vinyl cafe

In case you missed it on Sunday, this week's edition of The Vinyl Cafe was especially fantastic. Recorded on Manitoulin Island (our little island backyard), it had great music courtesy of Jim Bryson and a Dave and Morley story about losing their dog Arthur that made me cry and cry. Click here for the podcast if you feel like busting out some tissues.

portland wedding love

I know I fall in love with a lot of weddings but this one might be my most favourite wedding ever. Kelly and Joseph had a wedding in the woods in Portland and it is cut straight from the cloth of my fantasy wedding. As a little girl I never, ever dreamed of my big white wedding in a church with all the trimmings. I only ever wanted a small, homestyle wedding on the dock of our family camp. That was never able to happen as my grandfather sold the camp when I was in my early teens - something I consider to be one of our great family tragedies. But I digress.

This wedding is exactly the wedding I would have wanted.

Of course there would be dogs....

I love the idea of a wedding party travelling through the forest.

I love the way her bouquet looks like she picked it on the way to the ceremony site. I'm also ultra in love with her perfect birdcage veil.

Picnic blankets everywhere -- best idea!!

And this. This is my favourite wedding photo of all time.

Photos by the truly gifted Leah Verwey.

weekend round-up

Strange weekend I think. Typically I'd have spent this entire weekend at our city's annual music festival, the Northern Lights Festival Boreal but this year there were about 50 different things that kept me from being a festival bug for 3 days.

Friday we pretty much spent our entire evening running a pile of errands that we'd been putting off. Picked up some more flowers and herbs for the garden, bought the best skirt ever that I'm thinking I might wear for the entire rest of this pregnancy and just did a whole host of other tiny things. Got home in time for this lady to make some toast and crash out. I know, I am a wild party.

Saturday we made it out to the festival for the day at least but I was pretty under-whelmed with the whole experience. They had to change venues for this year and I just felt like it was really lacking in the atmosphere that usually makes the festival so wonderful. Being a huge fat pregnant lady didn't really help me get into the spirit of the whole thing either though so it was kinda an uphill battle for me from the start. With the extreme heat, zero shade, and no chairs I was just not a happy camper at all. I tried hard but just couldn't bring up the festival love I'm afraid. Headed home around supper time for a giant sun-stroked fueled nap and made it out again for the festival after-show at the Townehouse which perked me up considerably. A little Cuff the Duke will make any gal smile I think. Oh and we also watched Moon with our dinner -- what a great movie!!! Clearly talent does run in the Bowie family....

Sunday I slept in like crazy, we took Sadie to the lake for a swim, ran some more errands and were home in time for the World Cup Final game. And snacks!! Yay for Spain! Ole indeed!! Finished off the night with a truly delicious dinner courtesy of Marc (he made one of Mario Batali's recipes for beef with these super yummy vinegar potatoes) and some True Blood watching.

dogs = awesome

A Corgi who only likes to be spoken to in an English accent. Love.

maxi summer

This summer I've found myself living in maxi dresses for a few reasons: 1) They will fit me through this entire pregnancy. 2) They are insanely comfortable and cool in these sweltering heat waves. 3) They allow me to sit on the ground however I please without having to worry about giving anyone a crotch shot. 4) They can be easily dressed up or down. 4) No part of the dress is squeezing me, pinching me, flying up in a wind or otherwise exposing any area of myself that has swollen with pregnancy. All in all, the maxi dress might be my summer pregnancy essential. Here are some over at Modcloth that I'm currently coveting even though I only have about 10 weeks to go.

sloppy joes

So with every pregnancy comes strange cravings and mine, while there hasn't been anything ridiculous like ice cream and pickles, I am finding myself wanting foods I never usually eat. Like hotdogs for instance. Normally I never eat hotdogs -- I don't like them, I don't agree with them on a moral level, I just generally think they're despicable. This pregnancy I've had 2, one of which I bought on the street. Go figure.

Sloppy joes is another one. Last week brought a viscious sloppy joe craving and I remembered seeing what looked like a delicious recipe in that Ellie Krieger "Foods You Crave" cookbook that I have and happen to love (blogged about in the past here and here). So out came the book and out come some pretty damn good sloppy joes -- and healthy to boot!

I highly recommend this recipe if you're looking for some childhood comfort food that's also easier on the waistline.

Recipe here!

weekend round-up

Well it was the Canada Day long weekend (not technically but yes if you were smart enough to take the Friday off) so there were lots of good times/good food/good naps to be had if you knew where to look!

Thursday being Canada Day I was found where I can be found every year and that's the annual Canada Day multi-cultural food fair (after a nice morning hike with Sadie of course). We noshed on some African stew, some Korean dumplings and some Filipino noodles and veggies and topped it off with a gigantic homemade ice cream sammich. Followed that by an afternoon of sunny patio drinks with some friends and you've got yourself a pretty decent mid-week holiday!

