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.)

A Friday Vacation Day

Three things: (1) I love my husband more than anything in the whole world. (2) I love my dog more than some things in the whole world. (3) I'm thankful to have a job that is conveniently close to home. 

Those things said, I sometimes need to have a day off from all three. And today just so happens to be such a day.  

Since I'm currently in the middle of a "trial week" as a vegetarian, I started off my loner-Friday with a trip to Sadie's Diner, a nearby vegetarian restaurant (and one of my favorites), for breakfast. 

I sat there for a good hour-and-a-half, eating banana pancakes and veggie sausages, drinking coffee, reading Vanity Fair, and listening to my waitress blatantly confess to the guy sitting next to me that she's still in love with him and that "I don't think you're here just for breakfast; I think you're here because you're still in love with me, too." (You can imagine my awkward-filled horror when the guy--presumably her ex--informed her that he was just there for breakfast and would she please go away so he could eat it in peace, sending my sweet-but-dumb waitress running to the bathroom, sniveling into a napkin.)

As soon as I finished my soap-opera-filled breakfast, I high-tailed it out of there and found myself strolling down Queen Street West, which was eerily quiet this morning even for a weekday. (Queen is usually crawling with teenagers, hipsters, fashionistas and drunks, so its unusual deadness felt a little post-apoctyliptic and creepy.)

As I was walking past the Gap on Queen (while continually looking over my shoulder), I suddenly remembered the Gap gift card that had been sitting in my wallet since Christmastime! It was actually a gift to Ken from his brother, but my sweet ol' husband hadn't expressed any interest in using it, and marriage is all about sharing, anyway, right? So I went in. 

Just for fun, I loaded a dressing room with 20+ garments (they didn't have a limit!) and then gave a full-on fashion show for Ken via text... while he was sitting in a conference for work. 

Ken wasn't overly impressed with my antics (of all the ridiculous pictures I sent, the last one especially irked him), and neither was the sales associate when I ended up only buying a pair of yoga pants. (But it was still fun.)

After my little Gap excursion, I decided I couldn't take a full day off from Bubba because, like it or not, the little guy does have a bladder and an occasional need to empty it. So I slowly made my way back home, freed Bubba from his crate (he was happy to see me, which made me feel guilty for contemplating leaving him there and going out for another coffee), and we took a little stroll to the dog park. 

Leave it to Bubba to make me regret my sense of responsibility. 

He managed to find the only mud puddle in the whole park and traipsed right through the middle of it at high speed for absolutely no reason (we weren't playing near it, there wasn't another dog near it, nothing). This resulted in a trip back home and a toss into the bathtub...

...which neither of us enjoyed. 

Now I'm thinking, since Bubba has been Spring-cleaned (in a way), maybe the apartment should be Spring-cleaned, as well...

...which is how I shall be spending the rest of my Friday off.  

My Favorite Kind of Sunday

The Twitterverse is all atwitter {insert slow clap} about the Super Bowl and Madonna's upcoming halftime show, but I will be missing every last bit of it. Why? Because Ken and I recently rearranged our living room and now the television is located in a spot where its chord can no longer reach the cable-plug. It's an admittedly stupid arrangement, but getting it there was a lot of work and, you know, we're kinda-sorta lazy. 

But! All is not lost on this lovely Sunday. It's been a pretty darn good day so far and I'm positive its goodness will carry-on into the evening, while everyone else is watching the Super Bowl and rooting for...er... who's playing again? (Pathetically, I'm not even joking.) 

Here is a rundown of our little Sunday so far:

Brunch at Sadie's Diner...

(Their buckwheat pancakes are amazing!)

A leisurely stroll to the pet store to stock-up on Bubba-supplies...

(See him licking his chops in anticipation? He's a pig disguised as an unfriendly dog.)

 ...followed by a not-so-leisurely stroll to the dog park...

 (A year of consistent obedience training and he still tries to hang himself on the leash when he gets excited.)

Falling asleep in front of the window after "boofing" at all the people passing by, nine stories below us...

(I should note that Ken had nothing to do with the "boofing".) 

And now Ken is making his specialty-dinner (spaghetti, sans sausage this time... thank God) and I'm pretty sure we're going to enjoy eating it in front of a blank television screen. (The imagination does wonders.)

Who needs the Super Bowl on Sundays like these? Not me, I tell you. 

(Although I may try to stream the halftime show....)

Stomachaches and Anniversaries

The weekend has been crap, I'm not going to lie. Largely due to the most violent stomach bug I've had in ages that started on Thursday and has lasted until this very moment. (It's thankfully starting to settle down a bit and I'm finally able to digest food again--glory!)

Not pictured: Me, sitting on the toilet while my head hangs over the side of the bathtub. (You're welcome.)

On a much brighter note, today marks the one-year-anniversary of the most impulsive purchase Ken and I ever made together:

Bubba! 

We have days when we kind of regret making him apart of our little family...

(this day last week is a prime example)

...but most of the time we love him a whole lot and can't imagine our days without him.

Happy One-Year-Anniversary, Bubs! (Hopefully you'll start easing up on our toilet paper supply as time goes on.)

