kiss me, i'm irish!

Happy St.Paddy's Day to all Irish and Irish-lovers out there. Thinking 'bout having a Guiness in honour of my Irish lady grandma....

weekend round-up

This weekend was pretty much spent waiting for it to be Saturday so Marc could take me out on our hot date. So Friday we didn't do a whole heck of a lot - so much so that I don't even remember what we did at all. We were babysitting my parents' dog all weekend though - the first lady of dog-love in my heart, my Mina. So we picked her up Friday and pretty much spent the night corralling Sadie so she wouldn't drive poor Mina too crazy. Mina is about 100 years old and therefore has no patience for an exuberant 7 month old puppy. God bless her old lady heart...

Saturday was Dogs=Awesome time and we were lucky enough to have some new faces come out! One of whom is an actual for-real photographer who managed to capture some really great shots of the dogs in action. These pictures make Sadie and her best rough-and-tumble boxer friend Soup look like they're fighting to the death but rest assured it looks worse than it is.  There's no place in the world Sadie has more fun that at this doggy gathering.  

That picture is classic Dogs=Awesome.  Poor Murray has no idea what's about to happen to him.  

Thanks to Debb Trahan-Pero for all the great pictures!!!!  Be sure and click through to her blog for more of her great pics!

Moved on from doggy playdate fun to boring errand running, blahbitty blah blah.  Then date night!!  Yay!!   As I've complained about to anyone who'll listen, Marc's been crazy busy playing with The Saltcoats, playing with his soon-to-be renamed girl band and scoring our friend Ben's new short film.  I've been living the life of a single lady lately.  To take advantage of a break in the schedule he took me out for a lovely dinner out at Bella Vita Cucina where we ate like kings and drank a truly great bottle of wine.  I love me a date night!!!

Sunday we slept off our bottle of wine and took the dogs out for a walk where we were found by just the sweetest stray dog.  She came with us on our walk and after about 2 hours of trying to find her home, she just came home with us while we tried to check in with the local animal shelter.  Thankfully she was micro-chipped so hopefully she's now made her way home to her family.    What a sweet doggy.  Once that was all over we were finally able to get dinner ready for my folks who were coming home.  Marc made a crazy delicious dinner of roast beef, roasted asparagus, blended sweet potatoes and new potatoes with roasted garlic and parmesan cheese and giant fluffy Yorkshire puddings with HOMEMADE CREME BRULEE FOR DESSERT!!!!  What???? Yeah you read that right.....I married that guy.  Thank the heavens...

anvil

This is for my friend Dan, since I didn't get him anything for his birthday but a sparkly fairy wand...

And let's say it's also for Steve. And Randy. And Mike S. Oh all my boys and their love of metal....

circus wallpaper

Saw this Catherine Martin wallpaper featured over at Apartment Therapy and I so love it for a wee one's room. It comes with a matching rug too - I would likely pick one or the other and not both together though. I love that it's such a fun kid-friendly pattern without being all "teddy bears on parade" about it. It's still grown up and great. And it also comes in red!!!

day of matt

In case you are not aware, today is the anniversary of the birth of Matt. We are all better people for it.










Let's all pause for a Matt appreciation moment..............



Happy Birthday to Matt!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let the coolness reign continuous....

for marc

This is for Marc who's been so busy with recording, scoring and rehearsing, it feels like we've hardly seen each other for weeks. I still like you a whole bunch. Like, more than everyone else combined.

the graduate

Sadie graduated from her Puppy School tonight!  Imma such a proud mama!!!

kitchen nook idea

As Marc and I ponder our kitchen and what we'd eventually like to do with it, I stumble across this picture over at sfgirlbybay and my heart stops. Our plan is to elongate our kitchen and plop a dining area right at the end. I was originally thinking of a cozy bench-nook so I can drink coffee and lounge with my feet up. This picture makes me want to change my mind a little bit only because I have a big green and lushy backyard full of overhanging trees and flowerbeds. If we had a floor to ceiling window like that, we could walk in the front door and see all the way through the house to all that greeney goodness including the trellis we got married under. Not to mention we could eat all our meals in front of it and just love it in general. Hmmm.....

i want....

...a Hugo Guiness print for my ideally soon-to-be Royal Tenenbaum-ed out front entryway.

twinkle, twinkle

I'm also super bummed when I take my interior Christmas lights down but this picture has totally inspired me for next year. I'm so piling up an armload of twinkle lights underneath my entertainment cabinet! So pretty! Christmas aside, what great lighting for a little cocktail party even.
Image of Diana Fayt's house tour via sfgirlbybay

if only i didn't have neighbours...

