The Cottage at Night

I am so ready for summer. These are some of the pics of my cottage at night on one of the hottest days last year! I miss it. Hopefully it will be here before I know it!

Distractions Continued.....and Shopping

On my quest to continually have a list of distracting websites available to me at work...... morally integridous - no, but keeps me sane! So here are a few of them:

http://chocolateandzucchini.com/ - great food blog. An american girl writing about food and life in Paris. It is delightful and a daily read.

http://boingboing.net/ Totally random list of facts, stories and blogs. A million hours of wasted time.......

http://www.winkie.org/ How could you not love the "Naked Highway Driving" guy. He lives in Japan and is too funny, though has his off days.

http://toronto.wayspa.com/city/index.html Best Spa deals in and around Toronto. Check out the Windsor Arms. Its my Fav!

http://spectacleshoppe.com/vintage/index.cfm Past on to me by a boy that I met online. We shared a love for fabulous sunglasses. I didn't go further than this website, hence my ongoing singleness.......

http://www.bestbuys.ca/index.htm - If you are in Toronto, what a find. All the sales that you need and random wharehouse sales. Wonderful!

http://www.snazzygirl.com/ Unique shopping for accessories ect.

http://mcphee.com/ Best place for random and obscure gifts and purchases!

Enjoy!

the freezingness that is my office

I just need to vent that my office is freezing today. I am so cold, I could cry. The joys of winter. I have a pashmina and my coat wrapped around me and I am dieing of cold! My feet are ice cubes, but not my hands yet. I await their freezing soon.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OK, much better!

Up north in the winter

Was up at my cottage on Monday to check on some renos that are occuring. Took some pics of the lake in the winter. It was goregous!

Toffee Crunch Bars - The easiest sweet treat to make

I took this recipie off of the Kraft website when I was searching for a Kosher friendly desert to bring to a Channukah Party. This was so easy. The original recipie is found at http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/Recipes/RecipeTemplate?recipe_id=82859 but I have modified it below, as it is far better and much more indulgent! You can also use matzo crackers at Passover, which I plan on doing!

Toffee Crunch Bars
The best crunchy brittle you've ever eaten. No one will guess the secret ingredient!
Prep: 10 min
Ready In: 32 min
Serves: 16

Ingredients

35 Premium Plus Crackers
1 cup butter
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 pkg. Semi-Sweet Chocolate chips
1 cup walnuts, chopped (I don't add these, but do add sprinkles for color and fun!)

Directions
1 PREHEAT oven to 400°F. Place crackers in a single layer on a foil-lined 15x10x1-inch baking pan.
2 HEAT butter and sugar in saucepan on medium-high heat until butter is melted and mixture is well blended. Bring to boil; boil 5 min. without stirring. Spread over crackers.
3 BAKE 9 min. Immediately sprinkle with chocolate chips; let stand 5 min. Spread melted chocolate over top. Sprinkle with walnuts/sprinkles. Cool. Cut or break into pieces.

Recent Knitting Projects

Ok, So I have been knitting up a storm lately. I have taken 3 classes and am sort of obsessed. It started with a scarf and ambitions for baby booties. What I have created so far: A little baby hat for my friends little girl. So cute! It stands up like a little pixie hat and is just going to be adorable. I cannot wait to give it to her today!

And the baby booties, for my friends twins! Notice the artistic shot. Took these last night as I was so exhausted, but had a little bit of space on my memory card, so I thought that I would get some pics before I give them away. They are going to be way to big as the babies feet are so little and skinny. Maybe in a few months!!! Perfect for two little princesses!

The list for the Big 3-0 #2

So adding to my list of things to do in my 30th year:

4. Get a new job in London (not fake London, but the UK London), New York City or Switzerland.
5. Make an effort to date and have sexual relations with numerous men (number yet to be determined).
6. Expand my social circle - new girl and boy friends
7. Go to camp and volunteer with kids with cancer

Princess

The list for the big 3-0

Well it has come to my attention that my 30th birthday is around the corner, o.k. 6 months away, but still feels around the corner. Anyway I think that I should have a list of "Thinks to do in my 30th year of life". What will this list entail? I am not sure. One way to go is to put all the things on it that I want to do, including the frivolous like "buy myself the Gucci handbag that I have been eyeing". The other route is to go very Zen and grown up and list things like, "I will find contentment in the day to day", or "I will learn to silence my inner critic". What to do, what to do?

