merry, merry, merry christmas

Happy Holidays!!!!

to you and yours

May your holiday season be filled with much friends, family, food and good times!

And for such an occasion: a very merry blast from the past!

my month in pictures

The first snow storm!

And after many tries, my "scarf" still looks like this

On the way back from work one lovely day

and another snow storm

Salon des métiers d'arts du Québec

Basically, lots of snow, lots of shopping, decorating, baking and drinking. It's what Christmas is all about! ...Oh, and several attempts at knitting!

Busy, busy, busy

Hey y'all! After many a days, I'm back!
I haven't found the time to post, what with work and the holidays and looking for a job and teaching myself how to knit and baking cookies.
I must admit that I miss my days as a student right now. The semester ends at the very start of December and you get a whole month to shop and decorate and make yummy deserts for everyone. My apartments not as festive as I would like and I only managed to make 7 shortbread cookies (hopefully, I change that today). I have, however, finished the gift shopping.

And that's my excuse for being AFK for so long. Hopefully, I will be back soon.
On that note, I leave you with a picture of one of the loveliest street in Montreal at Christmas time.

 

meet the face of the north

Speaking of Christmas and subzero temperatures, I have decided that it is high time to invest in a proper Canadian winter jacket. I live in the Great White North, for crying out loud! What has taken me so long?

Now, let's be clear. When I say it's time to invest, I mean it's for someone to invest in a proper winter jacket. Christmas is coming up and I think this lovely specimen below would do a fabulous job of keeping me warm (and dry) thoughout all of the weather Canada can throw at me.



{the north face - kira triclimate jacket}


But I'm not picky -any Triclimate jacket will do. I love them all! I'm going to stop creeping the North Face website before I get a specific idea of the one I want. After many occasions of out-of-stock and discontinued fiascos, I've learned not to get to attached to a particular model.

it's beginning to look a lot like...

We had our first snow fall yesterday in the wee morning hours!

I feel like it's been a while since I woke to be completely surprised by a world covered in snow! I am such a weather network freak, I can't believe I didn't see it coming.

Bleary-eyed, I peered out my window from the warmth of my bed to a pristine sheet of white! Not knowing it was coming, I didn't get the chance to dread what this entails. Snow might be pretty, but hot on its heels comes freezing rain, salt stains and subzero temperatures.

Without a chance to reflect upon all the nasty sides of winter, I was able to enjoy the gorgeous, serene sight with a childish excitement for winter and Christmas and hot cocoa by the fire!

chalking the holidays out

Unfortunately, my mom and the Grinch have one thing in common, they both hate Christmas. You know at the end, when the Grinch’s heart grows 3 sizes bigger and he becomes a wonderful and loving person and he finds out that he ADORES Christmas? Yeah, we’re still waiting on that last part. Not that my mom has a proverbial small heart or is a grinchy kind of person by any stretch of the imagination. She’s very loving and generous and all those good things, but she HATES Christmas!


I know. It’s weird, right?

{via here}

So when I saw this Christmas tree, I instantly thought of my mom. It’s not just perfect for her, it’s also "chalk" full of originality (yes, I'm a little bit of a nerd). She doesn't have to go through the hassle of putting the hated tree up and decorating it and there's minimal mess.

fancy running into you

A couple of days late, I know.

But I can't believe it's November already!

I had my first Starbucks Christmas latte today!

Before you know it, we'll be decorating the tree

and

baking gingerbread cookies!

the smell of halloween

At this very moment, I'm waiting for my pumpkin scones to finish baking. The smell of the pumpkin mingling with the spices, with my Jack O’ Lantern burning brightly right by me and my (black) cat rubbing up against my legs while I type this makes for a wonderful fall evening. I don’t even mind the cleaning-up phase that always seems to follow so closely on the heels of baking.

I don’t know what these scones are going to taste like. I went about the recipe very willy-nilly. Well 3 recipes, to be honest - I really didn’t have a choice to be willy-nilly under those circumstances.

And once these are done, I’ll be making something I definitely can’t screw up: pumpkin seeds! The fun never ends at Halloween!

It seems so silly to buy a pumpkin,  carve it and not toast the seeds. That's poopycoock!

I'm glad to say Rob's a big fan of my willy nilly scones.

happy turkey murder day!*

May your day be filled with juicy turkey, delicious vegetables, delectable deserts, and most importantly friends and family!

*title is not a judgement - I love turkey.

I just think it's funny.



bummed

With the long weekend over, it occurs to me that summer is coming to its inevitable end and that bums me out.

Here's hoping for an Indian summer!

my forehead is melting

Ok, remember a while ago when I was talking about the heat wave and how wonderful it was... well, as you might know, it's round 2: hotter, stickier and deadlier than ever. I am currently in the living room, literally stuck to my leather couch and unable to find the will or strength to get up and make myself something to eat - I'm starving by the way. I'm so bored, but I can't stand to do anything. It's just too bloody hot!

{via flickr}

Too add to my discomfort, I just got bangs. The worst possible time to get bangs! which adds to my reluctance to brave the sweltering heat of the car to get to somewhere air conditioned. I either look like a little boy and push them back or I leave them down at the risk of melting my face off.

It's like getting a new toy when you're a kid, but not being allowed to play with it.

{via audrey hepburn complex}

But I guess it's not so bad. I mean, it's not like I'm at any risk of dying of heat stroke or dehydration... which reminds, I should get myself a drink of water.

erratic behaviour

Sometimes I hate the weather in this country (Canada, by the way and yes, I talk about the weather a lot), particularly the months with an {r} in them. But anything Mother Nature can dish out in May, June, July or August is fine by me. Hey, the weirder, the better.

Yesterday prevening (thank you, Sheldon Cooper), it went from scorching hot - and dry - to thunder, lightning and... wait for it... HAIL! All the while, with the sun shining its brightest.

The pictures aren't great, and really who cares that it hailed?
I guess I do.

hotter than hell

According to the weather network, it’s 32°C, but feels like 40°. It is blistering hot! And despite the fact that I have awful allergies; skin so pale that I might as well be allergic to the sun; and a computer that overheats and randomly shuts down in this heat, I want to emphasize that I am NOT, in any way, shape or form complaining! I bloody LOVE it!

After a good 9 months - feels that way, anyway - of cold, damp, depressing weather, I have to embrace the sweltering heat in all its sweaty stickiness. The only problem is that I have no inclination to do anything. Today is the last day of my three days off and I’m going stir crazy, but I can’t gather the energy to go anywhere. I wake up, have my coffee on the balcony and try to get some reading in before it’s too hot to do even that, then I hop in the shower and. . . that’s it - that’s all the energy I got, expended on a few mundane tasks. This causes a problem for me. I have the urge to go and do after 2 days of doing nothing and going nowhere. It doesn’t matter where I’m going or what I’m doing, I just feel like that’s what I how it should be. I suppose the only solution is to either change my mind frame so that I can plop around guilt free OR decisively act on my instinct to, as I so eloquently put it, go and do. This vacillating between the two just ain’t cutting it. Video games or coffee shop? Sitting on the balcony or driving to the store? Making inane lists of the random and the silly or making a to do list and actually doing it? As far as choices go, I got it pretty easy.