Crazy Cat Lady Game Night

Yep, you read that right. I love cats, although technically I'm not a "Crazy Cat Lady" because I only own two...and I'm married. But thanks to Yorkville's Rolo and the discovery of this on my last visit, I hosted a game night dedicated to all the feline-loving-women of the world:

I mean, COME ON! How could I NOT have a themed night?!

So I invited a few lady friends who either share my love of cats or tolerate it a few Fridays ago, to try out the game with me. The best part was that it wasn't madatory to come dressed, yet everyone came in their best Crazy Cat Lady attires (cat glasses, leopard print, etc). The event was completed with:

The front entrance decked out in Cat Butt magnets and a hanging Crazy Cat Lady action figure (both of which were birthday gifts...from two separate people).

Individual wine glasses with homemade cat labels (Matt said I hit an all time low when I was making these).

And the second best find after the boardgame. An actual cat themed instant camera from Urban Outfitters!

A cat shows up in every picture! It was fun taking pictures throughout the night and not knowing how it would turn out (remember those days?). I had the pictures developed later in the week and then mailed them out to all the ladies along with their cat labels, which I used as a thank you card.

Because I'm classy (read: cheesy) like that.

MEOW!

Laundry Room Love

If you own a house in Toronto, chances are it was built in the time of buggies and horse drawn carriages like ours. Which also means that, since it's erection (I just wrote "erection"), at least a handful of different generations have lived there before you. Actually, it's kind of creepy thinking about that...

I digress.

Point is, over those years, all those who lived there before you had some say in the design/reconstruction/renovation of your humble abode. Some of those people actualy KNEW what they were doing when they tore down walls (true story). While others were probably just exercising their right as a homeowner to do things like hang a random chandelier in the linen closet (another true story).

But one room seems to have stood the test of time, not just in our house but in many other that I have snooped in (I mean, "visit").

The Laundry room.

When I was a kid, the laundry room was the last place I wanted to be because it ultimately meant that I had to do said laundry instead of something fun like rolling around in the backyard and telling my mom I was "busy." The room itself was nice enough, kinda creepy 'cause it was in the basement, and it definitely wasn't a point of interest for anyone in the family. So when we bought our house, I still had the same feelings about our laundry room and used for it's sole purpose.

And then...Pinterest happened. And suddenly all I was seeing were photos of beautifully styled / super functional laundry rooms. And I thought to myself "Damn, who woulda thunk?"

(Already) Long story short, I decided to jazz up ours with some fun art. Since I wasn't willing to pay (much) for it, I did the next best thing: made my own art using parts of art I found online. Some would call that creative plagiarism. I call it, graphic designing.

With the help of Google, I found a t-shirt image and a "cartoon in love" face and photoshopped them together.

I also used this as inspiration:

To make this:

The quote is by Khalil Gibran, which I also found after some Googling. It's pretty deep for Laundry Room standards, I know, but I thought it was pretty cute paired with my two ogling t-shirts. And come on. "Hour of separation"! Get it? Get it? Got it.

Caledonia Towns on the Park

We've been interested in the progress of this development since we moved into the area. To be honest, we were somewhat skeptical of the location (great to be by the park, but it seems a bit close to this already busy street) and as it started to build up, we weren't digging the exterior choices.

BUT - after visiting the site of Minto, the developer behind this project, it was cool to see how diligent they've been with keeping people updated. You don't see that from a lot of other developers and often you have to scour the internet or casually walk by the development regularly to try to get some information (both of which we have done in the past when we were house hunting).

We especially liked Minto's blog, which featured some photos of the interior in it's current stage. Looks like they're doing their best to not hide anything from buyers. Or at least appear not to :)

So, although we're not quite yet sold on the end product (we're gonna blame it on the weather right now, just in case we're eating our words later), we're giving the company some credit for the way they've handled their marketing.

We'd love to hear from anyone who knows more about this new area and if you've purchased, welcome to the neighbourhood!

Happy New Year!

Why are we posting a picture that was taken months ago and has no relevance to the title of this post? The real question is...why not? Happy New Year everyone! Looking forward to more west end adventures!

Bacon, Gravy and Maple Syrup

If the title made your stomach turn, we please ask that you leave quietly and never come back.

But if the thought of these three delicious ingredients layered on top of hand-cut fries makes your mouth water, then "Hello" new friend.

Christmas shopping is all done - with a week to spare to gloat and possibly make exchanges when we find items cheaper at another store. And since the last of our shopping took place on Queen West, we thought there would be no better way to reward ourselves than with a hot, gooey paper bowl of Poutine from Poutini's. A Bacon Poutine with maple syrup, to be exact.

Pair that with some good ol' fashion Rootbeer, it's enough to make you forget about all the grumpy shoppers, crying babies strapped into their srollers, annoying front door store greetings, and endless holiday music you have had to endure just hours before.

In our personal opinion, this place kicks Poutine ass, and offers the best fries/gravy ratio in town. 'Cause that's important, don't ya know?

Thankfully, the Regular size was huge, with enough leftover to take home to heat up while watching some perfectly fit holiday movie like Die Hard.

Yay Bruce Willis. Yay us. Yay Poutini's.

Friends of Earlscourt Park

"Working together to better our vibrant neighbourhood by bettering Earlscourt Park - one swing, one tree and one picnic table at a time." That's the slogan for the newly formed group, Friends of Earlscourt Park, a volunteer group that is working towards all around improving this west end park with new gren space and community events.

We used the park a lot over the summer (beach volleyball? Awesome!) and are hoping to put on our skates and try out the rink for the first time, that is whenever Toronto decides to be Canadian again and have a proper winter. It's great that there are people out there taking the initiative to build a community for the park and we look forward to hear more about their plans for 2013.

We also think the FOEP logo is really cute :)

Getting a head start on new year's resolutions...

So it's been a long, looong, looooooong while since we last posted one of our west end adventures. With 2012 coming to an end in just a couple of weeks, we thought we'd get a head start on some of our resolutions, with "Continuing our blog" on the list.

So far so good.

The other resolution was to get more physically fit. Since the holidays are generally jam packed with dinners and parties that add to the waistline before the new year, we thought there was no better time than the NOW to get started.

With that in mind, we somehow managed to drag our asses out of bed at 5:30 this morning and try out our first bootcamp class (together) at Body Stride. There isn't much to the site yet, but the owner, Jamie, told us that a new website would be running in January. We learned about Body Stride while walking along St. Clair and seeing a sidewalk sign for it. I know - an actual, physical sign. Those still work sometimes, who knew?!

Ok - so to be honest, we didn't really do any research on the place and were simply sold on the 30% discount for a 1 month membership, which came out to be about $60 per person. We figured at the cost, we could take the risk and see what the place was all about.

So now back to that ungodly hour of 5:30 am... We arrived at the studio at 6 and were the only two losers (sorry did I say "losers"? I mean hardcore gym enthusiasts) there, along with Jamie. He quickly set up the stations, 15 in total, and described each workout to us: Burpees, TRX arm lifts, Medicine Ball squats, and other vomit inducing exercises. We had to do as many reps as possible within 45 seconds and then take a break for 10 seconds before doing the next exercise. Man, did I love those breaks. And it turned out to be a good thing that it was just the two of us since we probably looked and sounded just AMAZING.

It was a great workout, and although most of the moves with the exception of the TRX can be done at home, it was great to be in a space meant for exercise with extra encouragement from Jamie.

Are we going back for more on Wednesday? Yup!

Are my muscles screaming in agony as a type this. Ummmm...yep.