Friday I was off solo (Marc being one of those silly folk who did not take the day off) so after my morning conservation area visit with Sadie (again!) we hung about the house being domestic and trying to shake the pregnancy dizzies I seemed to be saddled with most of the day. Evening saw us having dinner with friends Ben and Fran (Ben's in town all week working on his next short film) and their Aussie pal Christina. A very detailed dinner conversation focused solely on ice cream sent us careening to the nearest gelato place post-dinner and thankfully we made it there with mere moments to spare before they closed up shop for the night. Summer night gelato might be the best summer idea ever.

Saturday was the beginning of our crazy heat wave. And by crazy I mean crazy. Way too hot for this gal and her baby belly to be sure!! Thankfully, Marc had early morning blueberry picking plans so he brought Sadie along with him into the bush thus tiring her out for the rest of the day. And he came back with 4 litres of berries after only 2 hours of picking! These blueberries are mostly destined to become perserved blueberries in brandy for the winter but the rest of them have been ending up in my new daily smoothie routine and some even ended up in our dinner that night -- Marc made a pretty delicious blueberry balsamic BBQ sauce concoction!

Sunday guess what? Still way too hot for this mama-to-be but a last minute invite by some friends to join them at the shady, breezy conservation area with the pooches and kidlets proved to be a nice reprieve from the stifling heat of the "city." Jeniva has a lovely Portugese water dog and a brand new 5 month old Chihuahua named Lupita that is just the cutest thing. Watching Sadie eyeball Lupita was pretty adorable I gotta say. The end of Sadie's snout is the same size as Lupita's whole face!! Anyway, Sadie decided that that day was her day to finally learn to swim and as she launched herself off a dock you could see her re-thinking her plan for sure. The thing with Sadie is that she'll happily go into the water but when she can't touch she begins flailing her front feet like she's fighting her way out of hot lava while her back legs do nothing at all and she sinks like a furry black stone. This time, after really giving herself no other option, she flailed her front feet like crazy and slowly, verrrrry slooooowly, made it back to shore, soaked and terrified, but on shore. Oh Sadie, a Labrador you are not....

Here's a pic of Sadie before she decided to launch herself off the dock. Back when she was having fun with the whole swimming thing.

So all in all, a pretty great weekend if not a little on the warm side. Boo to back to work!!

hot Bunny Radio Playlist for July 1st -- Canada Day!

CKLU 96.7 fm

6-8pm (18:00-20:00)

italics denotes a new release

* denotes Canadian talent

Our annual Canada Day show!! All our fave new and old Canuck greats!!

CLICK HERE FOR PODCASTY GOODNESS OF TONIGHT'S SHOW!!!!!

• The Beauties -- Tired Fired Blues -- The Beauties *
• Broken Social Scene -- Chase Scene -- Forgiveness Rock Record *
• Royal Canoe -- Saw An Arrow -- Co-Op Mode *
• Forest City Lovers -- Keep The Kids Inside -- Carriage *
• The Acorn -- Cobbled From Dust -- No Ghost *
• The Salteens -- Don't Break My Heart -- Moths *
• Eric's Trip -- Run Away -- Forever Again *
• Sarah Harmer & Jason Euringer -- Blue Moon of Kentucky -- Songs for Clem *
• Jason Collett -- Sorry Lou -- Here's to Being Here *
• Cuff the Duke -- Take My Money and Run -- Cuff the Duke *
• The New Pornographers -- Failsafe -- The Challengers *
• The Sadies -- A Simple Aspiration -- New Seasons *
• The Constantines -- The Long Distance Four -- The Constantines *
• Danny Michel -- Tennessee Tobacco -- Valhalla *
• Hayden -- The Van Song -- In Field and Town *
• The Wooden Sky -- Call If You Need Me -- If I Don't Come Home You'll Know I'm Gone *
• Gordon Lightfoot -- Steel Rail Blues -- Gord's Gold *
• Immaculate Machine -- You Destroyer -- High on Jackson Hill *
• Feist -- Past in Present -- The Reminder *
• The Statues -- Fine Tuned -- Aux *
• The Band -- Ophelia -- Best of the Band *
• Sunparlour Players -- John Had a Bell & Whistle -- Hymns for the Happy *
• Teenage Head -- Tearin' Me Apart -- Teenage Head with Marky Ramone
• Jim Guthrie -- You Are Here ( Do You Exist?) -- Now, More Than Ever *
• Nathan Lawr -- Bury Me Blues -- Secret Carpentry *
• Joel Plaskett -- Every Time You Leave -- Three *
• Rock Plaza Central -- Anthem for the Already Defeated -- Are We Not Horses? *
• Amy Millan -- I Will Follow You Into the Dark -- Masters of the Burial *
• The Weakerthans -- Confessions of a Futon-Revolutionist -- Fallow *
• Chad VanGalen -- Molten Light -- Soft Airplane *
• Julie Doiron -- Yer Kids -- Woke Myself Up *
• Two Hours Traffic -- Close Up To Me -- Isolator *
• Metric -- Stadium Love -- Fantasties *
• The Queers -- Punk Rock Girls -- Don't Back Down *
• The Arcade Fire -- Keep the Car Running -- Neon Bible *

happy canada day!

