Life Lately

I haven't been doing so great at this blogging thing. I always have good intentions.. and that is where it ends!!

I mentioned previously that I may be changing jobs. At the time I was going through the recruiting process (info sessions, interviews, socials, networking, etc, etc..) It was unbelievably hectic, but so worth it. January 7th I will begin my career as an accountant. After 5 years of university, it feels great to start my career! I am working for one of the "big four", and will be working in tax (I LOVE tax. Nerdy I know).

Hub's basketball team has started another season. They haven't had a great start, but I believe they will make a come back.

Hubs convocated. So proud of him!!

My puppy is growing like crazy. He is just over 5 months, and his last weigh in was 20 pounds. What!! No wonder I can't hold him for very long. Hope you think he is as cute as I think he is because here is a picture overload:

For size reference, this was shortly after we got him. He was about 7lbs.

He has always loved chewing sticks. Weirdo.

He loves to Snuggle. Add in a blanket and he is in doggie heaven.

He also loves to see what is going on on the laptop. He likes to lay his head on the keys.

Sunday afternoon nap. I told you he loves to cuddle.

This is one of my most recent pictures of Gary. I can't believe how big he is!

Spring? & Pattern Mixing

I wore this outfit at the beginning of last spring. It was just barely warm enough to go out without a coat, but I was ready to start with spring colors. It was also my first attempt at pattern mixing. Does it Work?

Sweater: American Eagle

Shirt: Old Navy

Jeans: American Eagle

Shoes: Spring

I know it is the wrong time of year for a spring outfit, but if you switched out the shoes for some boots it would work for fall.

These shoes were a gift from a friend, when I was a bridesmaid in her wedding. I love the color.

Recently I have had some really good luck at the thrift store, I am hoping to share these finds soon.

Colored Jeans

Is anyone else loving the colored jeans craze?! These are the first pair that I bought. 

Sunnies, Jeans, and Shirt purchased in Fl.

These shoes were a steal! Nine West on clearance for $13 at Winners. 

Sunnies: Nine West, Shirt: H&M, Jeans: Ross, Shoes: Nine West via Winners

I was surprised by how much I love colored jeans. I thought it would be hard to make outfits with them, but that is not the case. Can't wait to add some more colors to my closet. 

OOTD

Hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving. Ours was full of family and friends, and having the extra day off was beyond amazing!

So way back in February I posted this pictured of the stuff that I bought in Florida.

I also said that I would post pictures of me wearing it. HA. Obviously that didn't happen. I did take a few a couple of photos and didn't post them.  So today I will share one of those.

P.S the nude shoes in the front were in my previous post in the convocation section.

This was work outfit for casual Friday:

The shoes were purchased at Ross in FL.

The button down shirt was also purchased in FL.

Shirt: H&M, Sweater Vest: Costa Blanca (old), Necklace: Forever 21 (old), Jeans: American Eagle, Shoes: Steve Madden from Ross

Clearly the color of the day was blue.

Where Has The Time Gone?

I cannot believe it has been half a year since the last post. So much has happened.

I've been busy, and had no desire to blog. I'm not sure the desire is back yet, but I'll give it a go.
Since so much has happened since my last post, I don't know where to begin. Luckily I have taken a few pictures over the last few months, so I remember a few of the things that have happened over the last few months.

March

Aaron's basketball team got 1st in their division. I was so proud of them. This season they are moving up two divisions, I am so excited to start watching their games again!

I got a few pictures but it was hard to get any good ones.

Here are a few boys waiting on the bench. Aaron is on the far right.
They are getting new jerseys this year, hopefully they look a lot better.

The whole team after receiving their medals for first place!

Later in the month we went on a weekend trip with Aaron's Basketball team for a tournament. They didn't do great, but we had a really fun weekend hanging out with friends.

April

I don't think anything special happened.

May

We moved..again.
We were living at my in-laws while they were away for the internet. When they got back we moved into a two bedroom condo. It is in great shape and we are loving it here.

June
Convocation
I had my convocation ceremony. Not going to lie, it is a very long and boring ceremony, but it was a great experience.

Getting "Hooded"

Thanks for the flowers mom!

Out for lunch after the ceremony. My wonderful Mom bought me a new dress for the occasion.

We also had a chance to go to my beautiful cousins grade 12 grad.

The ladies on my Mom's side. (Missing one Aunt)

We ended of the month with a convocation party that my parents and in-laws threw fro both Aaron and I. We are so thankful for all the friends and family that came out.

I was so impressed with the cake that my Mom and Grandma made for the occasion.

The best part, our awesome parents got us a BBQ as a grad gift. We LOVE it!


July
One year anniversary. We had a pretty low key anniversary. We went out for supper and then picked up a bunch of snacks and watched a movie at home.

