Christmas Tree Picking

Yesterday started out as a pretty lazy Saturday. Around noontime, however, both Ken and I started feeling a little antsy and, after mulling over a few ideas of what to do with ourselves, Ken was suddenly struck with the brilliant idea of visiting a Christmas tree farm. We found the perfect potential location with just a few clicks on Google, and within only fifteen minutes of the mere idea of it, we were happily bundled up (as much as we thought we needed bundling) and packed into a rented vehicle for an hour-long trek out of the city. 

About twenty minutes into our drive, the outdoor scenery started to change dramatically. While it was pretty cold in Toronto before we left, we hadn't seen a single snowflake, nor had the thought of snow occurred to either of us. It literally went from cold and dry to this in less than a mile: 

Needless to say, we were really excited about the appearance of snow to accompany our Christmasy outing. We were not, however, dressed properly for such weather. 

When we arrived at Drysdale's Farm, we quickly realized we might possibly freeze to death in our hunt for the perfect Christmas tree. Ken was wearing a thick sweatshirt in lieu of a coat, a thin pair of pants and running shoes, whereas I stupidly wore my rain boots (no insulation whatsoever) and a coat made for Spring-like temperatures. 

We started this adventure with great intentions of trekking into the woods, finding a tree by ourselves, cutting it down by ourselves, and hauling it home by ourselves. Within seconds of stepping out of the car and into a snow bank, however, we knew without a doubt that the first three of those hopes were completely unrealistic.

(In spite of the freezing temperatures and our poor choices in attire, Ken thought it would be fun to throw a snowball... on his own head.)

We meandered around the farm and enjoyed the winter-wonderland-feeling for as long as our little toes could handle it...

...then hustled our way back to the area where the pre-cut trees were on display once we began losing feeling in our limbs. 

 After some quick hemming-and-hawing, we settled on a tree that looked pretty perfect for our little place. We paid for it, threw it in a tree bag and hauled it out to the car, only to be faced with the tiny dilemma of fitting the darn thing into the trunk. 

The trunk of the car, although fairly large, was slightly too small for what we had in mind. After reading the car manual and trying to see if there were any magic buttons on the back seats to make them disappear, we eventually accepted the fact that there was zero hope of fitting the tree into the trunk. Ever. Tying the tree to the roof of the car wasn't an option, either, since it was a rental and we couldn't risk scratching the heck out of it. Finally, after lots of seat and tree adjusting and lots of cursing ourselves for being so unprepared, we managed to squeeze the poor tree into the backseat of the car with only the slightest bit of the top sticking out the back window. Whew.

We and the tree made it home without incident! We considered it a great success when the tree only lost a few hundred needles during its stressful commute to our house, and not the thousands we were anticipating. We were also pretty proud of ourselves for surviving our near brush with frostbite. All in all? It was a pretty great and successful trip to the tree farm. 

And even though it's way too huge for our tiny living room, we think our big ol' tree is pretty darn perfect.

(All pictures were taken with my iPhone. More pictures from our "real" camera to follow.)

Oh hi.

Apparently I've forgotten about the existence of this blog. I can't believe it's been nearly six months since Ken's birthday and nearly five since we moved to our new neighborhood. Really? Where does time go? 

There are many updates I should have been posting during these six months, but the mere thought of catching this blog up to speed is positively daunting. So, just to get myself going again, I thought I would start with a little warm-up post. And what better way to start than with Bubba's 2nd birthday? (November 20th.) 

I think it's beyond safe to say that Bubba hates his birthday more than any other day of the year. Not only do we make him wear stupid things (which he hates more than he hates being bathed)...

...but we also set a plate full of delicious birthday treats in front of him, light a fire on top of them, and make him stare at them -- with a strict no-touching-no-licking-no-tasting rule -- for however long it takes to snap a decent birthday picture.

It's nothing shy of torture.

But, thankfully, Bubba is quick to forgive (even if we don't totally deserve it).

