Merry Christmas!!

To all my friends and family who enjoy celebrating this holiday!!

 I know most of us aren't together but I love you all!

under the weather and over the moon

So ya, I've been sick. But I am willing myself to be better because tomorrow I'm leaving for NYC to have another x-mas in New York. I wasn't going to go, but then my sister decided to come for a visit in January instead of now and the ticket was cheap!!

So off I go to visit my favourite kids. Tomio has been saying he doesn't want gifts this year, only Jessica. And it will be a surprise! I'm sure to come back exhausted but happy to have made some more wonderful memories with my little goofballs. It's going to be a very Xena xmas!!

Oh yeah, and this will be on tonight at 9:00 pm. This show is not something I would watch - ever - and I'm not encouraging you to watch either. But if you're interested in seeing me on it my bit comes on in the first 5 minutes and is pretty ridiculous and awesome (if I do say so myself). But beware, after that it gets pretty offensive, and no, I had no idea what the rest of the content would be at the time.

 

Hopefully it will turn up on youtube and I can post it on its own for all my fans out there (and by that I mean family and friends of course)! Love you all!

UPDATE: here's the link I'm on just before the 2 minute mark 

I miss my swans

I wonder how my swan family is doing. They had their fair share of drama this year.

Bella sent some photos from the marina. She & Doug are the only ones still out there.

I won't have time to visit them until the new year. I can't believe it's only been a month since the boat came out of the water. Winter is here!!

impetigo again?

I love a good brunch. I particularly love the green eggs and ham at Mildred's!! Anne and I like to try new places but this delicious meal was calling to both of us this weekend.

And I was really enjoying the fact that my face had finally cleared of all of the weirdness that has been affecting it for the last 6 weeks.

But this morning it appears that impetigo is back - nooooooooooooooo!! I really don't want to do any more antibiotics, cause, well, you know. Any ideas out there?

ooops, I did it again

Remember back in May when I was pretending to be in France and I tried to make a clafouti? Well, just as a reminder it was supposed to look like this:

but came out like this:

I love this stuff and it seems like it should be so easy to make. So I tried a new recipe from the Nourishing Gourmet (lots of yummines overe there) - and this is what is should look like this time:

and, um well, here's my attempt:

The first one was so burnt to get the middle to set it was inedible, and this one is both overcooked and unbelievably greasy - gross! Is it the the pie plate, is it me?

change is afoot

And no, I am not getting a kitten.

I just couldn't resist a photo of a kitten in a Frye boot!

winter's first slush

Here we are again right on track with last year.

I biked on Saturday and then Sunday brought us this loveliness. I'm really not "sporty" enough to ride in the winter so it's time for the bike to go into hibernation.

Thank you sweet little bike for all the ease you brought to grocery shopping, the rides to work, the mad dashes to the ferry docks, and the tooling around on the island. We shall reunite in the spring!

Happy Hanukkah!!

To all my Jewish friends and family!!

I'm gonna try my hand at making some potato-leek latkes for brunch on the weekend!

I'm gonna skip the caviar, although I think Marcel would love them served this way.

ebay still loves me

It's the simple things in life that make me happy. Yesterday I treated myself to a massage. Perry made me a yummy dinner. And this arrived in the mail!

(Elevenses Puckered Trench coat from Anthropologie!)

I'm having a crappy week

I don't normally complain to you all on here but I'm having a ridiculous week. My door knob came off in my hands when I was late for work, I'm having some weird health stuff and some people have been mean to me.

Grinning and bearing it is getting harder to do. How soon are the holidays?

Happy Thanksgiving

To all my American friends and family!!

Marcel and I are truly thankful for you all!

 

Marcel would like you all to know that he caught a mouse today, but that he let it go. He's just keeping up his skills.

missing unicorn

When fall starts to feel like winter I start missing the warmth of the sun and the buoyancy of the water. Now the boat has come out of the water and I'm also missing my swans, the green of the trees, nights of dancing on the island, the easyness of get togethers and great meals, roasting marshmallows at the camp fire ...

I'm feeling wistful for spring already but right now just counting down to the solstice and slightly longer days is something to look forward to.

My friend Chamomile in NYC is missing her unicorn - maybe you've seen it?

time to break up with ebay again

Because I really do have an unhealthy attachment. I mean, I already bought two pairs of boots when I was in New York, but for some reason I felt like my new coat still needed something else ...

and what did I find on ebay ...

oh my, perfect Fryes for $50! Well I hope they're perfect; ebay hasn't let me down yet!

shopping in New York

Believe it or not I don't always do a lot of shopping when I visit. And this time I only had one thing I really wanted on my list. Of course that one thing required me to enter a shoe store. This shoe store - Infinity Shoes:

which happens to be the home of Miz Mooz - one of my favourite brands. I really wanted these! The colour is actually much warmer and they are surprisingly comfortable - love!!