The hubs and I both started new jobs. Aaron is working as a purchaser for a local company, and I am working for the local health region in the payroll dept. Both of us are enjoying our jobs, but there may be more changes in this area soon (fingers crossed).

August
Puppy!
By far our biggest news is that we got a puppy. He is a full breed French Bulldog, and we are so in love with him.

Here he is shortly after we got him. I can't believe how much he has grown already.

Some where in here our camera broke, so phone pictures it is until we get a new one.

September
For the first time since Preschool, we didn't go back to school. Whoop!! I though that I might miss it, but so far no signs of missing school.


I took some oufit photos way back on March and April so I will be sharing those. Please excuse the snow in the background. Thank goodness there is no snow yet!

Fashion Star

Did anyone watch fashion star last night? What did you think?

The concept is quite interesting, but I was expecting it to be a little more like Project Runway than it was. If you didn't see it/ haven't heard about it here is a quick rundown. The designers send a look down the runway, the "mentors" (Jessica Simpson, Nicole Richie, and John Varvatos) critique the look. Then buyers from Macy's, Saks Fifth Ave, and H&M have a chance to bid on the outfits. Whoever has the highest bid wins and will sell the look in the store that they represent, available that night. If none of the buyers make an offer then that designer is at risk of being eliminated. Last night there were multiple people who did not get an offer. They choose the three bottom designers. The mentors then had a chance to save one of them that they thought was most promising. From the remaining two the buyers would decide who was going home.

There were two looks that I would love to have. The first is this convertable skirt by Orly. The top layer can be zipped off so that it can be woren different ways. it was purchased by Saks, and with a Price tag of $363.32    there is no way I will be owning it any time soon, ever.

Front

Back

Pictures Via

The second look that I loved was by Sarah. Such a simple dress, and so chic. It could be woren so many different ways, dressed up and dressed down. The best part, with a price tag of $19.95 it is so affordable (at H&M). to bad there is no H&M near me, and no online store :(.

Via

If someone is near one they could pick one up for me ;)


Whether or not this will be a weekly watch I have not yet decided.

Boots

So, remember at the beginning of the year I said that I would try to blog three times a week. So far that has been laughable. Its not that I have forgotten, just that spare time is little, and I usually use it to do something that requires NO brain power. I have not forgotten about Wedding Wednesday, hopefully I will have one soon.

In the mean time, I do have some picture of Christmas gifts, as promised. (Well actually only one thing, but it is a start right?)

These boots are from my wonderful hubby. I loove them, and wear them almost daily (my other boots are probably lonely. haha).

And the whole outfit:

It looks like a am leaning on something, but I'm not. Weird.

And a close up of the top:

The sweater is also new. I got on a great boxing day deal, and I just love the print. It was also a great deal (bonus).

Shopping

As I mentioned in my previous post, we just got back from vacation! We spent 4 days last week in Orlando, Fl. It was way to short, but we had a great time while we were there. More details to come about the trip, but what I will share today is the Shopping. The shopping there is GREAT. Outlets, malls, discount stores etc. We went to both of the Premium Outlet centers, the Mall of Florida, and Ross. I loved all of them. There were more places that I wanted to hit, but time did not permit...next time.

I plan to show you what I got when I wear it, but in the mean time, here it is all laid out.

Its a good thing that we didn't hit any more stores because as it was I went over the limit that I could bring across the boarder.
There are another pair of shoes that are missing. I wore them today, and with all the new snow they were to wet to put on the bed. So here they are:

And a close up. They look better in real life.

Also, this is the first time I wore this read sweater. It was the result of a trip to plato's closet, which I plan to share later. I really like it, and it looks like it has never been worn (bonus).

Birthday

So this post is extremely late. My birthday was over a month ago now, and normally I would just not post about it after this long, but there was something special that I would like to share:

My new I Pad2. I love this thing. I have wanted one for a while, but it has been out of my budget and I wasn’t sure that I really wanted it/would us it. After Christmas I started to think about it more and mentioned it to hubby who thought that it was a good idea. After much internal debate I decided that I wanted one. In order to get the I pad various family members contributed as a Bday present and I put some money in myself. I am so happy that I did.

It has a really great day planner app, and errands list app that I love. It makes it easy to carry around everything that you may need: day planner, novel, calculator, etc. all in one little package. I haven’t bought a cover for it yet. I am waiting until I have money for one that is stylish and that I love.

I also got this super cute dress from my brother. I picked it out while shopping with my mom, but decided that I wasn’t going to spend the money on it. What a perfect Bday gift. The colour is so great, and it is super comfortable.

I also got a sweater and shirt from my inlaws.

Not a very good picture of them, but it is all I've got. And the location, getting ready to head home from vacation, more to come.

Yum.

For those of you who know me you know that I don't like to cook. Its really not that I dislike it, there are just things that I could be doing instead. Living at home for 21.5 years with a mom who always cooked really spoiled me. Now that I don't live at home and I have a husband to cook for I have been trying to do more cooking. Some weeks it goes well, some weeks we have Kraft diner.