Happy 2nd Birthday, Bubba!

32

Ken's birthday was on Thursday, the 14th.  In celebration of his birth, we both opted to take the day off from work. (We may have called in sick....) 

We started the day with breakfast at Easy Restaurant. (A birthday tradition.)

We then meandered over to High Park where we spent a good chunk of the afternoon enjoying the natural scenery, before exploring more of our soon-to-be neighborhood.

 (Duck butts.)

When we started to feel a little overheated and in need of a break, we decided to check out the library located literally two minutes from the doorstep of our new home.

(It's a pretty great library.)

We ended the day with Thai food at Ken's favorite restaurant: The Golden Thai. (Another birthday tradition.)

It was a pretty darn good day.

And what is a blog post without a picture of Bubba?

(He has the sloppiest posture I've ever seen in a pup.... But it's pretty durn cute.)

3 Things To Miss

The countdown to our moving date has begun. Three weeks to go before we pick up our rental truck and begin hauling our belongings from one side of the city to the other. Three weeks to enjoy the little things I'll miss about our current place. Three things in particular:

1.

People-watching with Bubba from our 9th floor window.

Bubba loves to look and "boof" at the people strolling along the streets below us (I think it makes him feel like a little police dog). Sometimes he gets carried away with said "boofing" and turns his people-watching into a full-on bark fest, but usually this is a leisurely (and relatively quiet) morning activity.

(I doubt we'll be able to creep on our neighbors as easily while being situated on the first floor of a house.)

2.

Having a dishwasher.

I think Bubba will miss it just as much as I will... maybe more.

3.

Being only a ten-minute walk to Ravi Soups. 

This is my favorite restaurant in Toronto. Their Curried Apricot & Red Lentil Soup has become a Saturday afternoon ritual for us.

So. Good.

(This man really doesn't enjoy having his picture taken before meals.)

Ravi's is going to be a long subway-ride away from our new place, making it an unlikely ritual for future Saturdays. This makes me kind of sad (even though our bank account only stands to gain from this prospect). 

There are a lot of things I'm going to miss about our current apartment and 'hood. There are a lot of things I won't miss. For now, I'm loving our last few weeks of being here and enjoying the great things that come with living downtown... 

...while simultaneously hating the obnoxious Jersey Shore-like crowds that come out of the woodwork every Friday and Saturday night, giving tangible meaning to the phrase: "There goes the neighborhood!"

There. That's the reason we're moving. (We're getting old and we can't stand the sound of people having too much fun.) 

A Lazy Sunday

Hey-o. I thought I would take a moment on this exceptionally lazy Sunday to say: We're still alive up here.

Some big changes are coming to our neck of the woods this summer. The main change being a move from one side of the city to another. As of July 1st, this will be our new home:

I wish I could say we bought the whole durn house, because that would mean we had a million or two dollars in our possession prior to such a purchase (this IS Toronto we're talking about here), but we're only renting it. And by "renting it" I mean "renting one floor of it". 

The neighborhood is a quiet one and it's only a twenty-minute ride on the subway to the downtown core. This will make our commute to work far more difficult than it is right now (we currently walk), but the peacefulness of this neighborhood will do our minds some good. Especially this yappy little guy's:

So, for now, we're just enjoying a lazy weekend before the chaos of moving-preparations begins. 

Happy Sunday.

(Ken's tough-guy-look is a good note to end on.)

A White Weekend

While most people spent their Easter weekends visiting with family and friends and celebrating traditions, etc., we spent our Easter weekend painting our itty-bitty condo. 

Remember when Ken and I painted our place this awful brownish/mauve-ish color way back when? 

(The color itself wasn't awful; it just looked awful in our apartment, and we knew it as soon as we had passed the point of no return on the paint-scale.) 

