summer love

Finishing off summer the right way: water balloons and a run through the sprinkler. Though Henry preferred a quiet read in the shade. Elmo. Compelling.



Despite the best stretch of weather we've had all year, Labour Day signals that it's time to put away summer, if not literally then at least symbolically. And so hair was thoroughly shampooed for the first time since June. Bedtime was brought forward an hour. Back-to-school clothes laid out. Senior Kindergarten awaits.

reno fever

Beautiful bathroom by Brown Design.


I *heart* Jeff Lewis. And I don't care who knows it.

We are gearing up for a make-over of the tired, old bungalow. A real make-over. With an architect's drawings, a proper contractor and six months worth of Tums in the medicine cabinet. My clippings file swells by the day. I talk to myself in the car, debating the merits of a Carrara marble kitchen counter or new appliances (we can't do both). I look for inspiration in many places, but none more frequently than Jeff Lewis' deluxe pads - all of which are many, many, many square feet larger than our humble home, but I believe small yet well-appointed spaces can be beautiful too.

I was perusing the advice column in a waiting room magazine yesterday when I experienced a moment of self-awareness: some soul queried "When should I be worried that I'm too involved in a TV show?" I've had television crushes before (Lost, Dexter, Flight of the Conchords, Mad Men and once, ahem, the OC) but my love for Flipping Out and all things Jeff Lewis has become a little problematic in a one-television household. Apparently watching the same episode twice is being "hoggy" but watching online until the wee hours is "concerning."

Yes, Jeff Lewis is a mad genius. I personally thing Chris Kesslar was a big baby for not stealing the neighbour's avocados. Say what you will about Jeff and co., you have to admit they make beautiful homes. Ryan Brown, Jeff's partner on the show, has his own LA-based design outfit, and I was delighted and, yes, just a little bit validated that he used the Jonathan Adler bamboo chandelier I've chosen for my decidedly less-grand foyer. Do you love it or do you love it?

everyone loves marineland

Stella and Henry have been captivated by Marineland commercials for weeks, so we capped off the summer with a weekend in Niagara Falls. Their fascination had less to do with actual marine life and more to do with rides and the overflowing gift shop, but I think Stella would agree coming nose to snout with Nootka was pretty cool.

I haven't been to Marineland since I was a kid, and to see it through jaded ($150 admission?!) adult eyes was interesting. Outrageous prices aside, there is an unslickness about the place I find kind of endearing. Like the weird font. And those funny wood-burned signs. And the vaguely Bavarian-style architecture of the little huts that dot the park.




But the highlight (Nootka antics aside) for me was watching the teenager inflate hundreds, no thousands, of vinyl walruses inside the gift shop. Next to the pair of lifeguards who whiled away the summer playing Gin Rummy at the splash pad by our house, this dude has the best summer job ever.

harvest

The veggie patch runneth over: tomatoes the size of small pumpkins, and a bounty of cherry toms so profuse, so perfect, so delicious I do believe I need a stall at the farmer's market. I'm enthusiastic about my backyard garden every summer, but this year we've been eating them straight off the vine, sharing great bowls of them with neighbours and there is still more than we can use. With such a bounteous harvest, there's only one thing to do: fresh tomato sauce. Lots of it. If I can't spend August in Amalfi sipping Limoncello I'll spend it eating angel hair pasta tossed with garlicky-good sauce. Believe it or not, the best (and easiest) recipe I've found came from a GQ magazine five years ago. I've since lost the actual recipe but it goes something like this:

4 - 6 medium to large ripe tomatoes
2 whole cloves of garlic, peeled, smashed and finely chopped
Lots of fresh basil, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
kosher salt
fresh ground pepper (if there is one thing I'd gladly banish from every kitchen it is sneezy, bitter, powdered pepper)