Food Failure

One of my New Year's Resolutions this year was to cook more and eat out less. (Why do I even bother?) So, here we are, well into winter in Toronto-land and we're getting a little bored of being cooped-up inside all the time due to the cold.  In order to remedy our bored-ness and winter-blues, we're doing what we did last year: We're eating. A lot. And--wouldn't you know--the food we're eating is usually of the nearby-restaurant variety. 

And just like that: my resolution of cooking all of our meals at home has flown right out the window. 

Usually the weekend is the most tempting time for us to go out for a bite, as laziness is just what we do on weekends. This past weekend was, of course, no exception. On Saturday, we went to Kensington Market to grab some of the best Korean food the city has to offer (in our opinion) at Ka Chi. 

Ken had his usual bibimbap and I had the doenjang jjigae. It was worth every bite and penny. (I've been away from Korea long enough to start enjoying the food again and not feeling the urge to gag whenever I lay eyes on a bowl of kimchi.)

 After we had Korean, we decided that now we would take our resolution seriously. Since we were already in Kensington, we thought it would be a good idea to do some grocery shopping so we wouldn't be tempted to go out to eat again the next day.

 We were successful in our grocery shopping, but we failed miserably in our resolution yet again on Sunday...

...when we decided to try the new gourmet grilled cheese place that just opened up the street from us a couple of weeks ago. Yes. Gourmet grilled cheese. And, in case you were wondering, I had the "Toronto" grilled cheese (which included two "sliders" from neighborhoods of my choice) and Ken had the "Beijing" grilled cheese. Both were amazing and I really hate (love) that this place is so close to our building. 

Number of restaurant outings this weekend? Two. Number of grocery shopping sprees? One. Number of meals cooked at home? Zero. (Unless you count breakfasts, but throwing bread in the toaster doesn't really count, does it?)

We're weak, weak people.

Bubba's 1st Birthday

Bubba's first birthday was this last Sunday (November 20th), and since we take birthdays pretty seriously around here (human birthdays or otherwise), we made sure to celebrate his little day properly.

 (He was none the wiser.)

I leashed-up Bubba and walked him to the pet store that morning to pick up some doggy-safe birthday treats and maybe a little birthday present. (The birthday present part didn't happen, however, as Bubs got a little nervous while in the store and piddled on the floor, forcing us to make a hasty and embarrassed exit.)

And, of course, a birthday cake for the humans was involved in the birthday celebrations, too (not from the pet store).

As you can see, getting Bubba to hold still for a birthday picture was darn near impossible. When he wasn't wiggling around and trying to escape, he was shutting his eyes just in time for the flash.  I finally gave up and handed him over to Ken...

...when Bubba decided he wasn't having any of this picture business and had a full-blown squirming fit, nearly singeing his paws in the process.

The almost-catching-himself-on-fire part is what finally caught his attention...

...and he was transfixed long enough for a proper picture to be taken.

Happy Birthday, Bubba! (Here's to better picture opportunities next year.)

Sometimes Life Calls For Really Good Food...

...even if it's a bit on the pricey side.

Both Ken and I had a pretty long and stressful week last week, so when we woke up on Saturday morning to overcast skies and a pressure in the air that proceeds a storm--making it almost unbearable to be outside, we were thrown into the mental pit of despair.

To make matters worse, our air-conditioning stopped working in the middle of the night on Friday and it wasn't up and running again until much later in the day yesterday. Air-conditioning (or the lack thereof) ain't-no-thang if you have at least one fan in your possession.... But we don't. So we were both hot and miserable, and given yesterday's hot, headache-inducing weather, going outside provided little to no relief.

We were sad and uncomfortable, and we needed some comfort food and an escape from our warm, sticky apartment (and from our puppy who was completely unaffected by the weather and positively bouncing off the walls).

So we went for Italian food at CaFfinO in Liberty Village. It was the best mistake we've ever made.

The first reason I say it was a "mistake" is because we were both feeling melancholy and felt like we deserved an appetizer and a bottle of pinot noir to go with our comfort dinner. Hey, when in Rome, right? (The prices at CaFfinO are fairly reasonable, but we went a little overboard.... And it was so worth it.) 

The bruschetta was the best we've had. Ever. 

I don't know what Ken ordered (I was too focused on my own menu-decision to notice) and Ken doesn't remember what it was called. He declared on a number of occasions, however, that it was the best pasta dish he ever had. Side note: His pose in the above picture was intentional, although I don't know exactly what he was going for. (He doesn't know, either.)

I've been on a gnocchi kick lately (even though my pronunciation of the word is always horribly incorrect), so I ordered the homemade gnocchi. And guess what? It was the best I ever had! (Noticing a trend here?)

The second reason I said going to this place was a "mistake" is, not only is the food amazing, but the atmosphere is very Italian, very quaint and, yes, a bit on the romantic side. Ooh-la-la.

We learned after chatting with our friendly server that CaFfinO has been around for over 15 years, but it's a new and extremely dangerous discovery for us. Why? Because we're kind of in love with this place and it's only a twenty-minute stroll from where we live.

Dear Bank Account: Get ready to take a couple of hits before the summer is over.