what do I want to do when I grow up?

This is a good question since being on the cusp of 40 one could argue that I am, in fact, grown up.

So far, I've been a dancer, a dance teacher, a dance studio owner, a high school english and dance teacher, and an executive assistant.

I guess in comparison to the rest it figures that the last one really wasn't me - all that sitting and all!!

So here's something I've always wanted to do: I love giving advice; I give great advice; I would like to do an advice column.

 Anybody need some advice?

an orange orange-tree bowl

I won this baby last week and she just arrived!

I think I’ll call her ginger laughlin.

I love the colour and how lovely she looks with her aqua brothers and sister.

I find I use big homer the most and although they are supposed the be the same size, ginger is a bit bigger.

So glad salad season is here – greens are gonna be a good look for ginger.

I love homer (laughlin)

I got the beautiful Homer Laughlin orange tree bowl in the middle in the mail yesterday.

I've been calling the other two big homer and little homer - I'm tempted to call the new one marge.

She's much lighter than the other two. I love all the variation in colour and that you never know quite what it will look like until you get it.

I now have the 9", the 8" and the 7". The 6" and the 5" are elusive and expensive.

I'm not going to chase them for now. I'm quite happy with my 6" pinky mccoy (you know, like Pinky Tuscadero) ...

and they seem very happy together!

this is my one-hundreth post

or 10 blogs I like and why:

Back when I started this thing on Dec. 7, 2009, I had no idea what I was doing - still don't. But I did have a vague idea of why I wanted to do it. I love pretty things, I like to journal, I like to take pictures to remember my life (I have a terrible memory), and I like to take pictures of Marcel because I think he is adorable. I wanted a "place" I could put these things so that I can look at them and enjoy them and perhaps some other people might too.

(pretty)

But it wasn't until I tripped over Mabel's House that I realized that the kind of blog I wanted to do was just some kind of extension of myself. I think Liz does this brilliantly and eloquently as she writes about her life: her house, her decorating, her dog Mabel, her yard, her sisters, her man's cooking (would be nice to be able to post about that!) - and she does it all with her own photos of her own surroundings - I love it all! So thank you to Liz for the inspiration and for starting my obsession with vintage pottery.

(the bowl that started it all)

One day Liz introduced me to Elsa Mora & her blog The Hidden Seed. Elsa is an incredible artists and I absolutely adore her sweetness, thoughtfulness and great style. This woman knows how to rock lots of colour and poufy skirts and she illustrates her own beautiful & fanciful backgrounds. She inspired me to start doing "outfit of the week" because half the reason I get up in the morning is just to put on something pretty that makes me smile. But I find taking the actual self-portraits logistically challenging (I always seem to cut off my head). So I've been slacking on that although there have been some particularly inspired outfits lately with the change in the weather and the arrival of some new boots.

(miz mooz boots)

Emily from cupcakes & cashmere also inspires me with her personal style. She rocks the soft-n-girly with rock-n-roll footwear and was so helpful when I was figuring out how to wear my super-sale-impulse-purchase rocker booties.

(last outfit of the week)

My love of swearing and interior design meant that I was bound to find Jenny at My Favorite and My Best at some point and of course I have been in love with her ever since. She is rude and she is funny as shit - and she has very good taste. And insane sparkle-talent that means she can find insanely wicked stuff on craiglist anywhere in North America. She also posts about the transformations going on in her house and funny things like trying the Tracy Anderson Method (and she loves Gerard Butler as much as I do).

Jenny led me to Raina Cox at If the Lampshade Fits. This woman is funny-dry-acerbic-funny, has incredible taste and loves to point out when other people don't. She is also renovating an amazing house which she lovingly refers to as her Barbie dream house because "life is too short to live ugly" - I would have to agree.

And because I really do love a well detailed renovation job, I found my way to Naomi at thirteenth and south. She and her other half are in the midst of GUTTING a row house in South Philly. Naomi knows what she is doing here because she owns a remodeling firm with her dad and the progress she is making on this place is amazing. Also, she's funny.

Elizabeth at A Quirky Delight is just that - and I love a good quirky delight. She describes herself thus: "I have a dirty mouth and a twisted sense of humor. Just like your mom. (See?)" - and I could not sum it up better. We both like shoes, diys and ranunculus.

Which is why I love the gals of small stump & studio choo. The beauty that goes on in that place makes me sooooo happy and gives rise to dreams of opening a flower shop ...

which my friend Alison of Coriander Girl actually did recently - so brave of her!