Coarsely chop the tomatoes - discard the stem and core
In a broad, shallow pan heat some of the olive oil, warm up the garlic (don't let it brown or burn). Add the tomatoes & salt to taste, turn up the heat to an almost boil. Let it bubble and cook (this softens the skins so you don't have to peel the tomatoes) for 5 - 10 minutes. It should thicken up a bit but still be chunky. Remove from heat, transfer to a big bowl or serving dish and add the basil. If you add the basil while it's on the heat, the leaves turns brownish and unattractive. Add more salt if needed and a swirl of olive oil. If your tomatoes are acidic add a dash of sugar. Let it all stand for 10 minutes or so while the pasta cooks. Add the cooked pasta to the sauce and use tongs to dress. Lots of fresh parmesan slivers and fresh cracked pepper. Buon appetito.

life through the zoom lens

You might recall that I received a new camera, a Rebel DSLR, for my birthday back in January. I wanted a "real" camera for some time, having run up against the limitations of my trusty instamatic Fuji Finepix. Don't get me wrong: you can take a damn good picture with a slim silver, but I wanted to do more. As it turns out, it was a bit like trading in a Saturn for a Porsche. Too much power. The LCD screen was dizzying. The 3-page menu inscrutable. The manual settings eluded me. In the eight months since I got it I haven't taken a decent picture. The logical thing would be to take a course and learn how to drive this thing properly, and I'd still like to do that, but the other day I took a closer look at the instruction manual and when the answer to my vexing exposure problems presented itself I yelled out aha! and began snapping.

This one is probably a little over-exposed, but I like Stella's expression. It's not often I catch a contemplative moment.




Playing around with the self-timer. Blurry, yes, but I like it.

But it's 3:00 am

Or thereabouts.

"I want bekon"
"I want bekon"
(louder)"Mama I want bekon! Bekon mama"

Cue the bleary-eyed stumble into Henry's room.

"What do you want Henry?"
"Bekon"
"Your blanket?"
"No! I want bekon. I want BEKON!"
"What? Bekon? Your blanket? You want your blanket? Where is your blanket?"
(howling) "Bekon! Bekon! I want some bekon!"
(incredulously) "Bekon? Bay-con? Bacon? You want bacon?"
"Yes. I want bekon. Now. Bekon now!"

I mean really. Being awoken by an earache, a poopy diaper or a leg trapped in the crib bars: all valid. But crying for cured meat in the middle of the night? My patience has limits. Of course the bacon hullabaloo has woken the other two members of this family and as we shimmy blankets and pillows and make room for two more bodies in the bed, I can no longer sleep because I'm trying to puzzle what he could have been dreaming about. Was he counting slices of peameal instead of sheep?

It all means I have a raving headache today - I am a ten-hour a night gal - and woe to us all if I'm denied my beauty sleep. The thing is, the real point of all this, I suppose, is that we are talking about having another baby. I'm waiting for a sign that I should or I shouldn't and the Super Eight ball is being maddeningly ambiguous. Being awoken by cries for bacon = not so good. Waking up in the morning in a tangle of little feet and arms and baby snores = kind of nice. Makes me almost stop thinking about bacon.

Henry's Big Boy Room: the inspiration

dresser, now with drawer pulls, originally uploaded by aoneko.

When Henry's nursery school teacher told me he was ready for underpants (what? he pees on the toilet?) I could no longer pretend that my baby is still a baby. I'll fess up and tell you that that at the ripe age of 2 years and five months he still has a warm bottle of milk before bed - a ritual we all enjoy despite the ridiculousness of cradling a 30 pound boy like a newborn - and the idea of toilet training was on the distant horizon, and, yes, he still sleeps in a crib. Well. It's time we pulled our act together over here. What with all the time I spend reading parenting books to equip me to deal with a "spirited" five year old, I've been neglecting poor old Henry. Which really does prove what I knew all along growing up: the easy-going child gets stiffed.

Anyway, Mr. Henry is getting a Big Boy Room. Soon. Parked in the garage for the past three years are a gorgeous but dinged up Art Deco twin-sized bed and a matching tall-boy dresser. We hauled them out on Sunday for inspection. The wood isn't in such good shape in parts, which I don't actually mind, but all that wood just looks so serious. Painting it outright doesn't seem like the thing to do - I love burled wood - but then I remembered this terrific idea, spotted last year on Angelique's lovely blog, and Eureka! This is exactly what I'd like to do with Henry's new bed. I love how the wood peeks through the paint.

