Sunday night creepin'

My birthday is coming up. I am starting to get the age where I understand why some people prefer not to be reminded. But I am also still of an age where I like a nice gift :) I have had my eye on a few pairs of diamond studs lately, but my eyes keep wandering back to morganite stones. A soft pink hued gemstone, they have a nice sparkle, a pretty colour and they're not going to cost me a month's salary.

Spending Sunday night creeping the RareEarth Etsy Page... 

I am just lazy enough to try this...

New Fiona

So sneaky, I didn't even know that Fiona had penned a new jig until I started binge-ing on The Affair this week...

Daily Truth

DIY Grippy Yoga Socks

When I first wrote the title of this post, for some reason I wrote Grippy Soaks. It sounds like the name of my future two man hipster band, featuring my cat Harry on harmonica.

On to it!
Grippy socks - good for the goose and good for the gander. I wanted to make DIY grippy socks originally for my toddler, as we have hardwood floors and if he isn't wearing grippy socks, he just goes flying. And then, in the odd ten minute of peace and quiet in my house, I like to attempt sun salutations to at least get some blood flowing. The bottom line - we all needed some grippy socks.

Yoga socks for me, every day socks for him.

Tools: 

• Socks!! (surprise, surprise!!)
• Puffy Fabric Paint - I choose Tulip brand, because I've heard it works well for this sort of thing and because it can in a glow in the dark variety. $16 for a 6 pack. 
• Card stock or cardboard
• Time. The most precious tool of all. Total time depends on the number of socks but take about 2 minutes to paint and about 12 hours to fully dry. 

1. The card stock is going to be used to create a hard, flat surface for the bottoms of your sock feet. I used some 4 x 6 I had laying around, and I cut each piece in half and carefully stuffed it into each sock. Make sense?

2. Get puffer painting. From experience, I recommend putting paint all the way up to the tip toes and on the heel, not just on the bottoms of the foot. Do zig zags, polka dots, self portraits - whatevs. As you can see, this is not really my finest artistic moment. 

3. Let dry, preferably flat! Just lay them out on your desk or on your table. I actually ended up letting them dry for closer to 20 hours, over night, but the box says you only need to wait 4 hours. However - better to be safe than sorry! 

Here are a few of the pairs I made for my little guy.  I tried to do a different pattern on the bottom of each pair so I can keep track of the pairs. 

I'll tell you what was really amazing about this project though - I bought the socks (16 pairs  for $16 at Walmart) at 1pm on a Tuesday. By time I got around to puffy painting, at about 1pm on the Wednesday, I was missing four pairs of socks. Toddlers are incredible. 

Those giant C's on the bottom row are supposed to be moons. Now that is talent. 

Finally.

Today's Smoothie

Quarter of a cucumber

Half a Gala apple

Half cup of cottage cheese

Cup of water

Big squirt of honey

Not delicious, not awful but good for me! 

I love you, Genie

Heartbreaking! Genie played so hard at the Australian Open Quarter Finals last night, but when her cage gets rattled, it's so hard for her to battle back. Maybe it's youth? It's one of the most challenging parts of sports - when the going gets tough, people usually do one of three things.

1. Dig deep and come out on top - glory!!!

2. Dig deep but not deep enough - honour!

3. Fake an injury so they have an excuse as to why they lost - extremely common, both in frequency of practice and in type of character who employ this tactic. Barf.

It takes a lot of courage to put yourself on the world stage and give it your all / I love you Genie! 

Cross body #TooHotty

Mmmm minty cross body goodness with a baller gold chain. My only issue with this bag is that I'd have to bring a diaper bag along with me as well to fit all my real stuff, not just my maxed out credit card and Burts Bees lipgloss...

http://www.polyvore.com/m/thing?.embedder=2162856&.svc=copypaste&id=127280428

Today's Truth

Come on, East Coast Blizzard!! 

Pack Rat

What a perfect way to start the week - trying to find reasons why I need this Liberty of London travel case.

Tying shoelaces is a luxury

.... and these are my favourite from ASOS. My only beef with sneaks lately is that I need them to be slip ons, as with two under two, I don't have the luxury of time to tie my shoelaces. My other beef with sneaks is that mine only last one summer - I'm a human who moves, therefore my feet sweat and  by the end of September, if those kicks are in the garbage already, they certainly smell like it. So it's tough to cough up $150 on a pair of shoes that will only get used for 5 months tops and frankly, they're going to get splashed and soaked. 

And I don't even want to hear the S word - you can not wear sneaks like these with socks.   

Nike Pre Montreal Racer Vintage Blue Trainers

(what does that name even mean...? What is Pre-Montreal...?)

Adidas Originals ZX Flux Dust Pink Print Trainers

(I might just buy these for myself anyways)

Adidas Originals Gazelle Grey Trainers

(btw I'm a size 9.5 in sneaker world so go for it)

Give me liberty

My mother once found a Liberty of London scarf in a thrift shop. The universe is full of little gifts...

Liberty of London is all about the patterns. Paired perfectly with dark jeans and a grey cable knit, they are not scarves for the faint of heart. You've got to want to flaunt it - to tie it around your neck jaunty style, to let it fly behind you in the wind like some sort of Parisan or embrace the boho and tie it on your head. Don't be such a chicken - be bold! 