She is an incredibly talented florist who loves to get down to great tunes and kiss all the doggies that show up in her gorgeous and sweet little shop in Parkdale.

Last but not least is Boops from A Very Curious Cookie who got me thinking about why I like all of these blogs in the first place. She had me at "hello" with her "Jeffrey Dean Morgan moments of the week", her lovely photos of where she lives now (being originally from Canada), her kindness towards animals and her encouraging comments on my blog - thanks so much for these!

This is an incredibly lovely community to be a part of and I'm seriously enjoying my time here. I hope I've contributed to you all enyoying it too!

xo - Jessica

peanut butter chocolate chip cookies

My friend Rory served these yummy wheat-free, dairy-free cookies at a gathering recently and I could not believe how simple they are to make - you barely even have to cook them!

• 1/4 cup natural chunky peanut butter

• 3/4 cup almond butter
• 1/2 cup sucanat (or brown sugar)
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp bake soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips

preheat oven to 350 degrees
mix in first 5 ingredients
add chocolate chips last
drop dough in rounded balls onto greased baking sheet
bake for 5-10 minutes

 
I used chunky natural peanut butter so mine turned out very crumbly, but oh so good!
 

easy banana bread

I was dreaming about the Mexican Chocolate Bread Pudding that Amy over at angry chicken made recently and feeling kinda sorry for myself that I would never be able to eat it since I simply can not imagine baking my own bread.

But then I got to thinking ... maybe I could make wheat-free banana bread, and doncha know pattycake has a recipe for that with "easy" in the title. So I thought I'd give it a whirl.

But since I'm still not really set up for baking, I got most of the way into the recipe before I realized I hadn't bought any vanilla. Hmmm, well there's vanilla in the rice milk right?

It cooked up very fast but looked pretty good.

Turns out the vanilla is pretty important to the taste, and it could use a few more bananas. So on its own, not so interesting, but I do believe it will make an awesome Mexican Chocolate Banana Bread Pudding!

corn bread with blueberries

Since my pan is bigger than the recipe suggests, my first 2 attempts turned out kinda flat, so I thought I would double it.

I also added lots of blueberries and a bit more honey.

The blueberries all floated to the top.

This is the yummiest one yet!

corn bread - round 2

Since my first attempt at corn bread actually produced something edible I thought I'd try it again.

This time I used canola oil instead of olive oil (which made the biggest difference) and honey with royal jelly. I also used a bit less rice milk and turned the heat down on the oven.

Turned out yummy!! Next time I think I'm going to put blueberries in there ...

and I finally figured out what to use the fig & rhubarb marmalade on - mmmmmmm!!

corn bread

Corn bread is one of my all time favourite things, and since I can't eat traditional corn bread, or really bread of any kind (thanks to that pesky wheat allergy) I decided it was time to make some myself. I actually tried to do this last year and made something the consitency of concrete.

Time to try again! I've been wanting to try out the babycakes nyc recipe which I discovered on design*sponge, but I don't have any xanthan gum handy so I gave this recipe a whirl instead.

I replaced the milk with rice milk and the vinegar with lemon juice and then I realized the only oil I had was of the olive persuasion (I am so not prepared for baking). But I was very excited to put good ol' homer into action!

I think my gas oven runs too hot and clearly olive oil is not the way to go, but this turned out not half bad - especially with a little agave!

welcome home homer & mccoy!

I had all my ebays sent to NYC and now they are home sweet home - yay!

ebay is crazy

Wow, so I've been coveting the Homer Laughling Orange Tree bowls over at Mabel's House (learned how to hot-link today) and since I don't know anything about antique fairs I went straight to ebay to see what I could find.

These gorgous babies were originally made as sets of 5 mixing bowls in graduated sizes (now don't ask me what I plan to mix in them because I don't cook/bake) and didn't ebay just have a set of 4 - which is apparently unheard of. Unfortunately, my newbie status to this whole bidding thing meant that they got away for a ludicrously low price to someone who'd better love them. But I got me one just the same and I can't wait to see it live and in person!

 While I was there I managed to snag this too!! I have always been a serious sucker for vases and cut flowers - as is Marcel - but I thought it would be nice to try and grow something (and save some dough). I have a definite black thumb but I've been keeping a little purple shamrock plant alive at work for months so I'm going to give it a go when ms daisy here arrives.