(via Pedlars UK)

Well, where have I been? Who do I think I am, exactly, abandoning my blog for weeks at at time?

Well, I think I’m falling in love with working in the Art Department on film sets. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, ever since I realized that all that pretty stuff in the background of movies and TV doesn’t just appear magically, but has to be carefully chosen (or made from scratch!) and placed there by designers.

And recently, I’ve gotten the opportunity to help out on some sets, and it has been awesome! Creative, and hectic, and so much on-the-spot problem solving. I love it!

But… the (truly) long hours don’t leave a lot of time for blogging.

And if I’m not on set I’m up at the cottage, and soon I’ll be leaving to go on vacation with Liam soooooo… Sorry, friends, family and fans, things aren’t going to be getting much better anytime soon.

In the meantime though…

I love everything Pedlars UK has to offer, and always have. I make it habit to check their online shop once in a while and drool over the merchandise, dreaming of it one day being mine, all mine Too bad shipping from England is so expensive.

But now I’m working, so maybe I’ll be able to afford some choice pieces for myself!

I always love all their housewares, but right now I am particularly digging their curated clothing selection.

The trend these days is actually an anti-trend – the focus is on eternally lasting, classic, traditional, domestically made pieces.

The stuff at Pedlars is spot on, from these shiny silver hunter boots I adore, or their Guernsey fisherman’s sweaters, their selection of Cambridge satchels (I’ve already talked about how much I love those) and their gorgeous, custom designed brown leather brogues with tweed (gasp!) lining. I want it all.

• Ughhhhhhh #twitter for iphone you suck soooooo hard. You were better when you were Tweetie 2, but you were BEST when you were just Tweetie. #
• Ugh. I have spent all week waaaaaaaaiiiiiiiting. #

I have loved Mad Men since before it even aired – advertising, and the early sixties long being two of my biggest fascinations.

But I was a little let down by the shallowness, darkness, and the seeming lack of humour of the last two seasons. A parade of pretty vintage dresses interspersed with misogyny was not so entertaining for me. I missed the complexity and subtlety, punctuated and contrasted by hilarity of the first season. I missed the real story telling, the character studies – especially on the women of the show who weren’t Betty.

My main disappointment, was that it seemed to be refocusing on the sixties as an extremely exaggerated pre-enlightenment dark ages, when all the men were boors, and all the women were victims. It was becoming a cartoon, a parody of itself.

So, if you’ve been watching this season so far, you’d know that it has me so very happy, and re-enthused!

And Peggy! Oh my little Peggy! How I love her again. She has definitively, and finally gotten her groove back, and I love everything she, does, thinks, says and wears, no matter how flawed (and can we talk about her hair – finally a cute haircut for her!).

Which doesn’t even address how in LOVE I am with the new Sterling Cooper Draper Price offices, as filled with mid century fantabulousness as they are.

So why am I posting this Malcom Gladwell Ted talk from 6 years ago?

Because it touches very much on some themes brought up in the last few episodes. Particularly last weeks episode focusing on coming up with a campaign for Pond’s Cold Cream. Don Draper will turn out to be prophetically right  (not simply arrogant) when he said that people don’t know what they want, and that it is his job to show them.

(Although, it is interesting  to note that it increasingly seems the real prophetic at SCDP is Pete Campbell.)

• True: before today I've never had a mani/pedi. Also true: before today I've never been out on "girls night." The two are certainly related. #
• I saw Eat, Pray, Love last night, and I quite liked it. Yep. #
• I had NO idea that the receptionist was Jessica Pare, and the lesbian was David Mamets daughter on Mad Men. Neat. #
• Monstrous sinuses today. Monstrous. #
• Today is our wet sausage party… I know what you're thinking, and the answer is no. #
• We had dim sum for the first time today, the real deal at Pacific Mall! Nobody spoke English, except for one cart girl who had pity on us. #
• Soooooooooo good though. Dim sum :) !!! #

(via MarthaStewart.com)

I am not a scrapbooker, or keepsake kinda person. Mostly I just take all the ephemera and mementos of my travels and shove them into a pretty shopping bag from the trip, and shove that in closet. I wish I had it together enough to do something like this.

How wonderful would a whole shelf with a lifetime of these jars lined up on it be? Maybe once we start having kids, we could do this every year for our big family vacations.

