Happy New Year! Our 2011 was so out of the ordinary for us, it was enjoyable but challenging at times. I am so grateful for the experience of moving to a new country and working for Free People, but I am also a bit relieved to be back in Canada (for some complicated reasons). I will miss Philadelphia, my awesome job, and all the people there. But we are looking forward to reconnecting with friends here as well.

I am invigorated, and I hope to do a lot more this year, now that I have the freedom to work freelance and the time to do some great projects on the side (I have many ideas, and a few in the works). I don't know how I managed to find the time to make a Christmas/New Year's Card this year, but somehow it happened (inspired by Amanda's Year in Review). It's a little summary of how we spent our year, read on to see it in photos.

Back to work today after a whole week off, but it wasn't for a vacation unfortunately... Last Friday my Nana went into the hospital, and when I got there to see her on Saturday, she was already gone.

It was a shock, and yet it wasn't--she had been battling breast cancer for over a year, and it just kept spreading. She was only 66 years old. It feels strange, because she seemed to be doing so well. It's scary how someone with so much life can just die. She managed to hide a lot of her pain from us, always worrying about everyone but herself. She decided she did not want to fight for her life, and after her kidneys failed, she slipped off peacefully holding the hands of her children, Laurie (my mom) and Johnny (my uncle).

I think she was truly happy and content at this point in her life, and that must have made it easier for her to be at peace with this decision, however hard it is for her loved ones. The last time I saw her was in Philadelphia, when everyone came down to visit for an early Thanksgiving dinner, just one month ago.

We had a perfect time.

Last year we had the most amazing, fruitful, and food-filled summer. I think back to it so fondly and it seems like it was so far away, visiting cottages and spending time in Niagara with family. We spent time at Nana and Papa's garden picking blackberries, hot peppers, garlic and tomatoes, and snacking on meat from Papa's homemade smoker. We visited a little blueberry farm, and canned peaches and pears with my mom. Oh, and we made a million jars of jam which everyone got as Christmas gifts.

It was also the summer of our "food blog" which we started but couldn't keep up with. I admire everyone who has a food blog, the effort it takes to make food is enough, but to document it every step of the way?! We might try it again someday, but for now I have already got enough blogging projects on the go.

Last weekend was pretty wonderful! I threw Jory a surprise birthday party and our friends came down on the bus from Toronto (and 1 from San Francisco!) They were a few hours late and the surprise was so close to being spoiled, but it worked out in the end thanks to Jory's gullibility.

PS The sidewalk sale is going awesome so far! So far I have sold 5 items, which is much more than I expected... Thanks guys, I will soon be buying some new stuff! And I might post a few more things, I will let you know! For reference it is here.

Oh Seattle, why do you have to be so enchanting? I think at this point I could fall completely in love with any city, since I haven't done enough travelling to really know for sure where I want to be. We definitely had an amazing time there, and since returning to Toronto I have felt kind of gloomy. Who knew that's what travelling would do to me?! Toronto just doesn't have the allure it did before, back when it was the ONLY thing I knew. That makes sense though. Now I want to go everywhere. If only time and money would allow...

(This is not the hotel we stayed at, just a pretty one.)

Seattle seems to care about keeping its history in tact, which is something I appreciate. This is at Pike Place Market, which is so wonderful, for tourists and non-tourists alike. I don't like being a tourist for some reason—and people thought I wasn't one, I kept getting asked for directions and was giving them within a day (guess I'm a city girl for sure). I very shyly took most of these pictures. I don't see myself as a photographer—though I wish I was better at it—so taking out my crappy camera made me feel very touristy. Plus it was super rainy and I didn't want to get it wet. All my pictures came out blurry!

You have to be adventuresome here, because everything good seems tucked away and hard to get to. There were steep hills and alleys and very long staircases everywhere, sometimes I felt like I was trespassing. I visited an antique market right down on the harbourfront (across from the aquarium) which took some effort to get to. Down 200 feet of stairs later... I will show you some of the stuff I bought later!

Pike place again, in the evening. Most of the pictures I took were at night, this was early evening. There are so many neon signs in Seattle, I think almost every store has one. Kind of crazy but also cool, and makes the city light up nicely at night. Plenty of trees wrapped in christmas lights too.

From the first Starbucks, the cashier asked for Jory's name and even spelled it right!

Elliot bay books—I can't even say enough about this place. We were here for hours. Bookstores and coffee shops are a huge thing in Seattle, which naturally we loved. We also went to this nice Japanese bookstore, where I spent way too much money... I bought some magazines, a book with pictures of shops, some stationery and some masking tape.