Image of Atelier Tradewinds Cascade outdoor shower via Apartment Therapy.

movie roles that almost weren't

Stumbled across this while reading my Hollywood gossip rags and thought it was a fun read. Here's a list of movie roles and who they were originally booked for, 10 Career Changing Roles that Almost Weren't. Obviously, stuff like this happens all the time but it's fun when you see some that make you think "What???"

Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones - Apparently he turned it down cuz he was too busy with Magnum P.I. Smart move Tommy. But you did get to be on Friends right? That makes it all better. (I've posted a picture mainly because I don't know if I'll ever have a reason to post a Magnum pic ever again and I can't pass it up.)


Brokeback Mountain starring Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix - This one is hard to picture, especially when you're trying to force Heath Ledger out of it. They turned it down because they were "creeped out" by the gay cowboy scenes. Well, Heath gayed himself right into an Oscar nod so maybe next time you shake it off. Let's pause for a Brokeback appreciation moment........sigh.

Pretty Woman starring Molly Ringwald - this could really have gone either way really. Of course this is the role that launched Julia Roberts and got her her first Oscar nod but Molly Ringwald could have easily brought legions of fans to the movie as well. Could have been interesting...

John Travolta as Forrest Gump - seriously this one is just funny. He does look like a simpleton to begin with so maybe it would have worked. He's since admitted that turning down that role was a mistake.

Ernest Borgnine as The Godfather - I can't wrap my head around this one at all. Especially since lately it seems all Ernest Borgnine does are silly dick and fart joke movies and bad television shows.

Anne Hathaway in Knocked Up - Again, she's not my favourite actress but smart, smart move on her part. She apparently turned it down because of the completely gratuitous va-jay-jay shots during the birth scene. Good on ya Anne - clearly you are smarter than you look. But then you went and made Bride Wars so.....the jury's still out on you. At least for me it is.

Gwyneth Paltrow in Titanic - said it wasn't her "cup of tea." Fair enough, I think she's done well enough for herself in the meantime. And if she'd taken the role, who knows how long it would have taken the world to discover Kate Winslet. Heavenly Creatures would have only taken her so far.

want to make a skinny girl look fat?

Put her in a dress like this. Ewwww Rachel Bilson! Ewww.....

killer cakes

So with my birthday rapidly approaching in 55 days I thought a birthday cake post appropriate. Marc tried his hand at baking last year and made me a record player birthday cake complete with Knack record and it made my year!

I love my birthday and even though I'm getting older, I'm still unbelievably pleased by a great cake. Here are 31 amazing ideas for those of you who are cake-crafty (Lisa I'm talking about you). Best thing about this page? The great instructions and broken down construction list. Love it!! Maybe I'll try and make the pirate ship for Marc's birthday...





Thanks Design Mom!

e-dress sale

E-DressMe has some kick butt sales at the moment but the one that's catching my eye the most is this Orla Kiely sweater coat priced at $30!! Regular $240!! It's not my size but I feel that price is so ridiculous that somebody should really buy it. I feel like buying it anyway just because anything Orla priced like that is like a sighting of a rare bird.

Also loving this Anna Sui handkerchief dress regular price $469 on sale for $99!





Like....right now....buy it.......go!

weekend round-up

This weekend was full of stuff just for Tara. The All-Tara weekend. Marc spent the weekend recording an EP with his girl band Jean Wells so I was left to my own devices pretty much the whole weekend. So what did I do with all that uninterrupted girl time you ask?

Friday I did manage to meet up with Marc and we hit the town for our friend Dan's birthday celebration. There were wings and beer and yes, even shots of strange alcohol. We booked the back room of our local bar and basically behaved badly all by ourselves.

Saturday I spent the morning with Marc before he headed off to music land and then met up with our Dogs=Awesome group for puppy fun. Due to a bit of spring melt, I headed home with a Sadie soaking wet from head to paws. With a puppy tired out, I met up with Dennis to see Watchmen. Now I'm a girl so in terms of the comic history of this movie, it's pretty much a blank for me. Nor do I normally really love these kinds of movies anyway but I liked it fine. Artistically it was gorgeous with every scene looking like a box in a comic strip - seriously pretty kick-ass cinematography and art direction. It did feel about 2 days long though and maybe it wasn't necessary to jam SO many storylines into one movie? I don't know. Like I said, I don't know how vital that stuff was to the integrity of the comic but man, it felt like way too much information. And also way too much wang for me. There's a lot of wang in this movie. A LOT. So less story lines and less wang - that might sum it up for me. And it is worth mentioning that as a girl, the thing about this movie that made me the happiest was Jeffrey Dean Morgan playing the role of The Comedian. Other girls like me will know him best from his stellar recurring role as Denny Duquette on Grey's Anatomy, back when Grey's Anatomy was an amazing show and you actually gave a crap about what happened to Izzie Stevens. I'm so happy to see him in something else - and to be so good in something else too! His IMDB page has a pile of future project listed. Yay for Denny Duquette!!

