weekend round-up

Well not only am I coming off my weekend but I'm also coming off a weeks vacation so that would explain the lack of blogging etc. As is my norm, when I'm on vacation I tend to vacation from everything -- internet included. That means no blogging, no blog reading, no celebrity gossip perusing, very minimal email checking -- everything. The tech check-out is one of my favourite parts of being on vacation -- no hard feelings though blogland!!

Spent my week off staying pretty low-key but not really by choice. Been hit pretty hard by some third trimester nausea (which is super common but I had no idea was coming) which unfortunately laid me up on and off during the days. Not to mention it was crazy hot this week and I'm just getting too ginormous to be able to handle this heat very well. Anyway, it was still a good week off but was also a prime example of why I hate taking time off by myself and when I have nothing to do -- I just end up sitting around fussing with tiny things feeling like I'm getting nothing done. Sigh...

Anyway we kicked off my last weekend of freedom by a last minute fancy dinner at Ristorante Verdicchio. What a treat! Especially when it was so unexpected! We even got serenaded by the resident guitar and accordion players -- when they saw my giant belly they started playing a lullaby for us. It was really sweet. We're trying to take advantage of this remaining time alone before the baby comes and time is running out!!

Saturday most of our day was taken up with the most mundane errand EVER!! All I need is a double curtain rod for the nursery -- I don't want it to be black, it has to be deep enough to accommodate the depth of the original window casings in our house, and I'd like it not to be like every other piece of drapery hardware you see everywhere. After all, it is a nursery so why not find something unique right? Well apparently not. Every single double rod we found (when we found one at all that is) were either black or silver, too shallow and butt ugly. So after scouring the city for hours we came home with nothing at all. Grumble....

Came home from our fruitless errand and drowned our sorrows in a yummy dinner. Marc wrapped up some chicken in some bacon and tossed it on the BBQ along with some grilled sweet potatoes and some roasted corn on the cob. It totally helped to forget the frustration of the day.

Sunday we spent most of the day in the nursery attempting to put it in some kind of order. As it stood before, all of our mountain of baby stuff was "stored" on our guest bed as Marc still had woodwork to finish up in the nursery. Well with houseguests coming this weekend (for my baby shower -- EEP!) it pretty much dictated that we start moving stuff over. We moved around furniture, folded mountains of tiny clothes and blankets and just generally tried to make sense of things. Not sure if we totally accomplished that but at least the room is starting to look like maybe a baby might live there. And our houseguests won't have to fight their way to the bed in the guestroom. So that's a bonus too.

Took a break to visit the farmers market where we scored some perfect sweet plums and sugar pears -- perfection! Hit home in time for Marc to get in some gardening (farewell lettuce garden -- thanks for a great summer!!) then I made us a simple pasta dinner with a shredded zucchini and tomato sauce. Yum!!

Monday turned into a day of organizing -- organizing of epic proportions! What started as a conversation about how we hate this dilapidated lazy susan in our kitchen ended in a total kitchen re-org. The lazy susan is now totally abandoned (thank you god!) and everything has been moved around to places that make 100% more sense. Silly but I feel more productive in that kitchen already. Rewarded all our hard work with Marc's homemade grilled burgers and some ginger ice cream. Now I'm so tired I can't even see straight. Gonna hit my pj's and watch Mad Men and spend some quality time with my pillow.

Back to work tomorrow -- thanks for the long weekend love!!!!

our christmas home

I so love our little house during the holidays - it's all warm and twinkly and I just want it to be like this every day of the year. Here's some pics courtesy of an early Christmas gift we got ourselves -- a shiny new Nikon D3000. Yay Santa!

Happy Holidays from all of us at C.Y.G.T.S!!!

Weekend round-up

What a weekend it was! So much to talk about, so many pics to post best get started.

Friday Marc and I babysitted for some friends and I am a complete convert to highly regulated sleep-trained babies. First I mocked then saw it for my own eyes. This baby who doesn't know us from a hole in the ground went down like a lead balloon. In all of my years babysitting, I have never seen a baby go to sleep so easily -- especially with a stranger!! Kudos to Shannon cuz clearly her months of hard work have paid off. Yay sleep training!

Saturday was a trip to the theatre with my 2 nieces and their little friend for "Cinderella" and a fun time was had by all. There was laughing and giggling and borderline delirium when they got to meet Cinderella and get everyone's autograph. Sometimes you forget how cool it was to see live theatre when you were a little kid. The scene changes, fancy lights and all the stage trickery and costumes -- through the eyes of a 6 year old is pretty darn cool. It was nice to be reminded of that. And then the buckets of questions that followed went something like this: "Are you guys really sisters? (to the ugly stepsisters)," "Does that guy really have a tail? (about the guy who played Maurice the cat)," "Were there really horses backstage? (about the big pumpkin carriage)," "Is the fairy godmother really magic like for real?" Etc, etc, etc....

Saturday night we used a gift certificate for The Keg that we got as a wedding gift. Now Marc and I aren't Keg people. We really aren't chain restaurant type people at all. But this card has been gathering dust in my purse since the summer and after a day at the theatre cooking was out of the question. So off we go. Now in addition to not being Key types let's also remember that I only started eating red meat again this past year and even saying that I've "started" is a stretch. So this restaurant is a big step for me. I order a filet mignon because when in Rome right? I haven't had filet mignon in easily ten years. I almost died. It was buttery and delicious and the baked potato was probably the best restaurant potato I've ever had not to mention the exquisitely cooked asparagus. Colour me surprised. Yes I felt like cattle the whole time I was there, the volume of noise was deafening, my waitress acted like my best friend when in actuality I prefer my waiters to be borderline icy and when our table was ready, instead of being fetched like civilized people we were summonded by something that beeped and flashed. But the food was, in fact, delicious. So I suppose it was everything I hate about chain restaurants but with a pleasant surprise.

Sunday was breakfast with the folks and our 2nd annual foray into the bush for the gathering of fallen boughs to decorate my windowbox. Off we went down old logging roads and finally found a glorious fallen down tree with boughs a plenty. Bailey even found a big pile of old deer bones to roll around in. Fun for him, kinda gross for me. It was good to get out into the almost eery quiet of the bush and it was a beautiful day for it. It was snowing that kind of snow that feels like it's coming down in slow motion and being released one snowflake at a time.


As a result of this weekend I think we are almost completely decorated for the holidays. Tree is up, lights are up (except for one wayward strand awaiting an extension cord) and festive spirit is in place. Here are some pics of my favourite corner in the house.

Starsky and Hutch

So with the generous wedding gifts we received from everyone Marc and I were able to finally get a hutch for our dining room. I can't tell you how happy we were when we found this at Vested Interest in North Bay. It's completely huge and takes up almost the whole side wall in our dining room which is exactly what we wanted. It's an antique with lovely metal pulls and skeleton keys and fits all our things both practical and pretty. Also in these pictures, a quick look at some of the trim that Marc has tirelessly been restoring by hand and Bailey, recovering nicely from his fall down the stairs.

Why I love autumn...

Look what's happening to our Virginia Creeper on the back of our house! I didn't even know it would do that.


And look what's happening to the tree across the street! It's one of my favourite trees in the neighbourhood. I just may have to document its progress..