Yummy on a budget

Milestones restaurant has the right idea with their little Monday night special
Girl's Night out


The price is right and the company is even better!
It's summer time, simply made for patios and Stilettos ;)





Nothing should ever come between girls and their good friends...the bellinis



And of course a girl's night is not complete without some munchies.
There are 6 to choose from, but the first two are salads. Our server, simply asked us if we wanted the last 4 from the menu. Smart Man!



Yummy Yam Frites

and



Hot Spinach & Artichoke Dip

and



Crispy Honey Phyllo Shrimp


and last but not least



Baked Goat Cheese and Slow Roasted Garlic Flat Bread Platter

And if you still have some room after all of the wonder seen above, add a little meat loaf to the mix ;)



This is happiness at it's best and of course it does not kill the budget.

Cheers!

"Sex and the City II"

A pleasure, simply a pleasure movie.
Love love loved it!

If you are a closet Miranda, Samantha, Charlotte or a Carrie you will enjoy this movie top to bottom.
This movie was the perfect Friday night escape from the hustle and bustle of everyday gray life.
The colors, the shoes, the friendships and of course the loves are back and just as wonderfully shiny as ever.




In several reviews the plot line is harshly abused, but for me it was simply perfect. Exploring the real life challenges with love, marriage, and age made this movie easy to relate to and enjoy. After all, you can wear designer gowns and have all the men in the world and still eventually end up with a major hot flash in the middle of a dessert!
Plus the gorgeous background of Abu Dhabi can be almost the 5th character in this movie.



So I say watch it, love and then see it at least once more for the shoes and then again for the clothes ;)

For I will always be a whole lot of Samantha in Carrie's shoes with Miranda's practicality and a touch of Charlotte's innocence.

Overall, this movie deserves 4.5 lip balms out of 5!

I misses you

Ohhh you poor sweet blog how neglected you are :(

I still love you and will be back to writing none sense in about 9 weeks.

"Alice in Wonderland"

This was my first IMAX 3D experience and with that a few words of advice: Do not be late for a popular move as you will have to sit in the second row and watching an IMAX movie that close to the screen is a horrid experience. For me it was migraine inducing and I couldn’t wait for the movie to be over.

Apart from most scenes being blurry due to my proximity to the screen, visually this movie was breath taking. If this movie earned bonus points for visuals, it lost them in story line. I am not very familiar with the original but the movie story line was bare, overly simplistic, predictable and simply boring.

I don’t usually read reviews prior to seeing a movie, and made the mistake of doing so prior to seeing Alice. One aspect that struck me was reviewers’ opinion of Mia Wasikowska’s acting as emotionless. While watching the movie I couldn’t help myself, but focus on her emotionless face and think that she could have done wonders with this role.




On the other hand, Johnny Depp’s mad hatter was simply lovable and made me want to give him a giant hug. Those giant colorful eyes were magical. And the Red Queen's insecure madness was extremely well played, leaving me to feel sorry for her poor soul.



Over all I give it 3/5 lip balms. Yes go see it, but sit in the back!

What's new, pussycat....woooaoaoaaa

As I buckle down to focus on the last 3 months of my program, which means that all I will have time for is to Tweet and occasionally blog how horrible my life is, I decided to take this weekend and focus on my Etsy shop.

Friday I was able to drive myself through the horrible rainy day to the Toronto convention centre for the Bead Oasis Show. Being around all of the beads and materials, inspired me for this very productive weekend.

Let me present the "Silk" collection, now in Peach Freshwater Pearls!!!



The Necklace available here!



The very popular Stud earrings
I am very excited that several brides all over the world will be wearing the Creamy white "Silk" studs on their special day!

And the dangly version of the earrings will be available in the next week



Lets hope that the next 3 months are a lot less painful than I imagine them to be...my promise to myself is that once I am done I will start painting again. That would be 3 years since I last held a paintbrush

Winterlude!

In my attempt to make friends with winter I headed over to ice cold Ottawa for a weekend.
Started out with a little cold walk amongst the ice sculptures



It was ice cold yet packed. Ottawanians have no fear of the cold!



I really liked the recycled garden. Eco chic, eco art.



Me getting frisky with a giant bum bum ;)



The Rogers Ice lounge... not exactly what I expected as I was looking for something more like the icy palace in James Bond and Die Another Day...




Of course no trip is complete without a skate on the Rideau Canal.

Over all, I am really really happy that the weather was wonderful, minimum snow to damper my mood. Icy cold sunshine and perhaps I am a little friendlier with the winter season.

It's NYE you have to be shiny!!!

What better excuse than NYE to wear a disco ball outfit and play up my make up.
I am absolutely addicted now to experimenting with all of the make up and different colours and such out there, gone are the days of pink eyeshadow and a dash of black eyeliner.

Time to have some fun!!!










Incredibly smooth skin thanks to Revlon's Beyond Natural Smoothing Primer and liquid foundation. The primer is incredible and just perfect for a night when you know you will be photographed a LOT.