Healthy Binges

Yes, I've seen Season 2 so don't laugh at me through your computer screen about how out of touch I am. In anticipation of S. 3, we're re-watching S. 1+2. 

Like gambling and drinking, the only healthy way to binge watch TV is to set a limit. We limit ourselves to two episodes a night. That way, we don't get lost in the Netflix space-time continuum and the pleasure of the show gets stretched out longer. And seriously - if you watch too much Frank Underwood at once, you start talking and worse, thinking and plotting like Frank Underwood...

Shop Local Lust: Handmade Therapy bags

Duh. Look at this beauty. Weekend bag, gym bag, baby bag, whatever - this babe is gorgeous and made locally in #yyc. Personally, I'm all about these navy blue waves and the waxed canvas but you should check out her full etsy shop here: 

www.handmadetherapy.com

Kate Spade Dorothy Coat

Wandering up and down El Paseo in Palm Springs earlier this month, I totally lusted after this hot pink Kate Spade Dorothy coat. It's giant bow detail, even my husband was a little surprised that I didn't even try it on. 

Perking Up Your Home Permanently

So here's a secret that I'm not really ashamed of - I have a lot of silk flowers in my house. It's not that I don't love real flowers - oh, I do. It's that I have two cats who think that anything and everything is fair game to be eaten. Pool noodles, wicker baskets, spiral bound books, any meal of mine and yes that includes plants. 

All types of plants. So no, I can't have real flowers in my house because 1, they would be eaten in less than 4 hours and 2, lots of plants are toxic  to cats and I can't keep straight which ones. So silk it is! 

Silk plants are a little bit more expensive at the onset, but in the long run, they are a major cost saver and mood booster.  You're not replacing flowers every week, there are not little bugs that come in on them, and the water never starts to stink when you forget to change them out. 

These is the silk bouquet I keep beside my kitchen.

I get my silk flowers at Chintz & Co, because they are some of the most beautiful and highest quality I have ever found. We're not talking about the ones you find at Michaels with spare threads flying around. I have lots of guests who can't tell the difference between my silks and the real mccoys. 

The other reason I love silk flowers is that they are in bloom all year round. There's no seasons. If you have a favourite flower, you can enjoy it all year long.  And it's not just flowers I buy - check out this little desert display I put together. Infact - call me CRAZY - I would even buy a few of these faux blooms, pop them in a glass vase and call it a terrarium.

What's also nice about silks is if/when you get tired of your arrangement, you can either mix it up by buying one or two new types / colours of blooms or if you have a second silk arrangement, just mix up some of the flowers. 

So quit bashing silk flowers! And for the final act, enjoy this photo of a calla lily that one of my cats ate...

Obsessing over these tin mugs...

Don't lie to me - you're obsessing over these tin mugs and they're jaunty spring colours too. Find them at The Social Page, they're are only $6 EACH. 

Yam & Ginger Soup

Picture this: your in-laws came for a visit over the noon hour but they ate before they came. You did not. They left at 2, you're starving, it's -30 out so you're not driving anywhere and you have skeletal food in the fridge. My suggestion is to try this. 

As someone who would not call flatter myself with the title of "cook", lately I've been a bit more adventurous. Today I tried to hack together this recipe for Yam & Ginger Soup - my first error was that the original recipe is actually for Sweet Potato & Ginger Soup but I grabbed a yam instead of a sweet potato and that's how we arrived my "updated" version of the recipe.

The original, which I got from Yoga Journal, looked easy enough. That's always how it starts though.

So after I peeled my yam, rolled my eyes at my own genius, I quickly re-scanned the recipe. What I thought I read was to mince the garlic and ginger, sauté it and then add the cubes of yam. Obviously that it not what it says up there, but I didn't notice that until after I sautéed the garlic and ginger for 5 minutes. Well, you can only do what you can do! 

So I popped my cubed yams into the pan to sauté them for 5 minutes and wouldn't you know it, I had sautéed my ginger to a pleasant crisp. At a point like this, I'd often consider giving up but the truth of the matter is the ginger smelled so flipping good that I just kept going. 

That is steam fogging up my camera. 

But, at this point, I abandoned the recipe. I mixed four cups of hot water with 2 spoons of bouillon, and poured it in the pan to boil for 15 minutes. 

15 minutes later, these babies were ready for a mash in'! At first I grabbed my hand blender but after scalding myself basically immediately, I grabbed my old fashioned masher and it was perfect. This soup ended up being 100% exactly right for a day where it's -30 degrees (not including wind chill). 

Normally, on a food blog, this is where people would show you the finished product of their incredible recipe, taken with some super camera that they bought for $1800. I did not - for two reasons. One, if I had a super camera, it would be covered in butter all the time and two, I ATE THE SOUP. I was hungry. 

Well, aren't I fickle?

A few years ago, I moved over to Tumblr to test it out and see how I liked it as a blogger. I did like it - sharing images has never been so easy, for real. But at the same time, I have undeniable inclinations to write and for that, Tumblr wasn't so hot. There's something kind of irking about having to format the code to centre your images.

So now I'm coming home - back to Blogger.

Change in address...

I've decided it's time. Time to move away from my old friend Blogger. As a person I've grown - as a blogger I've grown. So I've made a switch to Tumblr. Blogger has been good to be - really good. But it's time.

Visit my ever growing list of things I'm judging here... http://collectedlaundrylists.tumblr.com/