We made do with these pukey walls for nearly two years until finally, last weekend, Ken and I decided it was time to pick a new color. Because we are renters, and because our rental agreement states that any color we may choose to paint the walls during our tenancy has to be covered with white again before our contract is terminated, we decided it would be a good idea to save ourselves another painting job down the road by choosing a white paint. White is the it color right now, anyway (thanks to the popularity of Scandinavian-influenced interior design, no doubt) so, really, we were being practical and cool with this little decision of ours. And how hard could it possibly be to paint our small space white?

Hard. 

First, we were met with roughly two hundred different shades of white upon our first visit to the local paint store. And I'm probably being quite conservative with that number. 

Second, we probably should have gone over our brown/mauve walls with primer before tackling them with white paint. We didn't. (I know. Dumb.)

We kicked off Friday morning with all of our supplies in order and feeling very optimistic about our painting project. Excited, even. 

After we went through the mundane task of taping-up everything we didn't want to paint, we happily set about spreading white paint along the corners and edges of our little apartment. 

Thirty minutes into the painting job, we were both commenting on how cathartic painting really is and how we should do stuff like this more often. Maybe we should even take a painting class so we can paint pictures to hang on our new white walls!

Three hours into the painting job, however, we were cursing our 29-year-old selves for being so stupid as to paint the apartment in the first place, way back when.

And here's a little bit of blunt honesty: Spending approximately 16+ hours painting your living space with your spouse (unsuccessfully, I might add, due to the aforementioned lack of primer) has a way of showing you what your marriage is truly made of.   

I'm very happy to report that both of us--and our relationship--came out of our painting project intact and in good health. There were only a few fleeting moments when I had the urge to dump the bucket of remaining paint over Ken's head, and Ken did a spectacular job of not reaming me out the third time (yes, three times) I bent over to pick up a paint brush only to have my full head of hair stick to a wall of fresh paint on the way down. 

I'm also happy to report that our apartment is now white, 16+ hours of labor and two gallons of paint later.  

We went to bed late Saturday night reeking of paint fumes, sweat and tears, but finished.  On Sunday we woke up, each of us aching in every muscle imaginable (including muscles I wasn't even aware I had), and we practically waddled into Burlington to have Easter dinner with Ken's brother and his mom. And, if you look closely, you can see I still had a fair bit of white paint glued to my hair, three washings after the fact:

(...and it's still there, making my pre-existing grays look far more dignified than they should.)

Easter Colors

Last night we decided to color Easter eggs. 

This little bit of inspiration struck while we were strolling past the egg aisle of the grocery store during one of our regular hunts for dinner ideas. (The "What should we have for dinner?" question is a nightly bit of drama around here and it's always welcoming distractions of any kind.) Easter eggs. It sounded like a pretty great idea. (Better than making dinner, even.)

I stated my brilliant new intentions to a not-so-enthused Ken, carefully chose a carton of perfect white eggs, and then changed the dinner-hunt into a food-coloring hunt. 

Once we got home and unpacked our shopping bag (which consisted of eggs, food coloring, and an Easter lily -- no dinner items), and while I haphazardly set about boiling the eggs (and subsequently cracked three of the dozen), Ken was suddenly struck with a bit of inspiration of his own. When he opened the box of food coloring, he was delighted to find that each little bottle came equipped with a gnome-like hat. This little character-like quality put his creative imagination into overdrive. This is what followed:

I think it was a food-coloring vs. eggs battle (ambush, more likely) and the food-coloring clearly won.

Since we didn't have a proper egg-coloring-kit that came equipped with egg-dippers, we had to use our fingers for the coloring process, which caused things to get messy pretty quickly.

(Our fingers are still stained in multi-colors.)

But we had a lot of fun dipping layers-upon-layers of coloring onto each egg, no doubt rendering them completely inedible in the process. 

Also...

...Ken took his newfound food-coloring obsession a step further and started adding drops of it to his glass of riesling... and proceeded to drink it. (It was gross.)

And, finally, here is our finished Easter project:

Nine multi-colored, science-experiment-gone-wrong Easter eggs.

Happy Easter!