Oh my gosh, I have been avoiding the internet like the plague this winter. Not like I haven't been at my computer… just not as much. I guess I've been in a bit of a blogging slump. I hope to fix this right now, because I love being a blogger! And I like sharing my findings, I suppose.

I have a couple of new ideas for things I want to do this year, one of them fits in with our resolution this year. We didn't really make resolutions per se, but we do have a goal in mind. There was an article Jory read about people living in cities who never see their own landmarks, and tourists who visit see everything in a matter of days. I like the idea of "traveling" where you live, because why not!? And it helps to see the good points of the city you live in, sometimes it's hard for me to look past the noise, tall buildings, smog and slush.

I have the travel bug, and it would maybe help to be a tourist in my own city when I can't actually travel. Would you believe I have never been on a real vacation? I've hardly been out of Canada! We're going to Seattle soon (for three days), but for a job interview—so that's not even a real vacation—but I'm going to make it feel like one! Anyone have any suggestions for places to visit there?

I would also like to do some posts about my favorite places in Toronto. I just discovered the blog "reading my tea leaves," and Erin has a section of posts called my downtown. This is so beautiful and inspiring, and I'd like to do something similar. I've been thinking a lot about Toronto's history too lately, ask anyone I've been bombarding with historic street views…

I'll be graduating this year, finally, hopefully. I enjoy the work I get to do but I hate "school." So I can't wait to finally be in the working world. I hope this year will be really good, 2009 was not all that. (There were definitely some great moments though!)

Sorry for all the talk, I guess this is like a journal entry, or probably an accumulation of all of my absences all at once.

Pictures are: 1. My favourite view from my apartment (from our office window).

2. Jory across the table from me at Lakeview (an awesome diner, established 1932). I love their new branding.

3. Some stuff I picked up at the Sunday antique market and some other stuff. (In the Hovis bread tin I also purchased there—a la threepotatofour—4 of them soldered together!

4. Lovely paper. Mostly bills and things, I'll show you some interesting things in this box later, a story for each one obviously. (The man and woman are my grandmother's adoptive parents).

5. Some photos from a 1920s album, look at those fancy photo corners!

6. A Victorian puzzle that took me 6 hours to complete, missing 3 pieces.

7. Some granola with yogurt and blueberries. Yum!

Happy New Year!

I have really high aspirations toward gardening, but the truth is I am horrible with plants! I've killed three plants already, and I don't know what I did wrong! Jory says I have a black thumb... Which I think is unfair! Surely with some help and/or research I can become a better gardener.

We actually had to come with a plan to even have plants in our apartment, our cat is a plant-killing fiend as well. We had one house plant in our last place that we kept moving to places higher and higher, which she seemed to take as a challenge! We got this kitchen storage set from ikea, the bar and the little pots (actually for cutlery) work really well as planters! They even have holes in the bottom to let out water. Luckily for us, the cat doesn't even seem that interested in our new plants.

Oh! And I made these little plant labels out of some blank wood business cards (cut in half) and some stamps. They work even better than I planned, because since they are as thin as paper, the water travels up them and you can tell when the plants are thirsty! I think they're cute. I can't grow plants, but at least I can make things!

This is what my desk looks like right now, I'm admitting this shamefully. Work in progress is not always beautiful, and really for me I think it never is. I make way too many messes! As you can see my organizing system is piles. This makes my lovely officemate crazy... because he is super tidy and I am his polar opposite : )

First of all, I have a new favourite dress. And new favourite shoes. It's been so long since I've been shopping for anything, and my style has changed a lot since working in retail—when wearing your store's clothing is a requirement. I feel happy that I can buy what I want to buy now. But I'm still jobless, so no shopping sprees for me.

The cotton dress/tunic is from Zara, and cost $20! The shoes are from Payless, a new eco-friendly brand they have called zoe&zac. I liked them so much I purchased them in both colours. Partly because I couldn't decide, but also because of BOGO—which I think is terrible branding, it should be buy one get one half off, but that just isn't right (BOGOHO). They were—unfortunately for me—$15 more than the US price. Go figure.

We went for a walk a few days ago around the University of Toronto campus. This is the best place for walks downtown because U of T is it's own little place completely unique from the rest of the city. I wish I could have gone to school here, but it never would have worked out in my favour. There is nothing there that vaguely interests me—except for the campus itself—I don't see myself as an art history major.

It was the first summer-like day, and everyone was outside enjoying it. I am so jealous of all the students that get to live in residence there, because all the residences are in pre 1900s buildings and churches. I would give anything just to go inside one of these buildings. Hart House is one of my favourites, I could spend forever in there just walking around. I am completely anti-residence, my school doesn't even have on-campus housing, but if I had known what living at U of T was like... Well...