Stay tuned. I'll post some before pictures later this week. I may need some help choosing a paint colour.

a bouncy castle swallowed the house

This really does say it all. And by all I'm speaking, of course, about how children take over. They take over your life, your yard, your closets, your world.

The bouncy castle, which really didn't look that big when I viewed it online, arrived early Sunday morning - the day of our summer party. I was in the kitchen threading veggie kebabs when a glow, as orange as a Florida sunset, settled over the room. The vista out the living room window was of a quivering amorphous blob growing at an alarming rate - to the delight of Stella and Henry - until the spires of the castle reached higher than the roof of our bungalow. I'm confident in saying it was a good party. When all is right in their world, all is right in mine.

gone fishing...

.....Gone Fishing!, originally uploaded by imapix.

Taking the long weekend off. Spending it with good friends & neighbours. Squeezing every bit of summer out of the next 30 days - I hope you're doing the same.

Take good care friends,

Nicole

Thank You Jamie Oliver

From mid-May until the start of school we can usually count on having a yard full of kids pretty much every day of the week. Our front lawn is commonly strewn with bicycles, scooters, skipping ropes and flip flops. Could be that we're the house on the corner, which makes ours a natural gathering spot. Could be the freezer full of popsicles (and the suspicion that we've earned a reputation as easy marks). But really I don't think we'd have it any other way. I like getting to know our kids' friends as much as I enjoy watching my own at play. But I also think, frankly, that having people over makes a better cook. It's a modest dinner for sure, but I was quite proud of how these pizzas made on the BBQ turned out. I've never had much success with homemade pizzas; they are one of those frustratingly simple things that never works for me, like pie crust. My pizzas are usually burned and yet doughy. The toppings too crisp, the crust unsatisfactory. But I will heartily thank Jamie Oliver for last night's feast. The secret, I believe, is preheating the pizza stone so that when you slap on the dough there is a fantastic sizzling and searing. The other tip is to roll out the dough a good 30 minutes before you add the toppings. I don't know why that should make a difference, but I swear it did.

The dough is supermarket, but the basil and cherry tomatoes (which are so good they'd bring a tear to your eye) are from my garden. Yummy!

...on second thought

...maybe I'm not done. I miss my blog. I miss keeping track. I've become used to chronicling life through this blog that I feel in a strange sort of way that in not having a place to keep track of things I am somehow missing them. There is a big old banker's box somewhere in the basement filled with diaries and journals I've kept since grade 8. I guess I've always had a need to write things down. I also miss being part of a community of bloggers. I've connected with many interesting and dear and smart and funny people thanks to this blog, and I miss the conversation. Thank you Neta for your encouraging words this morning - your enthusiasm for this old blog was just what I needed.

It's nice to be back!

Signing Off

Well hello. I could explain away my frequent blogging breaks by saying it's been a full couple of days, but every day, every week is full, as I'm sure it is for most of you. In truth I think I'm ready to take a permanent blogging break. It's been 300+ posts over the last couple of years and, yes, I'm running out of steam but also recently I've become mindful of my children's privacy. They're getting older and it's one thing blogging in anonymity but with an open-to-the-public shop I find myself feeling increasingly bashful.

It's time to sign-off. Returning might be in the cards one day. We'll see. Thank you for visiting, for your comments and for hanging around. Happy Mother's Day.

Be well,

Nicole

*I'll be over at my shop blog for now, posting on crafts, events, and new stuff.

sprung

It's here.

After that weird summer weather the other week beat a hasty retreat and forced me, grudgingly, to wear a winter jacket and socks again it was a treat to have a seasonally normal day. Blue skies. Warm sun. Cool enough to warrant a windbreaker. Warm enough to remove it after an hour spent tussling with crab grass and dandelions. As much as I've made my peace with winter, who doesn't welcome spring with open arms and windows? Stella and her gang found this nest on the lawn this morning; some poor bird's home blew out of the tree in all that wind the other day. We put it back as best we could. Thankfully we didn't find any eggs. I hope that means the nest's inhabitants have moved on to bigger, sturdier digs.