Post movie, what else does a girl do when left unattended? I went shopping and picked up some new jeans etc at Old Navy and came perilously close to buying an adorable black Calvin Klein dress at Winners that I don't need at all. Before you applaud my restraint I have to mention that I'm not entirely convinced that I won't go back and buy it this week. Spent the rest of the night not eating dinner but instead eating popcorn and fighting to stay awake long enough to see Ray Lamontagne on SNL. It was so worth the effort. If only he would smile. Click here to see him playing "You Are The Best Thing" off his new album and "Trouble," the killer title track from that record.

Sunday, I shopped again. This time swinging by Zellers just to look at the kids toys but instead I left with like 3 super cute tops, a great skinny yellow patent leather belt for $4.99 and the best pair of trouser jeans I've tried on anywhere. I was so pleasantly surprised! At Zellers! Whoodda thunk it? Spent the rest of the day at my bro's house with the family for a dinner in honour of my niece Elizabeth's birthday and headed home to watch Big Love in my jammies and pretty much collapse into bed exhausted for really no reason at all. What's up with that? Stupid time change....

video fun

Couple of great videos posted over at Joanna's today that I thought were worth sharing.

First, here's an amazing computer version of the Hudson River Plane Landing. Seriously cool to see it all laid out in real time.


And great in a totally different way, Bizkit the sleepwalking dog that made me full-on belly laugh. And I thought Sadie dream-running and sleep-wagging her tail was funny...

public enemies

Every aspect of this movie is enough to give me dirty dreams.

what's better than one puppy cam?

TWO puppy cams!!! Now that the much-loved Shina Ibu puppies are bigger (still cute though) let's drool over some bulldog puppies.


Streaming Video by Ustream.TV

weekend round-up

After our galactic snowstorm this week it felt like a great weekend to lay relatively low. Friday Marc surprised me by taking me out for Indian food buffet for dinner - one of my all-time favourite dinner outings. We went out in the freezing freezing cold and filled our bellies with buckets of Indian goodness and rolled ourselves home to digest by the fire.

Saturday I took my niece Elizabeth out for an early 9th birthday outing to see Coraline. I LOVED this movie. I loved this movie just as much as any of the live-action stuff I've seen over the last little while. I thought I would enjoy it going in but I wasn't expecting to enjoy it so much. It's just lovely and gorgeous and perfect and glorious stop-motion animation which you just never see anymore. Alas, the theatre stopped running it in 3D (what???) but I promised Elizabeth that it comes anywhere else in 3D that I would take her to see it properly. I can only imagine how much I would have enjoyed it in its intended format. Saturday night Marc spoiled me again by cooking a glorious meal of honey-mustard breaded chicken, spinach salad and sundried tomato risotto. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven, it was so good. Again, spent the rest of the night lolling around by the fire and stumbled across a brilliant little film on the television The Son of Rambow. This film is adorable with a couple of brilliant child actors and the lovely surprise of Ed Westwick in a small role. Chuck Bass with his proper English accent?? Hot!!!!

Sunday it was early morning haircuts with the lovely Paula who is due to deliver her baby any second. Yay!!!!!!! On to groceries and the making of our favourite spinach lasagna. Marc ventured out to a local bluegrass concert but I was slave to my laundry as it's been ages since I've tended to it. I'm so domestic! Here's the recipe for the lasagna in case anyone wants:

Small saucepan full of tomato sauce - make it from scratch for the love of peet - just your basic tomatoes, onion, garlic, basil combo.

450 grams of ricotta cheese

1 bag of spinach, chopped (10 ounces) OR 2 packages of chopped frozen spinach (10 ounces)

1 egg, slightly beaten

a good handful of fresh chopped basil

a good bit of fresh grated nutmeg (and yes it really should be freshly grated)

lasagna noodles (I like to alternate the regular ones and the spinach ones)

450 grams grated mozzarella cheese

parmesan cheese

Make your sauce and set it aside. In a bowl mix ricotta, spinach, egg, basil and nutmeg. In your baking dish, spoon some of your sauce over the bottom. Then drop your noodles about a finger-width apart, cover with sauce, grate fresh Parmesan over the top. Now how you want to layer is up to you. Some people like all their filling in the middle, some like it all layered evenly. Do whatever you like. I like sauce, noodle, sauce, noodle, spinach filling, noodle, sauce, noodle, spinach filling, noodle, sauce, 1/2 of the mozzarella, noodle, sauce and the rest of the mozzarella. I also like to grate fresh parmesan between every layer cuz it's yummy. But obviously you have to finish with the mozzarella. I also like to drizzle a bit of olive oil over the top. Put the whole thing on a cookie sheet so you don't wreck your oven with drippings, bake at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes uncovered. Let it hang out for a bit before digging into it.

Yup, that was my weekend.