• I think I've slept, like 700 hours in the past week, and I still feel exhausted. #
• Happy things: @elprime made me pasta with pesto and tomatoes fresh from the garden. Then we watched Mad Men and Rubicon. #
• I am so heavily digging both this season. AMC can do no wrong at this point. #
• Right! There's a Bouchon in Vegas! Thomas Keller here I come! #
• BTW We're going to Las Vegas. It's for @elprime 's work, but it happily coincides with our anniversary. #
• FYI We will probably be spending some time in Vancouver around then too. #
• Mario Batali also has a Vegas restaurant? There is so much good food to be had, I may go out of my mind. #
• 10 minutes of gardening = 10 buckets of sweat. Bleaaach. #
• I think Bioshock Infinite sounds awesome. Whaaaatever about being "so over" steampunk. I don't care for genre snobbery, content is king. #
• I could say I hate fantasy (and I do) but many of my favourite books are fantasy. Or magic realism. Which, lets be honest, means fantasy. #
• Magic Realism = Fantasy (but more respectable/pretentious) #
• Don't remember who gave me this book(Lullabies For Little Criminals)I'm finally reading. Makes me think thoughts about class & my childhood. #
• Class is a bigger factor in peoples lives than anything else, than race or gender. But nobody talks about it. Nobody acknowledges it. Sad. #
• Imagine worrying that you are literally not classy enough. That you don't belong. That you're not fooling anyone. It's like drowning slowly. #
• At this point, whenever I see the word Social attached to the word Media, I barf a little. #
• Um, burger with local butcher's fresh ground, heirloom tomato, aged Thunder Oak, piller's pickle & freshly dug baked potato… Say whaaat? #
• Best. Burger. Of. Life. #
• So, a baked potato mere hours out of the dirt tastes exactly like butter… Then you put more butter on it! Totally worth growing your own! #
• BTW the meal was an entirely @elprime production. He is chief potato grower and burger maker. #
• We're at the spicy food festival @ harbourfront. Kevin Brauch is here. He is a world class jack ass. #
• Kevin Brauch won't shut up. Consensus is he must be on coke. Would explain the sweat and the blowhardness. #
• Speaking of drugs, Richard Cazeau is also here… #

(via Black*Eiffel)

Woah.

Oh Europe! Why are you so far away from me!

(via girlhula on Flickr)

A few years back, Girl Hula (aka Andrea) threw this mindblowinglyamazing china town themed party for her little girl – which I then more or less stole for our engagement party.

Recently, she thew a rainbow themed party for her little girl. It was also mindblowinglyamazing, and was complete with Rainbow Cake!

I myself am a rainbow enthusiast, and even had rainbow wallpaper on the walls of my nursery growing up. This is another idea that deserves to be enthusiastically stolen! Too bad my birthday is so very far away in February…

(via YELLOW OWL WORKSHOP)

This cloisonne necklace seems like it must have been made just for me! It is lovely, lovely, lovely!

Gettin’ back into the groove of things last week, we took a trip to our favourite little place around the corner (they make all their own pastries from scratch – that’s a rare find in a coffee shop).

Liam was working from home, doing some creative work and a change of scenery is always good for the brain meats, we find. Lots of good sketching happened.

Then I got sick with the flu, all weekend, yuck. Poor me.

I guess I was exhausted, but we have a lot to celebrate, as we found out not only do we get to go to Vegas (Liam, on business, me tagging along) but we’re heading to Vancouver after that to visit the plethora (really! plethora!) of friends we have accumulated out there.

Get ready, Vancouverites!

And, on top of all that Liam’s contract was renewed for another year, and six months early at that. Wooooooo to another year and a half of employment!

• Yes I'm home from Thunder Bay. Though I'm pretty sure I need a vacation from my vacation. #
• Also, i'd like to never have to hear muzak, fake Enya, whale songs, synth or, most notably, the Weather Channel again. #
• But I may have in my possession plenty of Persians, perogies and 60 dollars worth of Thunder Oak Gouda. Maybe. #
• I did manage to get some good swag up in T Bay. Lots of thrift scores, & my Fire King collection is slowly, surely getting out of control! #
• But I also gained at least 2 pounds. Which is better than the usual 10, but still. Have they still not introduced green veggies up there? #
• Then again, I did have pie for breakfast… More than once. This is all my fault T Bay. I shouldn't blame you. #
• Hangin' @ redrocket with some excellent tunes! Kinks, Stones, Costello… I (heart) this place. #
• . @emmamwoolley As long as there's been daughters, there's been mothers telling them to go back inside and put on something more appropriate #
• So. I just made the most decedent poutine in Canada. How? I topped it with still squeaky Thunder Oak cheese curds. Yes. #
• I think… My stomach doesn't feel like dying today. Score! #
• As a interesting bonus, my hair is straightened & styled and my nails are painted a sparkly red (China Glaze – Ruby Pumps) WHO AM I !?!?!? #
• I'm like… Well groomed? Who do I think I am, Miss America or something? #
• So, tonight is a double feature of dystopian thrillers by acclaimed directors. Just got through 12 Monkeys. On to Children of Men! #
• CHUCK BASS? Ooooooooof course he's in this movie. #