Emi loves Anthropologie house stuff even more than I do so we almost always find time to pop in there. And I found this lovely number (Blurred Fresco by Elevenses) marked down from $230 to $99.99!!

I'd been wanting something with more colour in it to combat the dreary winter and I got a cute little hat to go with it. I love it, but wondered what boots shall I wear with this ensemble?

So I went back to Infinity Shoes thinking I might try something on in a nice shade of cherry. They must have known I was coming because they announced BOGO when I walked in the door. Yes, buy one, get one half off, and this is what I got:

A gorgeous pair of Fryes (for less than they are charging online) and then ...

these Miz Mooz beauties were half off for $75!!! It was a good thing I brought my big suitcase!

what do I do in the Big Apple?

People seem to think that I have some kind of crazy glamorous life because I come to New York a couple of times a year. But really all I do is hang out with my best friend and chase around after her kids. I try to spend as much time with them as I can because a couple of weeks out of the year just is not enough.

Julia has just started calling me "auntie Jess". She's 7 now and likes the idea that I am "real" family - but it makes me feel a bit old. Tomio, for some un-known reason has started to call me "Jessie" which I used to refuse to allow anyone to call me. But fair enough given that I call him anything from "Tio" to "hunny-bunny" (which he has yet to complain about).

 

They like it when I drop them off and pick them up from school. They like it when we have pillow fights. Julia likes to wake me up with the loudest noise-maker she can find - this time was a toy coffee grinder with fake beans that makes a serious racket. They like to snuggle up in bed and watch movies - I got them hooked on Xena, ai ai ai ai ai ai ai!!!

I always like to try and do something with them in Central Park. Over x-mas we went skating, which was kinda nutty since the place was jam-packed. This time we went for a bike ride! Little did I know that it's 6 miles all the way around the park and there aren't very many places to cross over with the bikes. Thank goodness Tomio has an iPhone so we could figure out where we were! So we just had to dismount and cross over on the foot path by the Jakie O reservior to catch the uptown bike path back home since it was getting dark fast. It was quite the adventure and no injuries!!

Tomio rightly noted that we always go out and have sushi together and he desperately wanted us to go to Morimoto (the restaurant owned by one of the Iron Chefs) but that's not in anybody's budget. We did have lots yumminess at Momoya - Tomio had his favourite uni and everyone loved the miso black cod I ordered!

I also make a point to visit my friend David and his daughter Sophia who is now 3. She has recently started calling all of their female friends "auntie" so I guess I'd better get used to this moniker. This summer they went to several weddings and she didn't get off the dance floor until the music stopped. Apparently she gets this from her auntie Jess. She is such a sweet-petite delight!

And Emi and I always have at least one breakfast at Cafe Lalo (yes, from You've Got Mail). This time we had 2 - they make the yummiest steamed eggs! And I got the fine fellow a great t-shirt for his collection. We also had a couple of great lunches at Peacefood Cafe. They make amazing salads & soups and have lots of choices for wheat & dairy-free me.

And yes, there was some, ahem, shoe shopping ....

Tomio is 10

I've been going to NYC at least once a year since Tomio was born. He was my first baby, you know, the first of my friends babies, and I love this kid like crazy. Sometimes he drives me a little crazy but he and I have a bond with each other that is very special and we have lots of silly, koo-koo, crazy times when we're together.

He's always been tall for his age and he was creeping up on me at x-mas, but look at this - he's officially taller!! And this photo was taken as we picked him up from his first school dance. I know it's a ridiculous cliche, but he really is growing up so fast. His doctor recently told him he could be as tall as 6'7" - that's just nuts!

Fall swans

The fine fellow sent me a lovely photo of Dougie feeding the swans (and the ducks)!!

So glad the gang is all still together and I can't wait to see them when I get back. Just hoping the leaves haven't all fallen. They are so glorious right now!

in NYC this week

With my favourite goof-balls!

We may even do this again!

I'm just happy to see their faces and hear their laughter and see how much they've grown!

I'll be back next week!

well hello again ebay

So my friend Sabrina calls me earlier in the week and says "it's time". Time for what? Time for cowboy boots!! She knows of my recent obsession and she knew she'd come to the right place. What did we find for she of the dainty size 5 1/2 feet?

Well she fell in love with these Fryes and wanted them the most. There was a serious bidding war on these babies, but she got them for just under $50 bucks!

And then we saw these little darlings - also Fryes. Our friend Siobhan felt they were a little too similar, but Sabrina loves grey and I think the two are very different. In fact, if these had been in my size I never would have shown them to her.

And guess what? Scored for $9.99 - that's correct, under $10 dollars!

But I was feeling very strongly that as a very fair blond she needed a good summer neutral and these were on sale from $150.00 for $45 "buy it now" - so she did!!

These are actually the same as my red dingo's, which she's tried on so we both knew they'd be super comfy!

I'm so proud of her. And she still has her eye on these red ones!!

I think they would round out the collection just perfectly!!