If only...

...it wasn't for the dealbreaker. But alas. There is, so there is no "us" for wL and I. It doesn't stop him from being thoughtful though. We went to the Jason Mraz concert together a couple Saturdays ago, and he offered to make me a copy of his mixed cd after I had mentioned that I wasn't familiar with the songs from his second disc...but instead of doing that, he got me the original. Very sweet, non?

Too bad about the dealbreaker though.

Sunday Brunch

I've been in my place just over a year now and hosted the last of my housewarming brunches with A&M, W&K and J&M. We used to spend a lot of time together over martinis so it was lovely of J to give me these pretty glasses:

I made a strata based on this recipe with turkey kielbasa, red peppers, broccoli and mushrooms and paired it with this yummy arugula salad with lemon-parmesan dressing which was super-easy. This will definitely be added to my repetoire of regular recipes.

AWESOME

Came across Mysterious Letters through Grace's Twitter feed and was charmed. The letters and postcards read very much like Nick Bantock's Griffin & Sabine, only they're real!

In April 2009, we sent a personal, handwritten letter to each of the 467 households in the small Irish village of Cushendall. We hoped these unsolicited letters would prompt neighbourly discussion, spreading across the town, promoting community curiosity.

The art work consists solely of the discussion between the recipients about what on Earth these letters are, who sent them and why, etc.

Sunny Summer Saturday

It's a gorgeous day in Toronto with the summer weather we've been due FINALLY having arrived. Believe it or not, I started the day early - I was up and out before 8:30 in search of a paper but all the shops in my neighbourhood don't open until 9. I didn't have change to buy a paper from the box, so I had to make change, stopping at Tim Horton's for a large regular before heading back to the last Toronto Star box I saw at Queen and Spadina.

I was back at my place just after 9, made myself a quick breakfast sandwich and relaxed with the paper on my balcony. I recalled the last time I was out there and the sunburn and subsequent sexy snakeskin peel I got so I loaded up on the SPF 55 and soaked in the heat. So nice!

I spent the rest of the day doing a few things indoors, like brewing some black currant iced tea in my Crazy Daisy pitcher:

It's perfectly refreshing but needs to be sweetened...so after coming back from a grocery run, ahem, glistening with perspiration, I decided I needed a drink. So my brilliant brainstorm? A black currant caipirinha while I prepared the mango salsa to go with the grilled chicken for dinner tonight!

Then I'm off to see the geek in the pink, Jason Mraz, at the Molson Ampitheatre! I'm really looking forward to the concert and have been listening to his tunes most of the day.

500 COLOURS!

Grace at Design Sponge tweeted about this and I can't begin to tell you how excited I was to see these pencil crayons over at Social Designer. Talk about the ultimate back-to-scool palette! I've blogged about this before...the excitement of back-to-school shopping and how I'd buy a pack of Laurentians at the start in anticipation of all the maps I'd have to colour for geography class, etc. There was one year that I got the box of 60 colours rather than the usual 24 and that was a big deal because my palette was 2.5x bigger than my usual!

But 500?!? That's crazy talk! And the displays! Oooh. I'm seriously thinking of subscribing and getting the Aurora display to hang it on my wall as art! Maybe as a birthday gift to me...?

Bugged

I was ever so hopeful a couple weeks ago when I saw that the ranunculus bulbs I planted actually had a few buds growing. But since then, I've noticed that my flowers have grown rather sickly. I thought it first that maybe I was over-watering - I remember reading that the bulbs need well-drained soil because they don't like to be waterlogged...but I took a closer look tonight when I was relaxing on my balcony and noticed that my flowers were pretty much infested with aphids. I've got chills and goosebumps now just thinking about it because I HATE bugs.

I was just reading up on how to eradicate them and since I don't have ladybugs handy and a hose to spray them off is out of the question there's pretty much no hope. I'm going to have to dig them all out and start fresh again next year.

Sadness. I was so looking forward to pots full of pretty flowers.

An Extraordinary Correspondence

S first introduced me to the extraordinary correspondence of Griffin and Sabine by Nick Bantock back in university. I was excited by the vicarious thrill the original trilogy presented because the story unfolds as a series of postcards and even letters the reader can pull out of envelopes.

I didn't know until last year that there was a subsequent trilogy that completed the series. I finished the last two tonight on my balcony and was, to be honest, a little disappointed. It seemed as if the story was hastily concluded. I suppose the implication of the final 2 postcards is that Isabella is the lioness and Matthew is the mercurial scribe who mated and that the "frantic shrieking phalanx of dark birds as they succumbed to samurai blade and cat's claw" were the malevolent, mysterious Frolatti's dark angels?

Avian Tendencies

Have I ever told you about my fixation with birds? I haven't always been into them...it's just something that's developed in the last couple years and my interest has manifested in home accessories that are peppered throughout my home.

Here's the soap dish I picked up recently in London where I drop my keys once I'm home:

As we move into the living area, you'll find this collection on my DVD player - the copper-coloured mercury glass specimen was picked up earlier this year on sale at West Elm, the silver bud vase is from Urban Barn and the white bud vase is from Graham and Green:


This perched bird side table is from Pier 1 Imports and the pair of tealight candle holders were purchased on my trip to Vancouver last year:

In my bedroom you'll find this enameled and bejeweled bird box from Monsoon:

And another soap dish, this one from Urban Outfitters, where I keep my watch:


On my desk is this cutie which I found at Chatelet on Queen West:


And my most recent purchase is this pair of Salt'n'Pepper shakers from Target in Philly:

Oh! I almost forgot my copy of Charley Harper's Birds and Words, a book of stunning illustrations and commentary:



Not dangerously obsessive, right?

Lovin' the ABCs

How gorgeous is this?

Harry Potter/Die Hard Mash-Up

Too, too funny!


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