Showing posts with label diy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diy. Show all posts

May 5, 2010

Lightning don't strike twice / Unless the topic is dentist and the dogress' oral health.

Ahh, pistachio gelato! An indication of summer to come. The weather's been unfriendly these past few days. Maybe it's a reflection of my miserable physical state. More on that later. Because I know you care. You do care, right? Good, so tonight it'll be a sandwich-style post: fluffy happy carbs around rotten, disgusting, despicable meat. So, let's begin.




Happy carbs—a beautiful wooden cake stand, as seen on ohjoy.blogs.com...
Happy carbs—we finally "cashed in" our large plastic bag full of coins at a nearby Canadian Tire. Sure, they took a nine percent cut, but we still skipped away with about fifty buckaroos!

Happy carbs—in all likelihood, we'll be sleeping in the new casa come May 29! Yep! The contractors didn't go on strike, home inspection is next week (so nervous and excited), money, paper work, and key(!) exchanges on the 28th, and move in by the 29th. We just need to book the elevator at our current building and hire movers. Feels surreal. I know I was all ambitious about re-painting our walls gray, putting up a chalkboard wall in the bedroom, and personalizing hardware pieces (switch plates, knobs, hooks, hangers, you name it!) but we'll likely delay all of that and just enjoy the bare skin and bones of our first home. Heehee. Looking forward to having the stipple ceiling removed and shopping around for a dining table, chairs, coffee table, office furniture (inspirational desk diy here), and lighting fixtures! Oh, and an electric stove heater, of course.
     {canadiantire.ca}
Happy carbs—a little ditty that the dogre is obsessed with. She'll be performing at some cafe on the west end, come May, and we're going to take a gander.

Happy carbs—a friend and I will soon be starting our very own Toronto picnic club! We'll take turns picking the park, date, and time, and attendees will bring their own blankets and food to share. It'll be an open invite to friends and friends of friends as well! Interested? 

Rotten meat—I've been dealing with persistent toothaches since January, after I got a filling in one of my top right molars. I went back before but my dentist attributed the pain to minor sensitivity exacerbated by my clenching+grinding. She merely shaved down the filling to fix my bite and refitted my nightguard (yes, I wear one. so does the dogre. we make a very sexy couple, you know). She was wrong. In fact, what I had thought were pesky allergy symptoms may actually be the consequences of nerve damage when the filling was put in. Why else would only the right side of my face (nose, eyes, head, ears) hurt? After today's visit, she's now 95% sure I've got an infection and sent me on my way with a prescription to penicillin and pain killers, requesting a followup in two days. They shuffled me around the whole visit, and unsurprisingly, totally changed the followup date and time without even consulting me. Oh, and now they've assigned me to the head dentist, who I find eerie and fake. And scary. I'll need the dogre to escort me again because I turn into a wide-eyed trembling doe (but cuter, of course) whenever I visit the dentist. Seriously, I have a phobia of dental offices and always leave nauseated and drowsy due to exhaustion, even if it's a ten minute consultation where they adjusted my nightguard! So anyhow, the dogre hates the place. He thinks they lack general courtesy and professionalism and calls it the fast food restaurant of dental clinics. I think he's right—they rushed me, all of them in a terrible hurry and showed a serious lack of patient care. I'm likely to change dentists, but after they resolve this issue because why should I pay elsewhere for their mistakes! They've yet to charge me for any followup visits I made since January because they know it's their misstep. And now, after a google search on the dangers of an untreated abscessed tooth, I'm freaking out over jaw bone and facial tissue damage, eyes, nose, ears, and brain infection! I'm wondering how worried I should be that my jaw feels weird, that my right nose and eye have been painfully dry and sore, and that I've been dealing with severe headaches! I'm the dogre is going to give the head dentist some serious drilling because I need to be assured that the infection hasn't dangerously spread elsewhere. On a related note, here's my word of the day for you: iatrogenic—a malady induced inadvertently by a physician or surgeon, or by a medical treatment or diagnostic procedures.

Happy carbs—mr. L alerted my seastar, who informed me, that we had missed our seastar anniversaire this year! So, we had a late celebration, doing what we do best; we ate. And then ate some more. We also nursed three cider beers each for five hours. My alcohol tolerance has become laughable.

Happy carbs—our home is super clean out of necessity and courtesy to the unit owners, who are struggling to rent this place out. Actually, we can call this one happy carbs/rotten meat because we've been inconvenienced with twenty six viewings thus far. 26! On one evening, they showed the place to six different individuals at six separate times. I don't think the manager has a good grasp of efficiency, as her ad sucked and she isn't even screening the inquirers. She's also getting the condo concierge to do her legwork, even though it isn't part of his job description and he doesn't receive monetary compensation! It's really annoying for us because it affects when we can cook, eat, and relax. But, times are tough and I suppose people are less inclined to spend x amount of money on a shoebox we've been calling home.