I think that I will just start a list and see where it takes me. Maybe the objective being that on my 30th birthday I divide the list into "Frivilous goals and objectives" and "life changing goals and objectives". Here is the first installement of the list:

1. I will make peace with my inner critic and come to understand and be aware of its exsistence.
2. I will wear grown up high heels on 75% of the days regardless of how painful or unhappy they make me. (Legs just look better in Heels and what an excuse to buy new shoes!)
3. I will stand up for myself in front of my father.

Its a good start, but I feel like it needs to be a bit more tangible with goals. How do you measure standing up for yourself in front of your father???

Anyway the struggle continues and so does the list!

Princess

The inner critic takes form

So, my lovely inner-critic has been not so happy with my noticiing its negative vibes this week after my lovely session with E, the life Therapist. I was thinking though that other than a name it needs a persona. I know that it's best trates right now are:

• nasty
• negative
• evil
• condesending
• mocking
• disapproving
• judgemental

amoung others. To really get in touch with it I need to find an image. Something that displays all of these things in one easy to visuallize, vile thing.

Anyway the search is on,

Princess

A moment of solitude!

Memories of the Carribean Sea that make work seem all the more tolerable! This is the view from my lawn chair on the beach!

Oh happy day - The new arrivals in my life!

Well it is official....My best and one of my oldest girlfriends had her twins yesterday. Two beautiful (or so I have been told) baby girls that are healthy and happy and cute as buttons. The mum is doing well, but is exhausted and needless to say, tired after her scheduled c-section.

I myself did not sleep a wink as I was so excited! I can't wait to meet them tomorrow. It will just be awesome. These are just two little babes that are so wanted and waited for and adored already!

I found some great sites for some awesome twin specific chlothes and am going to throw in an order or two for some cute wearables: http://www.just4twins.com/ and http://www.justmultiples.com/.

It is crazy, but so wonderful. One day they are just two very happy adults with a life all unto themselves, and now they are a full on family of 4. CRAZY!

Anyway it is certainly a little light on this cold January day,
Princess

distraction #1

As the first addition to my "Looking for a quick distraction at work" list, visit:

http://www.mrpicassohead.com/create.html

Yoga on the Beach

While we were away for the holidays this past December I found peace and beauty in all sorts of things about the evenings in the Carribbean. Watching the yoga class on the peir, with the sun setting on the Carribbean Sea behind them, was certainly one of those things. It is great that the photo turned out so well! I just love it. It may become my new wallpaper at work.

Princess

The inner critic

Just spent an hour with my lovely Life Coach (the trendy word for therapist in the new millennium). Yes, I have issues, but who doesn't? What I like about this life coaching gig is that it is not about regurgitate and reliving the past, put more for the "O.K. that happened in the past, but here we are and what am I going to do to deal with it in the future?"

Spent a while today speaking about my Super Ego or inner critic. I have a huge one apparently care of mom and dad. Its basically that mean, negative, disapproving voice that lives in side your head and plays with your thoughts and actions. What a nightmare. This week, I have agreed to be aware of my Inner critic. I find it cropping up all over the place, in my language, in my actions, not to mention my thoughts. Just recognizing it is there is part of the challenge.

It was neat that she enabled me to be frustrated and annoyed at work and that it is ok if you take things personally, something that I struggle with daily. Recognizing that you are feeling that way is the challenge and then dealing with it in a constructive manner.

Anyway, I will work towards this, and task two is to name it (the inner critic, that is). I am thinking Gremlin. I hated them when I was a kid and they scared the crap out of me. Maybe that would be perfect. Needless to say the search continues.

So its time for Gremlin and I to sign off and grab some dinner (OK, Gremlin is so obviously not working),
Princess

Golden Globes Success

After my total excitement of around the movie Brokeback Mountain, I was so happy to see it get 4 Golden Globes:

• Best Picture
• Best Director
• Best original Song
• Best Screenplay

So exciting. Hopefully this means that Mr. Oscar is on its way. I would love to see its wins at the Screen Actors Guild Awards fro Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal for Best Actor and Supporting Actor come through as a win. They, particularly Heath, was phenomenal!