• If you didn't like the new episode of Mad Men, then you don't really get Mad Men. It's not about big changes, it's about little choices. #
• So my nails are this craaaaazy orange-red (Essie-Geranium) right now. I also bought a nude, but I think the bottle went off, it's v streaky #
• Which is probably what I get for buying polish from a sketchy ghetto Trade Secrets (even @ buy one get one 1/2 off). #
• . @elprime made me Pad Thai!!! It was soooooooo good! Yay! #
• Liam thinks with my new haircut I would make a cute Vulcan :D #
• He does not think I would make a sexy Vulcan :( #
• But really, even Kim Cattrall was cute as a Vulcan. The only "sexy" Vulcan was skeletal with huge implants. I didn't find her all that sexy. #
• Dear Porter: you had me at free snacks and espresso bar. #
• This airline is all it was promised to be… Dreamy! #
• Also: I think their clientele is much nicer than others. Better dressed anyways. #porter #
• Hoito! #
• This little, backyard, TBay wedding was worth the schlep for the short ribs alone. #
• Thunder Bay farmers market is CRAZY SAUCE. Everything you could want, smoked game, organic produce, preserves, artisinal bread, PEROGIES! #
• I had a little panzerotti stuffed with ground pepperoni that came with a little cup of home made sauce, piping hot. #
• Oh, and did I mention the cabbage roll sausage? Crazy good. Or all the Thunder Oak Gouda? That's right suckas, I can eat all I want up here! #
• You guys: Thunder. Oak. Cheese. Curds. Whats. Up. Damn straight they squeak!!! http://twitpic.com/2adm9e #
• Ughhhhhh. You know those knock-off "sounds like" Enya and whale song cds they sell in drugstores? Liam's mom is the person that buys them. #
• Friends up here found 4(!) chocolate brown real Eames(!) chairs for ten(!) bucks. That's ALMOST enough to make me want to move up here. #

(via Ninainvorm on Etsy)

There is too much adoreableness going on up in here.

I love those old blueware plates you find from Northern Europe to begin with, but with the extra little splashes of colour? Oh, my, too cutie cute!

• Oh, I would NEVER eat spoonfuls of nutella and peanut butter straight out of the jar #yesIwould #&Itotallyjustdid #
• dinner tonight was bacon & sautéed cherry tomatoes & chick peas & fresh rosemary & pasta in a carbonara (egg) sauce & drooooooooooooool… #
• Oh! And arugula! From the garden! And pecorino! Soooooo gooooooooood… #
• But not as good as @kickpleat 's enchiladas, which we had last night. Damn, those were some fine enchiladas, girl! #
• I'm overdue for a haircut. I think. I want. A bob. But with bangs this time! Craziness? Or awesomeness? #
• Enchilada lunch! Yeah! #
• I'm pretty sure cleaning for 1 1/2 hours in this heat counts as a full workout #sweaty #
• I just had a dream I could not wake up from. Until I did, after a lot of prodding. Ugh. Unsettling. I feel like I've been drugged. #
• So, made the haircut appointment for tonight @parlourToronto never been there before. Hope they're alright. #
• new hairs: http://flic.kr/p/8m3D7T I think it's very early nineties Linda Evangelista/Natalie Portman in the Professionals. But awesomer. #
• Yesterday, while I was getting a trendy haircut, Liam went to the Beguiling, and then Dufferin Mall. Then Sneaky Dees for dinner. No really. #
• Scott Pilgrim ain't just a book, it's a lifestyle, y'all. #

(via Ship’s cat – Wikipedia)

You all know, I’m a sucker for the nautical look, and I’m a sucker for cats.

Well, look! A teensy-tiny-kitty hammock! With Sailors! The kitty even looks like my little flora!

I should really get her a little hammock like this, she’d love it (if only I could find a sail-maker who’d whip one up for me).

Seriously, the whole Ship’s Cat article on Wikipedia is a fine read.

We bought Nelson Tethers off of Steam when it came out, and I played through it the other afternoon.