But it's not all bracing alpine breezes and rosy-cheeked kids over here, I'm afraid. There is a mystery smell - a bad smell - in the house. We've been sniffing like bloodhounds all weekend; walking around the kitchen with flared nostrils and furrowed brows. It's a recurring phenomenon, and one that is almost always related to the diaper bag, a dank wash cloth at the bottom of the hamper or a Tupperware container of grapes left to ferment in the hall closet. This time I am sure the smell is coming from the kitchen sink. So far I've poured boiling water, the juice of three lemons, an entire box of baking soda and, when white vinegar could not be found, half a bottle of apple cider vinegar (not recommended). Yet the fishy smell lingers. I haven't used cleaning products stronger than Murphy's Oil Soap and Method for ages, but sometimes I suspect they're not quite up to the task. I found myself loitering in the cleanser aisle today, visiting my old friends Vim, Ajax and Pine Sol. Sure, I saw the skull and crossbones but I read the labels anyway, hoping it wasn't that bad. In the end I couldn't do it. I think it's because we drink tap water and it's unfathomable to me that toxic cleaners flushed and rinsed down the drain don't somehow make it back into my water glass. I googled "stinky sink" and came across many suggestions of bleach, even a bi-monthly dose of Drain-O, good heavens, but nothing I could use or hadn't already tried. I sure hope the good weather/open windows weather continues.

a place for everything

Despite my well-documented issues with clutter, I am magnetically attracted to the promise of organization. I crave a simpler life. One filled with less stuff. And yet, paradoxically, I am able to discard very little. So it all gets shelved or binned or, more likely, piled and stacked to be dealt with at a later date. Or until someone stages an intervention (please!). I'd been meaning to make myself a lunch tote, and had every intention of making a lunch tote, but wound up making a wall pocket organizer last night. Another place to stash things. Exciting.

The white backing is an old Ikea curtain panel and the yellow dahlia fabric, a thrifted sheet. All in, I'd say just shy of three hours total project time. If I could cut a straight length of fabric the first time, that would save a good 30 minutes. The pattern is based on one from Celine Dupuy's book, but I made mine shorter, narrower and I stuck three tabs on top instead of the grommets that were called for.

spring becomes me

An entire day spent outside. I wouldn't call it gardening exactly, but there was some raking and sweeping and the happy discovery of things in bloom. There was the repair of a decrepit clothesline (followed by t-shirts and pyjamas flapping in the breeze.) Bikes were dusted off, lawn furniture hosed down. There was a barbeque. Ice-cream. And all is right with the world.

if you loved me you'd go to tim hortons

It is essential to start the day off on the right foot. And for me that means two things: a shower and a cup of coffee so hot it would cauterize the taste buds of most. Allow me those two things and I can deal with anything else three disorganized people throw my way, which includes but is not limited to: a perpetually misplaced parking pass, socks with "bumps," an empty milk jug (after the cereal is already in the bowl), shirts with "bumps," and a sudden, urgent need to colour. I need a shower and then I need my coffee. It's elemental.

I turn 40 next year and I'm taking stock. And you know, settling into life a bit isn't so bad. There are things you learn and things you earn with age. I finally get the whole wisdom/age thing people are always banging on about. Being a regular at a restaurant, for instance, means I can order off the menu, my kids can wander into the kitchen and no one minds, and the owners treat us like cherished friends. Another thing I've discovered: I really don't care about fashion anymore. I realized this after I pulped three issues of Fashion magazine without cracking a spine. Frankly I wear what's clean and doesn't cut off my circulation. This will probably earn me a visit from Stacey and Clinton one day, but no mind. My relationship with my coffeemaker has also evolved over the years. The DeLonghi was a wedding gift. It was hauled out of the cupboard every Christmas to make one flavourless pot and then it was promptly put away. I could never make a decent brew at home. One day I set about scientifically testing different beans, grinds, and water-to-coffee ratios until eureka! I made a fantastic pot of coffee and it changed my mornings for the better forever.