At the beginning of last week we really needed some groceries, so I decided to look through some cook books and find some recipes that looked good, and I would be the necessary ingredients. ( I have done this before, but often don't end up making the stuff). This week I did quite well ( pat on the back). I even tried a new recipe:
I bought a cookbook called: Easy Pasta at home sense last year, and this is the first time I made something from the book.

 As the name suggests, all the recipes involve pasta and they are all easy (bonus).

I made the 

Rigatoni with Chorizo & Mushrooms:

It was delicious. Even the hubby liked it. Ours did not look quite this nice, how is it that things look so beautiful in cookbooks but never look like that we I make it.

Recipe:

4 tbsp olive oil

1 red onion, chopped

1 garlic clove, chopped

1 celery stalk, sliced

14oz/400g dried rigatoni

10oz/280g chorizo sausage, sliced

8oz/225g cremini mushrooms, halved

1 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro

1tbsp lime juice

salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a skillet. Add the onion, garlic, and celery and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes, until softened. 

Meanwhile, bring a large pan of slightly salted water to a boil. Add the pasta, bring back to a boil, and cook for 8-10 minutes.

While the pasta is cooking, add the chorizo to the skillet and cook, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes, until evenly browned. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, for an additional 5 minutes. Stir in the cilantro and lime juice and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Drain the pasta and return to the pan. Add the chorizo and mushroom mixture and toss lightly.

Voila!!

I love garlic so I added 2 cloves instead of one. Also I don't like cooked celery, so I left that out. We did not have chorizo sausage so I just used the Italian sausage that we had.

Need Warmth

Current Temperature: - 32 degrees Celsius, and with the wind chill it is much colder.

We have truly had it very easy this winter, up until Sunday. Well really it started Saturday night with a light snow fall, which had turned into this by Sunday morning:

 I had a staff meeting early Sunday morning. NONE of the roads had been grated and nothing was sanded. It was a truly terrible experience trying to drive. One nice thing, by the time I got home some wonderful neighbour had cleared our sidewalk and hubby only had to do the walkways. Sunday was chilly, but we were in for a surprise Monday morning. It was FREEZING, like literally you step outside and are intsa-frozen, and It only got worse today.

I had to make a special trip to Walmart yesterday to get these:

I do have one pair of wool socks that I "borrowed" from my mom a few years ago, but yesterday it became apparent that more were in order. I find it hard to look "good" when it is so cold out. Warmth definitely takes priority over style. There are some cute things that are also warm. Here are a few that I wish I had. Clearly I love gray.
 


These are not the exact mocassins I would like. Taller ones that are fur lined would be much better.

Forecast for tomorrow morning -34, but with the windchill it is supposed to feel like -47 degrees Celsius. A huge thanks to my Mom who is dropping me off at school tomorrow ( the bus didn't seem like an option).

Hope you are all staying warm!












..

First Attempt.

I found this website a couple of weeks ago : Polyvore. It is a neato website that has tons of clothes and other stylish things that you can use to create outfits, or whatever else you may want to do. For some one who loves clothes it is great. The best part is that most of the items tell you where you can buy them and how much they are.

This was my first attempt at an outfit. My favorite piece, and the starting point was the blazer (which is a reasonable price and I would love to own it). I will probably be posting many of these. Let me know what you think of them.

First Attempt. by bmoff featuring mid heels

Under Armour black tank
€37 - nelly.com

Black and white blazer
£25 - dressrail.com

Skinny jeans
£4.99 - dressrail.com

Mid heels
180 CAD - gravitypope.com

Miss Selfridge green handbag
£32 - missselfridge.com

Marni string jewelry
$153 - thecorner.com

Chanel jewelry
£875 - stylebop.co.uk

More Celebrations - New Years Eve

I told you I would share about our new years, so here it is. We didn't really have much for plans this year. Like a day before new years eve plans were made to go to some friends house for the evening. It was a low key relaxed affair which was great. Most years there is all this hype about new years and the parties and such, and in the end it is never as good as you expected. This year we didn't hype it up and we had a great time!!

Our friend borrowed a Xbox kinect for the evening. We had never used one before, it was so much fun.  First we played wipeout. Very funny game to watch people play, and surprisingly a great workout. I missed getting pictures of it :(

Then we played dance central which was also a lot of fun. I have played DDR before and never found it to be that great. Dance central is so much better because it involves your whole body. Also a great game to watch people do. I lack any sense of rhythm, and did terrible, but it was still fun. I did get a few pictures of this:

There is Aaron, having a good time.

I also got a video of him dancing, but I am pretty sure he would hate if I posted it, so I won't.

We played some other games, ate lots of food, and all in all had a great night.