Monday 20 January 2014

NEW CHOPPED HAIRCUT

A couple of weeks ago I decided I had enough of trying to grow my hair out and went back to brunette with a cute chop!  I've had literally every hairstyle you can have from a number one buzz cut to a ridiculously long, one length mane so nothing scares me in the hairdresser's chair.  I have residency interviews in the next couple of weeks so it seemed like a good time to get the ol' hair did.

In the meantime, I have extra time off while I wait for these interviews so I'm tackling the spare bedroom (our dirty little secret, you may remember).  I painted the walls last week and today I spent my first day off painting the ceiling and trim.  While I was at it I figured, why not paint the hallway between our bathroom and bedroom?  It's teeny tiny and only took a little extra time.  I just painted the hallway white to make it a bit cleaner and get rid of the last trace of beige from our upstairs.  Beige.  Shudder.

I got quite excited today when I went on the West Elm website and saw free shipping and an extra 30% off at checkout - one day only.  I loaded up my shopping cart with new bedding for the spare room (shhhh!) and then there was nowhere to type in the promo code!  Not available for us in the great white north.  Don't you hate that?!  Probably for the best, anyway.  Quite disappointing, really, so I pinned it all to my Pinterest wishlist hoping some day someone will take pity on me and give it to me as a gift!  How is it possible to want so much stuff?!  Christmas just finished (took down the tree yesterday, Jan 19th) and my birthday's not till September!! ;)  So in other words, the "after" photos might not make it to the blog for awhile.

And back to the haircut...here's a photo from last week wearing my work attire.  Quite proud of the use I've been getting out of my new curling iron just adding a little wave!


Shoes - Aldo.  Necklace - Olivia Welles via HauteLook.  T shirt - Top Shop, old. Similar here.  Skirt - J Crew, old. Similar here.

Friday 17 January 2014

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014

Hello, world!  Happy New Year!  I can't believe the holidays have come and gone and I miss Christmas like you wouldn't believe.  So much that today, January 17th, my Christmas tree is still up and looks just as beautiful as it did four weeks ago... for the most part!

I just went through my photos and thought I'd give you an update of our Christmas through a photo recap.  First of all, the three of us did a lot of cuddling (and after Christmas most of the cuddling took place while watching Downton Abbey - or "going to Downton" as we call it in this house).


We hosted a dinner party for four and I tried my hand at baking fruit tarts with custard.  Not too shabby.  The pears really made the dessert.


Next, we had our own "Christmas morning" together the three of us on December 23rd before heading up river to the in laws' and eventually my family's on Christmas night.  I don't care what you say, Leroy understands everything.  Hubby and I were getting ready to open stockings, I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth and literally Leroy (on his own) went into the living room and lay down beside his stocking.  He totally gets it.  Totally.


Around that same time, the 23rd or so, we had a big ice storm that resulted in the neighbour's tree falling down into our yard.  We were nervous to leave the house to visit family because we weren't sure if the power would stay on.  Turned out our house was fine, but many in the area lost power for days.



Then we spent a few days at my parents' house with the siblings.  Sister, hubby, and I played a friendly game of Life.  (I won... as per usual... not competitive or anything.)  And why is it in that game you end up with soooo many children!?  And whyyyy do they force you to buy a more expensive house when you're Game of Life middle aged?!



We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and wish you a happy, healthy, and exciting (in a good way) new year!  We have dubbed 2014 "the year of the resident" but as one of my classmates pointed out, "the year of the paycheque" is just so much nicer! ;)