Happy carbs—these awesome titanium aviators by Ray-Ban.

Happy carbs—an adorable anchor necklace purchased at UO over the weekend. $20!
Happy carbs—food visuals! We ate at voglie ristorante & lounge,  just north of Church and Wellesley, for a friend's birthday dinner.
Clockwise: spaghettini al pomodoro with chicken, grilled new york strip, penne alla vodka, roasted chicken supreme. I'd return! Gawd, how I love spaghettini. It's my favourite! So thin and plentiful, and easily coated with sauce...Dreamy.

Some new recipes we tried last week...
Roasted maple chicken and sweet potatoes, turkey and bacon sandwich with avocado and pesto, toasted prosciutto, apple, and cheddar sandwich with honey mustard sauce, and chocolate chip oreo cookies. All recipes here, on my online recipe box. Looking forward to baking a lemon poppy seed loaf sometime this week.

Mama's Pizza had a special event and we got deliciously thin medium pepperoni pies for $4.99 each.
Really, are you even surprised to see pizza again? I forgot to eat dinner...Oops! How about another word before I leave: sesquipedalianism—given to using long words (I can think of a couple of people who intentionally and unnecessarily use long or fancy words...heh). Bye now!

Feb 10, 2010

v.day.d.i.y.

I'm not a very lovey-dovey, affectionate person (unless I'm bored or about to get into trouble. then I'll shamelessly bat my sparse eyelashes at the dogre) but I do appreciate an insignificant day dedicated to unnecessary gift giving and doting! I also like to ooh and aah over DIYs that I'll likely never make. Click on the images for instructions.
{photo credit: marthastewart.com}
The process sounds very fun! Ironing crayons between wax paper? Explosive colours? Yes please!
{photo credit: oncewed.com}
Ooh, these pom poms look like a lot of work.
{photo credit: purlbee.com}
This garland would also be a nice touch for the balcony. Imagine a hot summer night, a light breeze, the warm glow of candles and street lamps, muffled music in the background, and a few close friends gathered around with cold drinks in hand (freshly mixed from our bar cart inside, of course)...and our future gnome friend. Le sigh, I've been missing summer weather like a fat kid misses cake. Or a monkey misses cotton candy. Or rocky misses rice. Or mia misses massages. Substitute kid, monkey, rocky, and mia for moi. Not sure where this cotton candy loving monkey came from, but I like him already.
Above, the dogre has been formally invited to a private fondue party for deux. Spicy cheese! I hope he remembers to pick up the ingredients the day before...Along with my gift (we've set a $10 or under budget).

Jan 19, 2010

Tuesday Digs: Spruce up your casa - Free DIY Labels

While perusing around in my favourite shop in Paris, I picked up a few vintage labels for a friend. And, at five euros a piece, I don't have to tell you that the dogre was looking over my shoulder, watching my every move, every selection, and every price tag. I felt guilty but had not yet learned that you could find free printable labels online. If only...In any case, I spent the first night of discovery setting up an assembly line (for one), searching, printing, cutting, gluing (when applicable) and stacking. By the end of my shift, my back was in knots, eyes dry, and fingers sore. But it was worth it! Fancy cotton swab jar and wee his and hers cookie jars? Yes please! Envy not because you too can be super snazzy. Just click on over to eatdrinkchic.com (here and here) and get ready to become Martha Stewart's third cousin, twice removed.
On an unrelated note, I checked our mailbox today (which is rare) and was super excited to see a mysterious package addressed to me. Cue in wild imagination involving an acceptance letter for a masters program that I never applied to, a reward for a contest I never entered, or maybe a surprise Etsy gift from the dogre! Cue in boring reality: the cheque books he had ordered last week. It wasn't a complete disappointment though—I flipped open one book to find images of monarch butterflies and dewy leaves! The dogre went and personalized our cheques with cheesy butterflies and foliage! This is entirely apposite of the dogre. Pause. Did I say 'apposite'? Indeed I did. It was in my January 17th word of the day email, meaning "being of striking appropriateness and relevance". Wow, I'm just stimulating your brain with my funnies and education, right? Right! It does you a lot of good to come visit me here. So, I signed up for these emails hoping to increase my vocabulary but of the thirty or so words, I've only retained maybe four. I can't seem to remember them unless they're fun to say. Like, fatuous and flibbertiggibet. Hehe...flibbertiggibet. So silly. It's even funnier to hear it on Merriam-Webster. She's got such a thick news anchor voice!

I leave you with a few favourites from Stephen Colbert:
  Hey yogurt, if you're so cultured how come I never see you at the opera?
  Here's a brain teaser for you. Your brain is ugly. (this doesn't make any sense but it just makes me giggle!)