Hope everyone is as happy as this guy is on Canada Day!! Mine is going pretty darn great if I do say so myself! Bit of a lay around this morning with Marc which has been pretty rare these days considering usually by the time morning rolls around my bladder is well-past "explosion" mode. Followed that by a great morning hike with Sadie where she managed to get good and muddy then washed off nice and clean in the lake, back home to freshen up and walk downtown for our annual multi-cultural food fair (where we stuffed my patriotic face full of African stew, Korean dumplings, Filipino fried noodles and veggies and a very Canadian giant ice cream sammich), then on to sunny patio drinks with some friends, home for a quick nap then off to do my annual Canada Day edition of Hot Bunny Radio.

Phew....

animal alphabet chart

Continuing our theme of yesterday, check out this great print of Anna Bond's painting of an animal alphabet chart. Since our much-loved arctic animals print from yesterday is sadly out of stock, perhaps this will fill the void?

Available at the always lovely Rifle Paper Co.

acrtic animals

I LOVE this screen print from Banquet's Etsy shop! We seem to have a bit of a "woodland creatures" thing going on in the nursery and I just think this would be perfect to add to the mix! Adorable forest creatures mixed with "fun facts" from Canada's far north? Come on...

manchego with honey brown butter sauce

A few weeks ago some friends of ours hosted a tapas dinner party and each guest was responsible for bringing one tapas course along with a matched wine. This afternoon as we noshed on a giant wedge of Manchego I was reminded that I never blogged about my contribution to the party! I was super pressed for time that day and didn't have any time to prepare any meat etc so off to the Fromagerie Elgin to procure a huge piece of Manchego. On the food network website I found this insane recipe for Manchego with Honey Brown Butter Sauce that was possibly the easiest thing I've ever made that packed the most flavourful punch. Make this for a dinner party and I swear people will be foaming at the mouth. I ended up cutting the cheese into little pieces instead of pouring the sauce over the whole wedge only because I thought it'd be easier (and less sticky) for people to manage.

weekend round-up

Well this weekend brought my last weekend of holidays (for a bit anyway) so we had to make sure and say farewell on a high note. Started my Friday bright and early by taking Sadie out to the conservation area for a big hike and a swim -- all by 9am too I might add! Laid low Friday night cuz we were both pretty wiped so we feasted on a dinner of fancy cheeses and sundried tomato hummus. Yum!

Saturday we were out and about early with Sadie again only this time we shared the bush with all the anti-dog people in town it seemed. My favourite was the couple pushing a baby in a stroller (who had their own dog too I might add) who told us both times we ran into them, that they didn't want Sadie anywhere near the baby, despite the fact that Sadie showed zero interest at all in their precious baby. I mean, if she'd been rushing the stroller or something I'd totally get it but she wasn't even aware they had a baby at all. Perhaps they should've paid more attention to their own dog that was straining and pulling on their leash? Or if you're so worried about dogs around your baby, how about you don't bring your baby to a place where dogs are always running off leash? And the best part was that her husband, who was the one pushing the stoller, was totally chill about the whole thing and was all smiley and stuff while his crazy wife was telling everyone with a dog to keep them away from the baby. Jeepers...

Spent the rest of the afternoon taking care of some errands (new insurance deal = boring!) and getting ready for the 2nd annual Savour The Street event put on my our local restaurant association. We went last year for the inaugural event and had such a good time that we had to head down again this year. Basically they close down a street downtown, lay out one big long table that seats 250 people, and a pile of the local restaurants provide a course each. You eat all night under the sunset and there's music and even a loot bag! I'll go just about anywhere if I'm gonna get a loot bag! Last year we went alone but this year we went with 3 other couple friends of ours and did it up in style. Rolled ourselves home with the biggest, fullest bellies ever.

Sunday brought the unfortunate reality that I have to go back to work tomorrow so that meant doing buckets of laundry before the evening rains came. Sadie thankfully avoided any of the anti-dog folk by spending a good chunk of her day in the bush with Marc picking blueberries. I bowed out as picking blueberries likely the last thing I want to be doing right now at more than 7 months pregnant. My sense of balance is pretty much non-existent these days so I think I would've spent more time falling into the bushes than doing any picking. Thankfully I married a champion blueberry picker so he came home with a giant overflowing container full of deliciousness. The plan for these berries you ask? Some will be smoothie ingredients for sure, some will be muffins and the rest are destined to spend the fall in a big container of brandy getting all boozy and delicious.

