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.