Don't make fun of my freckles (I am officially a "freckleface").

We didn't really get to do much in Welland (our hometown), but then there really isn't that much to do here. We're so used to Toronto that Welland seems like a barren wasteland—abandoned buildings, derelict houses, etc etc. I spent a few days dreaming about the past, and how it used to be a great factory town that I never got to experience. I feel like I was born at the wrong time—I think many people with a love of history do—would somebody please correctly place me in the industrial era?

We did get a chance to visit our museum, which has moved to the old library (which was my library not too long ago). It's a world of difference from what it looked like before, but what I found most charming was that it still looks like the old library. The shelves are there, the signage is even still there. It's like it was never left alone a day.

And who knew they had so much stuff crammed into their old schoolhouse of a museum. I haven't seen 90% of the items in the new museum, so it was really quite a shock to me. I miss the old museum a bit, we were walking by and saw it was flattened (the old school building it was in) and turned into a park (of all things). Like the world needs more parks. I'm really passionate about architecture of the past, and it makes me cry to see it go.

We went for a nice little walk yesterday, it felt so much like Spring. Guess what, it's SNOWING today. So I'm really glad we went out and had such a nice time because we won't be seeing it again for a little while. Why does it snow in April? It's not fair!

Suave Jory and his recent haircut!

Freckles are slowly creeping in...

Yesterday was a beautiful day, and we opened up all the windows (actually quite a task in the old building we live in). Today it's not as nice and I'm too in denial to close them, so it's a bit chilly in here. Is it spring yet? Is it spring yet? Is what I say every morning.

Part of the reason I want spring to come so badly is that I want to work on a project that requires it to be spring—I'm not going to give away all the details. I bought this little flower bouquet for the project, once it starts to die I'm going to press some of the flowers. It's cheaper to just pick some out of gardens, but this project has a deadline! It's a secret for now.

So it was a great day: flowers, fruit salad and sunshine.

These pictures are of a papercut I did for a school assignment, which was to convey a message using unconventional materials. I don't know how unconventional paper is, or how "out of my comfort zone," but regardless, it turned out great.

I didn't think I had this sort of patience, and I'm still not convinced I do. People who make papercut art for a living are BRILLIANT. This quote is from an NY Times article about Kara Walker's magnificent work. I grabbed the strangest quote I could find: "So much for romance, nearby a child strangles a duck and offers it to a woman whose body is a boat."

My cat Fyodor is very curious, she gets into everything and she always has to be in the same room I'm in, especially when I'm taking pictures for some reason. I think she likes the camera noises. As you will notice today and from now on, she is in most of my pictures.

It's been really nice lately—warm enough to ditch the winter coat yesterday—and I really really hope that's a sign that winter is over. I've started to feel a lot better and excited about the weather that is to come! All I want to do is lay on the grass. Today it's raining, but that's okay as long as it's not snow. (I actually kind of love the rain).

Above is a picture of a stencil I made yesterday. Not entirely sure what I'll even use it for, but I like it. I've been very tree happy lately.

And, it seems I have a boot obsession. This is the fifth pair of boots I've bought this year—except I didn't buy these, they were a gift from my mother-in-law. Yay! She was shopping in the States and picked them up for 20 dollars! They're not real leather, but I love the colour and they'll be good in all that rain. The best part about them is that they have a horse and horseshoe on the sole, which fits in with my other obsession right now: all things equestrian. Those are probably the same obsession, though.

And lastly, my pretty little owl plaque I bought on Etsy from VintageEmbellishments. Who doesn't love owls? It's cute and kitschy, and I have no idea where to hang it yet.

I forgot to mention that our friends at Kitka Design Toronto featured our apartment on their blog this week! So nice of them! Take a peek here.

Pictured above is our beautiful feline friend, Fyodor.

I got this book today! I am so excited to read it, and hopefully, eventually, see the film. Apparently there will be a screening at DIWhy? on February 26. I have to remember to go to this... I never end up doing all the things I plan on doing, and I hate that!

I'd like to be in bed for a little while. Like, maybe for a week or so. Yes, please!
I've got the common cold... but it's uncommon for me because I'm almost never sick.
(This will be the first time this year, I think).

I had to go to work today, and I kept running back and forth for tissues, and I tried to avoid people as best as I can, even though it's my job to pay attention to people. Luckily, my vest (I wear a vest) was stolen, so I could blend in a little. A little.

via we heart it.

I love him so much.

I made this today, for our bedroom. (Don't mock my hand kerning skills!) Inspired by this: