23 November 12

I always procrastinate dyeing my hair because it takes me like, four hours.

22 November 12

Jeff cooked a dinner of coq au vin with roasted veggies and spiced mashed potatoes. We both agreed that while the chicken was delicious, the sauce needed to taste like something other than hot wine.

21 November 12

Jeff and I had dinner at the Irish Heather after work. We were going to go to the movies, but my enthusiasm for it had waned so instead we went home and played Secret of Mana.

20 November 12

Jeff and his creepy Movember 'stache hanging out with the cat.

19 November 12

18 November 12

Finally hemmed my goddamn curtains and hung them up. It's amazing the difference it makes. Fuck you, venetian blinds!

17 November 12

We let our jack-o-lanterns compost in the garden after Halloween.

16 November 12

The neverending dispute between Hastings-Sunrise and East Village.

15 November 12

French food cookoff! Above is Chris's deconstructed Alsatian tart, but visit the blog as usual to see the rest of the entries and winners. My entry kind of looked like a cock and balls.

14 November 12

Preparing for the cookoff by caramelizing pears in cognac, margarine, and sugar.

13 November 12

This was the only decent-sized acorn squash we got out of the garden, and we didn't even eat it before it went bad!

12 November 12

no work. grungy clothes.

11 November 12

10 November 12

In the morning I ate cheese party leftovers for breakfast. In the evening Jesse had a birthday dinner at Chai Lounge and we sat for over two hours talking and enjoying ourselves, and ate so much delicious Afghan fusion food I thought I might go into a coma.

09 November 12

We hosted a wine and cheese. There was so much cheese. And quite a bit of wine. And other things as well. Pretty good times.

08 November 12

The Beave sent us all Byrd Farms shirts in the mail, because he loves us.

07 November 12

it's always time for wine.

06 November 12

05 November 12

Hayley needed some headshots for her acting portfolio, and I was flattered she asked me. One more here.

04 November 12

03 November 12

I hung up the painting Maddie gave me. I need more art in here to make it feel less like a storage area and more like a room.

02 November 12

For Riley's birthday, my mom surprised him with a zombie paintball experience for him and 9 others. I didn't go, but they said it was really authentic and a total blast. Mom & I drank wine and watched The Girl Who Played With Fire instead.

01 November 12

from a window at work. Hastings St.

31 October 12

We covered our front stoop in candles along with the three pumpkins Sarah carved, and played spooky music out the front window. I wore the wedding yeti mask and a little girl legit screamed when she saw me, which made it all worth it.

30 October 12

29 October 12

Sliced my hand open collapsing my umbrella when I arrived at work. Still not too sure how it happened.

28 October 12

Jeff and I had brunch at the hotel, and stopped by the campsite to say goodbye on our way home. The rain had stopped and the day was quite lovely; we spent a little while on the beach before hitting the road for good. After getting back to the city I went with Steph to Tamara's, and Val joined us to watch Beetlejuice and drink bourbon and eat chili.
couple more from this day here.

27 October 12

Jeff and I drove the foggy mountain highway up to Squamish for Chris & Wendy's wedding at the Howe Sound Inn. The wedding was brief and followed by delicious cake, and then relaxing at the pub for a bit before the reception down at the campsite. I was apprehensive about an outdoor wedding in late October, but Chris is an experienced outdoorsman and had a pretty swank setup going on with a fire and whatnot, so although it was pouring rain and bitterly cold, everyone was warm, happy, & dry under the giant tarps. There was loads of food too, and Jeff and I shared a flask of scotch. Later in the evening, once I started to regret too much my choice of wearing only one pair of socks, we headed back to the hotel. Decided to ignore the Halloween party at the pub in favour of drinking beer in a conference room and playing Scrabble with some of the others who opted to stay at the inn instead of camping. A few more photos from this day are here; sadly my photos of the wedding ceremony are pretty much unusable due to terrible lighting and blurriness.

26 October 12

While making a giant batch of chana masala for Chris & Wendy's wedding the following day in Squamish, I found the biggest clove of garlic I'd ever seen.

25 October 12

The result of the previous night's cooking: butternut squash & red pepper masala curry cooked with pumpkin wine, and topped with raita, cucumbers, & cilantro; on a gluten-free cauliflower crust. I had some troubles with the crust, but it turned out ok in the end.
As always, check out the cookoff blog to see all the entries and winners!

24 October 12

Preparing for the squash cookoff with one of the last butternut squashes from the garden.

23 October 12

If you live in Vancouver, go to the liquor store and get yourself one or two or five of these bad boys, before it's too late! Tastes like chocolate, coffee beans, and magic.

22 October 12

21 October 12

I made soup and cupcakes. Ventured outside to capture the beautiful light of the golden hour, nearly froze my fingers off.

20 October 12

First dusting of snow on the North Shore mountains. Bloody cold outside.

19 October 12

18 October 12

After work I went to the library, then walked to meet Jeff for dinner at Italian Kitchen. It was raining like mad and my boots got completely soaked, so I sat through dinner with soggy feet. This was the umbrella stand at the restaurant.

17 October 12

16 October 12

I had time to kill before my haircut, so I went to the Ascot pub down the block. It was nice inside (used to be a restaurant called Cassis, which I went to with my parents & Jeff several years ago), but the service wasn't the best, and the food was good but overpriced.
I told the hairdresser I wanted a bit of a change, and after failing to talk me into getting bangs, she basically gave me the haircut I had in 2009, only nicer-looking.

15 October 12

14 October 12

It rained a lot and I only left the house so that I would have the things to make lentil soup.

13 October 12

Went for beers at the Alibi Room with Tamara, Steph, and Sarah. We were going to eat food there too but the wait was over an hour so we had dinner at the Irish Heather first. Then we were all old ladies and went home at like 10.

12 October 12

This poor chair sat on this street corner near my house for several days. It's too bad it got all rained on; it looked pretty nice otherwise.

11 October 12

10 October 12

the morning of the sale, everyone was out there waiting for the doors to open. they all wanted what they'd seen in those pictures.

09 October 12

Outtake from a photo challenge about legs. Click here to see the photo and words that go with it.

08 October 12

Stanley Park, from Coal Harbour. It's so beautiful there in the fall.
A couple more photos from this day here.

07 October 12

I went downtown to run some errands and saw this terrifying scene featuring ravenous pigeons on Granville Street.

06 October 12

We hosted an epic Thanksgiving dinner for 23 people. All our side dishes were vegan (excluding the turkey gravy and the stuffing that went inside the bird), and we had meat, fish, and vegan main courses.
pictured here: smoky lentil loaf, roasted beets, sage & rosemary stuffing, ginger-glazed carrots & green beans, cedar-planked asparagus with applewood smoked salt.
not pictured: maple-sage turkey with bacon, cumin-caramelized onion mashed potatoes, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, roasted brussel sprouts, maple-candied yams with pecans, mushroom gravy, tilapia fish cakes with mustard seed & cilantro, orange-fig cranberry sauce, butternut squash soup, potato leek chamomile soup.
desserts: pumpkin pie, vegan pumpkin pie, vegan apple pie, pumpkin cheesecake, cognac whipped cream, vegan coconut whip, vegan whiskey ice cream, vegan fig ice cream.

I was really glad to see Alice while she was in town, especially knowing I'm probably not going to see her until next May ;n; And even though Riley had to make his ferry back to the island and didn't get to stay for turkey, I was glad he could be there, since it's so rare to have the whole family together at once.
Our guests washed most of our dishes, which was a relief, and we had so much food that we ate leftovers for a week.

05 October 12

Thanksgiving fridge. Visible here: turkey, tilapia, ice cream being chilled, so many leeks, so many eggs, so many mushrooms, apples, celery, lentil loaf mixture. The drawers are jammed with vegetables, the freezer jammed with stock. Not to mention bags full of potatoes, squash, onions, garlic, and bread.