Etsy's Favorite Stockings

Check them all out here.

Almost done!

Just letting everyone know that my new 'getting Christmas on track sooner' idea is working well so far.  The tree is up (but not decorated yet -- and will not be lit up until Dec. 1), other decor is going up around the house (hiding lingering reno supplies, but I suppose they can be festive too!), I've started gathering supplies for crafty things and baking, and...AND...I'm *thisclose* to finishing my Christmas shopping.  

Fa la la la la...LA!

Two things that made me laugh today

Karma works

Back in spring I wrote on this blog about donating our used video game consoles and some games to a local after school community centre (their video game console had been stolen).  Since then, there's been some interesting things happen because of this.

Initially I went in and helped out a bit with some (attempted) redecorating in the centre and just chatting with the people who run it day to day.  Around mid-May I was contacted by someone who had passed my name on to the higher-ups in the community centre (they knew I was a graphic designer) and asked me to be involved in a summer activities calendar to be distributed to the schools here.  

The calendar was designed and done by the end of June and was received quite well (and I liked working on it because it was a fun change to do bright and colourful designs for kids!).  After that, I didn't hear anything back (and didn't expect to), until yesterday.

I had one of the women who was involved in the project call me up out of the blue to tell me that this calendar has been the topic of a few discussions with some key people in the community -- and that she'd like to ask if I would like to be involved with producing the calendar for the next THREE years.  (I said yes, of course!)

So I just thought it would be interesting to show how something that started out as a small deposit to our karma bank ended up being something much bigger!

I had no idea this was such a problem

Brownie lovers rejoice, you can now have TWO chewy edges to your slice, instead of the horrible flat pan effect on your batter.  Who knew this was such a problem before?

I guess I have more pressing concerns in the kitchen.

via not martha

Exterior illumination

Yes, I've caved and put up Christmas lights nice and early this year.  Even the wreath on the front door went out yesterday.  

(The lights on the tall cedar in the middle of the yard has twinkle LED lights -- which resemble something that NASA would use to land the space shuttle in our front yard.  Oh well.)

Oxford Circus Tube Station

One of the busiest places to shop at...it was a mob scene of shoppers when we got off at this station.

Back to London, please

If a plane ticket to London blew down the street to me I'd pick it up and fly back there right now.  For now, I'll just have to live through the photos...

Forever cupcakes

Cupcakes you can't eat -- but make you look like an über domestic goddess (just remember to dust them).
You can find them at Small Stump's Etsy store.

via Wee Birdy

Long time no see

I've been a little erratic with the blog posting -- not that there's a lack of things to post about; I've just been busy with other things (a really good book, cleaning, painting, figuring out gifts for Christmas...).

Here's some more shots from our vacation (these are from Northern Ireland):

Makes you rethink carpet

I saw this over at Wee Birdy. Even though it's carpet, there's something insanely cool and appealing about those stairs...

Having a 'meh' day?

Then you must head over to the English Fail blog and cheer yourself up! :)

Windy at the beach

Taken at Castlerock Beach, Northern Ireland.

Autumn

When we were in Richmond Hill, Ontario the trees were just starting to turn.  Beautiful!

4L of milk and a Christmas attack to go, please

We went out and grabbed some much needed groceries last night (it was a drag...literally, both of us just wanted to sleep). Cruising through the aisles, we couldn't help but notice the explosion of Christmas everything all over the place. Even in the meat department there were trees and gigantic Santas all over the place. Add this to the overwhelming amount of Christmas ads on tv and the radio...we feel like we've come back to Christmas-mania! (The worst part for me is a weird underlying panic to start writing lists and think about shopping -- augh!)  

At least the main purpose of going grocery shopping was accomplished. (I think we're having some European withdrawal -- lots of fresh pasta, gnocchi, polenta, lemons, limes...no gelato though *boo*.)

Goodies

We brought back treats for ourselves...british candy is soooooo good!

Magazine haul

I went crazy with buying magazines on vacation.  The ones below are from the UK, Spain and Italy:

Differences and other musings

We've been home for almost two days now, and I'm still adjusting to normal life around here.  It's amazing how being away for a while has changed my views on where we live -- here's some examples:

• The cars here are HUGE.  As are the roads.  Nice and wide and relatively straight!
  
• You won't be looked at as a target crossing the road.  And you don't feel like you're in a live-action frogger game when you do attempt to cross the street.
  
• There are no people here.  Seriously.  
  
• Small roundabouts = good.  Gianormous roundabouts with no rules = bad.
  
• It's CLEAN here.  And we recycle.
  
• It doesn't smell like a festering ashtray when you step outside.  You don't risk cigarette/cigar/pipe burns walking in public. 
  
• People are civilized, and for the most part, have manners and follow rules.
  
• Things are CHEAP here.
  
• Showers are big -- and my elbows are happy for that.
  

I have a whole new appreciation for home, but there are a few things I wish we had here:

• Awesome small cars that are zippy to drive.  (our Peugeot was really cool)
  
• Responsibly sourced food available in grocery stores and restaurants.
  
• Pride for local products and discouraging the purchases of 'exotica' (yup, that's what they call it!) from faraway countries.
  
• Big department stores that carry fab products (the Bay and Sears make me cringe now), and have food floors that blow your mind.

And just some general things I've noticed being back at home:

• The water here is great.  Soap lathers up really well!  
  
• The trees hardly dropped any leaves. (I think they're late this year...I had dreams of coming back to bags of raking to do.)
  
• The reno fairies didn't come and finish all of our projects while we were gone.
  
• You can't get wake-up calls or room service on our phones.  LOL
  

We're home!

We made it back to normal life again...barely.  Both of us have some crazy jet lag going on (we went to bed before 7pm yesterday).  Seeing as work is quiet (hurrah!) I'm going to attempt to tackle some laundry and unpacking.  Small goals today.

Day 25 - The long way home...

Today is going to be exhausting with a capital E.  We're getting up early to catch our plane out of Barcelona at 7:35am (which will be around 10pm the night before where we live! augh!) and heading to London for 9am to connect with our flight to Vancouver for 12:05pm.  We get into Vancouver around 2pm (local time) which will be so strange seeing as it will feel like 10pm to us.  

We're on our last leg home!  

Last bit of Barcelona

I'm headed to bed now (mleghhhh early morning coming). Here's what we got up to today:

The view from our room.

Looking down a little alley in the Gothic Quarter.

Shady dudes selling rip-off purses (notice the strings attached to the corners of the fabric for an easy getaway!).

Free Damm.  Volt-Damm.  Damm Lemon.  Awesome.

At the end of Las Ramblas.

Do not adjust your screens...that's a PINK Smeg dishwasher!!! :)

Malta

Here's some shots of Malta:

Day 24 - Everybody off, and back to Barcelona!

The only thing I can say about leaving a cruise ship on the last day is that it always sucks.  It's like a smack to the head getting up early and seeing that everyone is doing a mass exodus to the exits (and the breakfast buffet, but that's another story).  There's no relaxation to be had today (especially if you're some of the silly people who book a flight in the morning and have to rush like crazy to the airport).  Fortunately, we are not those crazy people.  

We've learned to take our luggage with us off the ship (instead of having it loaded the night before) so we don't have to wait to retrieve it from the carousels, and we can walk off the ship whenever we want.  We're also not catching a flight out today, so we have almost a full day in Barcelona to take in.

 

We're staying at the Hotel Jazz tonight, which will be strange in two ways: it won't be floating; and it will be much bigger than our cabin over the last 12 days!  :)