Tonight I'm spending the evening with some pasta and my super yummy homemade garlic bread and the premiere of the new season of Entourage. I'm really hoping this season isn't as supremely shit-tastic as the last one was. At least someone over at HBO finally realized that Vince needed to cut his AWFUL hair....

anniversary vacation

So we're fresh back from our anniversary vacation! This year obviously we had some travel restrictions what with me being 100 months pregnant and all so we decided to lay relatively low. A friend of Marc's offered us his cabin in Southampton for a few days (for free!!) and it was just what the doctor (and my poor swollen feet) ordered. When in doubt about how far you can push your pregnant belly, always opt for a few days of sitting on a gorgeous beach I say!

Took a ferry cruise around Georgian Bay - this is the famous "flower pot" on the aptly named Flower Pot Island.

This is Georgian Bay just being gorgeous.

I mean honestly, Ontario's got the best stuff...

...like shipwrecks under 2 metres of water!

The beach in Southampton that was about 20 seconds from our door.

Me and the belly at about 7 months.

Pretty flowers.

Our beach's sunsets. Crazy beautiful.

With light like this, how could we not take sparkly pictures of each other?

This was a weirdly hazy evening -- gave everything this fuzzy look.

Our teeny tiny slice of heaven in the trees.

Our annual contribution to our "us kissing in fun places" photo file.

Lake Huron rocky beaches.

How we spent the entire day - picnic, blanket, beach, perfection!

Getting some sun on the bambina -- she loved it and wiggled away the afternoon.

The beach houses with the dunes and sand going right up to their doors. Heaven...

The sunsets were insane. We took about 1000 pictures.

That's the Chantry Bay lighthouse. It's also a bird sanctuary.

All in all, a pretty lovely few days. A quick escape together was just what was needed before the fall when things will take a turn for the crazy!!!

body necklaces

I've been seeing body necklaces popping up all over lately and I gotta say, I am not a fan. It just seems a bit too much like body armour or something. Why not just wear a big chunky statement necklace and be done with it? This just has too much of a medieval flare to it and I can't bring myself to get on board.

Thoughts?

hot Bunny Radio Playlist for June 24th

CKLU 96.7FM

6-8pm (18:00 - 20:00)

* denotes Canadian talent

italics denotes a new release

CLICK HERE FOR PODCASTY GOODNESS OF TONIGHT'S SHOW!!!!!!!!

• Sonic Avenues -- Out Of My Head -- Sonic Avenues (VINYL)*
• The Jam -- In The Midnight Hour -- This is the Modern World
• Beach Boys -- God Only Knows -- Pet Sounds
• The Breeders -- Drivin' on 9 -- Last Splash
• The Raveonettes -- Chain Gang of Love -- Chain Gang of Love
• Dr. Dog -- I Only Wear Blue -- Shame, Shame
• Mike O'Neill -- What Happens Now -- What Happens Now
• Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir -- Oh Sorrow -- Fighting and Onions
• The Zombies -- I Love You -- The Best of... (VINYL)
• Willie Nelson -- Dusty Skies -- You Don't Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker
• Wilco -- Blue Eyed Soul -- A.M
• Neil Young -- After the Gold Rush -- After the Gold Rush *
• The National -- Terrible Love -- High Violet *
• She & Him -- Brand New Shoes -- Volume 2
• Palace Brothers -- RIding -- Horseshoes & Handgrenades Vol.2
• Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins -- It Wasn't Me -- Rabbit Fur Coat
• Sugar -- Gift -- File Under Easy Listening
• The Sadies -- American Pageant -- The Sadies In Concert Volume 1 *
• The Damned -- Fan Club -- Damned, Damned, Damned
• Forest City Lovers -- Minneapolis -- Carriage *
• Metric -- Handshakes -- Live It Out *
• Born Ruffians -- Come Back -- Say It *
• Wooden Sky -- Angels -- If I Don't Come Home You'll Know I'm Gone *
• Broken Social Scene -- Meet Me In The Basement -- Forgiveness Rock Record *
• RIco Bell & the Snakehandlers -- Money to Burn -- Horseshoes & Handgrenades Vol.1
• Pavement -- Unfair -- Quarantine The Past
• Sally Seltmann -- Dream About Changing -- Heart That's Pounding
• The Gaslight Anthem -- Bring It On -- American Slang
• Tokyo Police Club -- Breakneck Speed -- Champ*
• Black Keys -- The Only One -- Brothers

NOTES THIS WEEK:

• Sending out the Beach Boys to Marc as a belated anniversary "s'up"
• I super heart that Mike O'Neill song...
• Who's loving the new National record? I think we all should be...
• Great Broken Social Scene & Pavement show at Toronto Island Festival!!!
• How great is that Gaslight Anthem song?