Eyes:
Colorstay Eye shadow quad in Berry Bloom
Avon Big Color eye pencil in Lightening
The shiny blue eyeliner - Annabelle Glitterama liquid eyeliner in Celestial Sky

The only thing I regret is picking up an old mascara as I couldn't find my good bottle.

Now how do I make it so that the pictures are more true to color? The actual make up was really vivid.

Waiting for Santa!

Remember how last year's Christmas tree tricked me and instead of it being 5ft it was as tall as my ceiling



Well this year, I knew that
a) if a tree is taller than me it is not 5ft and
b) if it spans from the back to the front of the car than it definitely is not 5ft tall



A little bit more my size and that much easier to sneak in and later out the apartment building ;)

and this is what happens when you play with the ornaments for too long

A bit of a Sale...

Well actually a pretty big bit of a sale... 25% off the entire shop until Nov 30th!!!

Keeping Creative...

I am trying to keep creative even though I work with numbers for 10 hours a day only to come home and study about numbers.
In order to try and keep my creative juices from drying up... which they often do, I signed up for a whole bunch of ATC swaps on Swap-bot

A Daisy themed swap


A Mushroom themed and a Bee themed swap ( they kind of go together)



Somehow the mushroom came back in this Ladybug themed swap



Roses - each piece was cut by hand



I want to sign up for more but at the same time I am always soo late in sending them out...

Happy Halloween!!!!

Somehow I went from planning to be a pirate for a year.... to maybe Batman (yes I realize I am a girl and still BatMAN) to a hastily put together fairy. And after a lot of great anticipation I felt extremely tired yesterday and the night almost didn't happen.
But it did and I had the perfect excuse to play with my make up ....

In cooking news...

I don't know how I caught the cooking bug, but I have and I am not sure that I want to shake it.
I think it is the new job. My coworkers love to share their food at lunch and are always bringing in new things and so I had to follow suit.
I started out with the simplest and most yummy Banana Bread



Lex's Banana Bread (named after my coworker's wife, whose recipe this is)

1/2 cup of creamed butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
3 very ripe bananas
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups flour

Cream the butter and add the sugar, egg, banana and milk together. Blend well. Add all dry ingredients together then add to the wet mixture. Should fit into a 9 inch, greased baking dish.
Bake at 350F for 35 to 40 mins. Simple I told you!

Apart from desserts, I have also ventured into my favourite mama recipes too.



Moussaka

and finally today I made Thanksgiving dinner for my sister and friends.



and the BIRD!!!

Happy Sunday...

oh how I wish Sundays did not end with Mondays...

This weekend I found myself living the life of shut-in as my only venture into the real world was a quick but expensive trip to the pet store followed by another quicker trip to the art supply store.
The rest of the time I was somewhere in between the piles or should I say mountains of supplies that I own.



I gathered and packaged my Journaling supplies swap



Two packages to fly of to different sides of the world.

I also completed another swap titled "Flowered ATCs: Daises"



I haven't worked on mixed media projects in a while and I thought that the best way to get myself back in the groove would be if I signed up for a few swaps.
My style is a bit different now and the whole process has evolved for me. I actually sketched, picked out the papers & organized them prior to starting. I used to just splash things together before.
The swap called for 2 ATCs and I created one slightly different to put in the Shop! as an ACEO.



"Dream Big"

In reading news...

Class is fast approaching again, my first assignment is due on Oct 9th.
In a race against time I am trying to read as many books before I hit the study books again. Once it starts I won't be able to come up for air until next June.

In the last month, I finished the 5th installment of Stephen King's Dark Tower series (I have been reading the series on and off for the past 5 years).



Interestingly enough this book mentioned a devise called a seeker and a little wizard by the name of Harry Potter. Yes Stephen King manages to bring in all kinds off strange things in his books, usually it is characters from his other stories.
So guess the title of the next book that I read...



A while back I decided to give in and read the Harry Potter books. I had never read them or watched the movies, so I decided to catch up with the world. One of my new coworkers handed me the first book in the series the morning after I finished the King book. Coincidence? Or in the words of King "ka" ;)

I finished Harry Potter in one breath, well a week. Now I must watch the first movie and see the visuals.
Next on my reading list is


I usually let some time pass between the Dark tower books but as I told you I am in a race against time.

After this I want to read



Finish the dark tower series and Harry Potter. I don't think I will get pass the the above book in time though, but we will see...

The last week in review

...getting used to the new job is taking it's tole on me.
My brain is overloaded and I can't wait until I understand it inside and out. Luckily at least corporate finance is the same across the board, it's the ins and outs of my new company that are 'interesting'. So far I do like the people and atmosphere, it is nothing like my old company (well more like my department was managed poorly).

Since I am trying to get used to a new schedule, I have been having a hard time falling asleep and thus more playing on the computer.

Last week, I worked on my first 'Self Portrait Thursday' photo in months


I also uploaded my skydiving video

New!!!

Brand new in the Shop!



"Silk" Earrings



Luscious - in Chocolate Mint



Luscious - Earrings in Orange