This morning I arose as usual to the pleasant sound and aroma of percolating coffee but when I went to pour a cup I discovered the filter basket was not in place. It was, inconveniently, two feet away in the dish rack. What happened next doesn't bear repeating. Suffice to say there was a mess, there was mild scalding, there were accusations, and then during the clean-up a plastic thing broke off the coffeemaker leaving the filter door swinging uselessly like a broken arm. The long-term implications (what if DeLongi no longer makes this machine? Will I have to learn how to make coffee all over again?) were dwarfed by the problem at hand: getting a coffee now. Imagine discovering that the man who would once walk across hot coals for me (and let's not point fingers but let's also not forget who actually broke the coffeemaker in the first place) would not go to Tim Horton's in my moment of need. Thankfully I was able to jerry-rig something with a couple of elastic bands and eke out a small pot. All I will say is duly noted friend, duly noted.

me Vs the wild things

There were many truths in Katrina Onstad's Baby Wars article in this month's Toronto Life, but for me none more so than the simple fact that parenting is work. It is work on many different levels of course, but at its most basic the nightly sprint - or maybe it's a marathon - to get kids bathed, played with, read to and tucked into bed by sundown so that a decent amount of evening remains... it's work, man.









And then suddenly it's quiet.

A spring jacket. Another super-quick project - as in 45 minutes - from Amy Karol's book. The most time consuming part was finding a copy place to enlarge the patterns to 215%. Staples can't do it, so I had to copy different parts of the pattern and then cobble them together. I recall reading something on Amy's blog that her next book will have proper patterns. Yay. I was lucky to come across this camouflage fabric in the remnant bin at Fabricland: I'd wanted to make this little jacket for some time now but Stella and I could never agree on fabric. You might think I clothe her in dresses with leg o'mutton sleeves and send her out with Gibson girl hair for all the fuss she makes.

Along with this cute chocolate brown paisley jersey that's a gift for my niece, I made two little jackets for $7, including the bias trim. And now I'm off to spend the savings on a new spring 'do for me. Enjoy your day!

out of sight...out of mind

Imagine: I returned home this afternoon to find my chalk portrait two full sections of sidewalk away from the rest of the family - and facing the opposite direction. Weekends, or 'home days' as we call them around here, aren't quite the same now that I'm working Saturdays. I miss hanging out with my peeps.

And on that note, I mustn't be late for movie night: 101 Dalmatians and ice-cream sundaes.

making it lovely

Four Dining Room Ideas, originally uploaded by pinklovesbrown.

Moss on a rolling stone and all that, we are finally getting serious about a renovation around here. The old homestead isn't looking too good, truth be told. Not that it ever did. We bought it because A) it was summer and there was a pool in the backyard - a small one with faux mosaic faux tiles that defy explanation, and B) There was a yard! With grass! The combination proved irresistible. Five years and one incomplete paint job later here we are. Ready to renovate.

I have my folder of magazine tears. I have a sketchy floor plan and a laundry list of hoped-for improvements. We have a budget. What we don't have, unfortunately, is an architect/builder/designer to draw up the plans, and perhaps reign in the less realistic items on my list, like taller ceilings. The first design/build place I contacted eventually did return my email, but they're booked a year out and even if we do the $500 consultation there is no guarantee they'll take on our job. My second and third choices have not returned my calls. What we have in mind is beyond DIY - taking out a load-bearing wall and moving a staircase to eliminate a crazy jog in the kitchen that renders half of the usable counter space unusuable - so we're in limbo until we find someone to do the plans. Someone simpatico, not merely available. I had some cockamamie idea that we'd start in September, take off for a few weeks during the worst of it and have the dust settled and the paint dry by the time we're ready to deck the halls with balls of merry. I may have to reassess the timeline. But in the meantime, my hunt for inspiration continues, which brings me to Making It Lovely, which is a fun and inspiring place indeed. I love these curtains. Or are they window treatments? I never know really. Anyway, she's done a bang-up job on her bungalow. I'm itching to get started on mine.