Now on my list of movies to see: The Constant gardener, The Squid and the Whale and Syriana, not to mention TransAmerica. I would like to win my Oscar pool this year and I think that if I were to just put down Brokeback Mountain for all winners, I would probably loose again we shall see.

Anyway yeah to my transformational movie of the year and here's to lots of little gold men in March,

Princess.

Link to Brokeback Mountain

www.brokebackmountain.com

Check out the trailer and the list of awards..... I guess that I am not the only one to like this movie.

One of the best movies I have seen in years!

I saw bar-none the best movie I have seen, in years, maybe ever, Brokeback Mountain. It was wonderful and made me cry through the whole thing. I was amazed at how much I enjoyed it. My girlfriends, O and R, came with me and we all loved it. When it first started, we all said that we felt it was a bit like Shindler's List, in that it was a movie that we knew we had to see, but didn't particularly want to see. I was shocked at how good I thought it was. Really on three levels:

1. Yes it is a gay motion picture. The first real one that is front and center on the main stage. Yes there was the infamous Philadelphia, but that was not a gay story, but rather a story about the devastation of HIV and Aids on the gay community and on a family.
2. The torment of hidden love. Jack and Ennes in the movie are so in love with one another that even thinking about it makes me heart sick. The fact that they are not able to share this love in public and are leading separate lives is so tormenting and disturbing.
3. The inability for men to communicate and share there thoughts and feelings. I nearly wanted to scream at the screen, as the two actors could not say to one another what they meant to each other. It was awful. I just felt the pain that they were feeling.

I was happy that the movie focused on a true love story and not on the fact that it was a "gay" movie. It would have been super easy for them to make this into a graphic gay movie with lots of love scenes and gratuitous sex. In this case the sex scenes were not gratuitous and were fabulously touching. The first sex scene is awkward and awful, but aren't all first night of sex awkward in any relationship, gay or straight???

I hope to see Heath Ledger get a little gold man for his mantle come Oscar time as he was fabulous and so compelling. All of my girlfriends agreed that the two boys are gorgeous and really really wonderful actors in their roles. I hope that they are recognized.......

T.T.F.N. Go see the movie if you haven't already,

Princess

The flu.......

Isn't this ironic..... I decide to be diligent to my new little blog and then I get the dreaded flu from hell! Sorry oh little blog of mine that I have been neglecting you. I have been in bed for a few days, and am just getting back to you.

I am not sure where I will take this blog and I think that it will play out as time goes on. What are some of the things that I can see being a draw?? Ok, so maybe some or all of the following will rear its ugly head:

• My life as a single, nearly 30 something in Toronto
• My favorite places to shop and spend money in Toronto and elsewhere. As shopping is a passion, I assume that this will be a part of this little diary
• My favorite places to eat in Toronto. I have a weird pallet and enjoy everything from Burritto Boys ($3 Burritos) to dinner at The Fifth ($200 a person).
• My constant struggle to loose weight and be healthier - related to my love of food, probably!

I think that that will be the general gist of this, but we shall see. I am just trying to figure out the formatting and ways to personalize this as I would like to put some lists as favorite movies, favorite books, what I'm reading, what I'm making etcetera.

Well the drugs, Benelyn All in One, I highly recommend it, for all your flu needs, is about to wear off, so I will be off for now!

Princess

Blogging Virgin

So, lots of my time has been spent reading and enjoying blogs of others including www.cosmogrrl.com, http://www.chocolateandzucchini.com/ and others only to realize that this might be a fabulous way to clean out my head a bit.

Even if I write this for my own pleasure and reading it still has the opportunity to be therapeutic I think. Having never kept a diary of any kind though wishing enviously that I could be one of those blond hair, blue eyed girls giggling as she and carbon copies of herself spent hours writing about all their deep dark secrets, crushes on boys and mean things about girls like me in the school yard, I think that this is going to be a challenge. Writing anything other than perfectly eloquent thank you notes has always been a less than strong point.

We shall see what happens. I hope to write about handbags, life as a an late 20's early 30's single urbanite, food and cooking, and my daily rants and raves about a variety of subjects! So far so good. Anyway I needed to post once so that I could see what the blog is shaping up to look like. I will be back........