Yes, played throught it, all of it, in an afternoon. It’s short. Which is ok for a game that only cost ten bucks, but I feel like it could have lasted a whole lot longer if the puzzles were harder. In addition to that, there were a few puzzles that took me a bit longer to figure out, but – I feel like that was only because they were a little broken.

It’s obvious that for further episodes, Telltale needs to shell out and hire a real puzzle master to create content for them.

But other than that, the game is charming and funny, and worth the ten dollars, even if it is for only a few hours entertainment.

(via marcinema on Flickr)

Sorry people, I’ve been lazy and busy. But here’s a lovely little snap of the annual Governor’s Island Jazz Age Picnic in NYC.

Doesn’t it look positively dreamy? Someday, I’ll go. In the meantime, I am planning my own little picnic in my own little backyard.

• http://tinyurl.com/2ane3vf A great explanation of why I love twitter (& why many just don't get it) by Mr. @ivortossell #
• I am sooooo in lurve with this bright red polka dot western style shirt! I need to shop the mens department at UO more often. #
• Why is it that this mens shirt fits my boobs better than most womens shirts do? *sigh* It's a big boobed mystery. #
• So, you know those Gerrard St. garage fires? Yep, few houses down from us. Don't know how we missed the sirens last night. #
• Been outside lately TO? It's like SoCal out there, everywhere! Everything is so lush and floral and green and hot! Lovely lovely weather. #
• I am wearing a sun dress to celebrate. And to think, there's months more of this to come! Months! #
• A certain Piggy, bein' cute this morn. http://twitpic.com/25smep #
• Are you kidding me, weekend weather? Ugh. You had so much promise only just yesterday! Unfair. #
• Remember when I posted that cute kitty picture? It was a distraction. The other ones were puking and peeing all over our clothes. GRRRRR… #
• You. Are so lucky. You're not dead. Cats. #
• Also, Air-Conditioner: You're on notice. You just attempted to ruin the dresses that slipped behind the bench on the floor. Tricksy. GARGHH! #
• I had places I had to be in those clothes!!! #
• This might be contentious, but I'm pretty sure the Chipmunk in Manilla is one of the best chip trucks around. Great poutine &… everything! #
• Chip trucks are so weirdly Canadian, @beatonna should do a comic about them. #
• Did I mention that I think I saw Peaches at the Grocery store last night? Yep. She is pretty in person. Weird hair though. #
• Drunk Catan is a bad idea. It just makes people angry… er… at me (I win A LOT). Drunk UNO is a better idea. #
• My brain feels like it's filled with cotton batting. Too much board games and carbs, not enough sleep. #
• Liam looks adorable today though. White v-neck, his wedding pork-pie hat and Ray-ban style tortoiseshell shades. Total hipster cutie. #
• Makes me feel like I'm married to some models' indie rocker boy-toy, or a member of the Ronson family. #
• So: I finally tracked down Cheeseburger Doritos and I am going to go ahead and preemptively blame all my subsequent weight loss on them. #
• So: I finally tracked down Cheeseburger Doritos and I am going to go ahead and preemptively blame all my subsequent weight gain on them. #

(via Ancient Industries)

If your looking to re-create that summery, cottagey feel in your home (and aren’t we all?) take a look at Ancient Industries. The little web shop is bursting with lovely, rustic, old fashioned, European wares, in lickable ice cream colours.

I particularly love this Wedgwood dish set.

As babies, me and my brother and sister all ate off of a set of the ubiquitous Royal Doulton Bunnykins dishes. I think we even had the matching silver spoon – not that my upbringing was in any other way very privileged. They were indulgent shower gifts, that proved to be incredibly practical – good china lasts forever, even through 3 children. And of course, now we know plastic leaches all kind of icky things into baby’s food anyways.

I feel like this set is a much more modern and design-forward interpretation of that old tradition (but retains some very similar traditional origins). It would make a perfect shower gift for an expecting Graphic Designer friend.

It’s pretty neat to see a great design project completed right in your own neighborhood. Our new Sugar Beach sure is adorable.

The beach chairs look mint green (!) against the off-white sand and pink (!!) umbrellas. And they’ve brought in big hunks of Canadian shield and given them candy stripes (!!!).

It helps of course, that Christopher Hume and the dutch designer of this space star in this video in their minimalist designer uniforms of black and white suits. It’s a nice complimentary contrast to the vintage pastel hues of the beach itself.

Hmmmm… I’m picturing a lovely mid-century photo shoot down there… Pastel poufs of dresses (mirroring the swooping circles of the umbrellas), all in sugary candy colours, escorted by  mono-chromatically clad Mad Men…