summer.

this breakfast has been such a treat for me over the last couple of months. it usually contained some variation of the following:
* 10-12 buttered crackers with brie
* a handful of raw almonds
* a few dried apricots (i like the organic kind but it takes awhile to get used to that rusty brown colour instead of the bright orange you typically find)
* organic vanilla yogurt with seasonal fruits mixed in (today it was some diced peach, blueberries, and strawberries*...all from ontario)

mmmm...

*believe it or not, the strawberries are from ontario even though strawberry season is kind of over. these are apparently called "everbearing strawberries" or so the friendly farmer from the market tells me. i think i was able to buy them well into september last year!

my favourite thing of the day

this is about the cutest thing i've seen in a really long time. a man singing a litter of puppies to sleep!!

(found via pretty little things blog)

happy birthday, madonna

today you're 50 years old. but don't worry, honey...you're still totally fabulous!!(i still want to be you when i grow up...)

another book finished

while we were at the cottage, i spent a large chunk of my week lying on the dock slathered with sunscreen and reading black swan green by david mitchell. i have to tell you, it was a really wonderful way to spend my days at the lake.

so briefly, without giving too much away, the story follows a 13-year old boy named jason for a year of his life. he wants desperately to be part of the cool crowd but he's bullied because he stammers. it's a really touching novel and reminded me of how tough it is to be a kid just trying to fit in.

i really liked this book. i liked jason so much that after i'd finished reading it, i actually thought about him for days afterward, and kind of missed him. i guess that's the sign of a good story, huh?

my rating: 8.5/10

(and a big thanks to the lovely person on bookmooch who kindly sent this book to me all the way from japan.)

*****
in case you're interested, i've just started reading "a long way down" by nick hornby. i'm only about 20 pages in so far though....

cottage = summer

a couple of weeks ago, paul and i spent a week at the cottage we rent every year near haliburton. we had such a great time. a couple of our friends always come with us for a few days and that always makes for good times too. here are some of my favourite pictures from our week.

noah loves the cottage:

looking down the curve in the lake:

i want to remember this day in the middle of january:

a group of "shoe trees" just outside of kinmount:

a snack from the chip truck:

the tastes of summer

last thursday i checked out a new farmers' market in the neighbourhood. it wasn't as good as my favourite one (which i sadly still haven't made it to yet) but it was still nicer than the grocery store aisle. check out all those pretty colours!

*****

and tonight's dinner i'm dubbing "adventures in sushi". i guess that makes it sound like it was a little dodgey but it actually all turned out really well. i've made maki rolls before but this was my first time making inari sushi. it certainly won't be my last...so easy with those little pre-made wrappers! we stuffed ours with rice, avocado, and carrots. mmmm...so good!! here's a blurry picture...we were too hungry to take a perfect one...sorry! (for non-sushi eaters, that's wasabi in the dish in the middle of the plate. we mixed it in some temari sauce for dipping).

catching up on books i've read

it's been awhile since i mentioned the books i've been reading. summer is an especially good time to get into a good book so i thought this little list of the last 3 books i've finished might help someone choose a new one to delve into.

way back in april i finished up "a spot of bother" by mark haddon.

even though i had a hard time getting into this book, i did enjoy it in the end. it's quite different from haddon's other book "the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime" which i thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish. a spot of bother is about a neurotic man and his dysfunctional family. all in all, i enjoyed it and would recommend it.
my rating: 7/10


my next read was very different..."the secret life of bees" by sue monk kidd.

my goodness...i can't say enough about this story! i absolutely LOVED this book. straight from the beginning i was instantly hooked. i haven't felt that pull since i read "lullabies for little criminals" last summer. googling around to find the image of the book cover, i found out that there's going to be a movie version of this book coming out in october 2008 and paul tells me it's coming to tiff in september. i can't wait!!
my rating: 8.5/10


and the book i finished up at the end of june was "love is a mix tape" by rob sheffield.
i think paul liked this book a little better than i did. this book told the true story of how sheffield met and fell in love with his wife and then dealt with losing her. i don't want to say much more for fear of giving too much of the story away. however, this story surprisingly didn't draw me in the way i expected it would. overall, meh.
my rating: 5/10

*****
right now i'm reading "black swan green" by david mitchell and even though i'm only on page 62, i'm quite enjoying it. i've recently come to the realization that my favourite kind of book is a work of fiction where the main character is a child or teen. such is the case with "black swan green". not sure if being a teacher has something to do with why these stories speak to me or not.

anyhow, i'll be back for quick review of "black swan green" once i've finished. fair warning though...i'm a terribly sloooowwww reader.

our date with david sedaris

on thursday night, carla and i went to see david sedaris at the indigo at bay and bloor. he was making an appearance there to promote his new book. carla and i got there at just the right time (an hour before it started) because we ended up with a pretty good spot where we could see him quite clearly. we're pretty sure the guy who introduced him said that there were 800 people there!


he read a story from "when you are engulfed in flames" plus a bit from a new book he's working on. then he read a bunch of really funny entries from his diary. the last part was left for q & a, which i really enjoyed because he ended up telling a few stories to answer each question. so instead of a short 1-minute answer, i swear each answer ended up being almost 10 minutes long and thoroughly entertaining!

he's so naturally funny and witty, carla and i left feeling like we just really wanted to spend an evening at the movies, maybe dinner too, with david and his boyfriend hugh.

*****
ps. if you want to hear a great interview with david sedaris from the same day, you can go here and right-click on the podcast for thursday, july 10th. his interview begins about 1/3 of the way through (after william h. macy).