Christmastime

A pretty, cold winter sky



All I could think about this Christmas was making gingerbread men, so make gingerbread men I did!



Getting together with friends at Christmas is probably the best part

Actually, seeing Hey Rosetta (My favorite band!) at their Christmas concert might have been the best part. There were mummers and it snowed and every song was amazing, as usual. You should give them a listen if you haven't before!

Oh, and there's me holding onto a few of the men I made.

This is where my pup can usually be found, napping in her cupboard in the kitchen. My parents are redoing the kitchen this winter and I'm not sure what she's going to think of it when she doesn't have a little corner with a blanket to nap in.

I ordered these silly sweaters for my brother, sister and I to wear Christmastime. It ended up being quite an ordeal getting us all in the same room to wear them, but they're so ridiculous that I'm glad we did.

Another one of my favorite things about Christmas - cracking nuts! (Is that weird?)



When we went visiting my Nan and Pop on Christmas eve, they had out a bunch of old photos. I fell in love with this one of the two of them in front of their Christmas tree when they were so young - isn't it dreamy?



My friend Heather made us all the cutest cards this year, look at those little buttons!



It has been unusually cold for December here in central Newfoundland this month, which I am one hundred percent not a fan of. However, when I went out to my car and saw this frost constellation on the windshield, I couldn't help but think it was pretty.



One of my nans gave me instax film for Christmas, so now I'm all stocked up to snap pictures of my adventures in England!

My cousin Robyn and I at the little outdoor Christmas Market my town had this year. It was bitter cold out so I warmed up with a latte, and naturally when my ten year old cousin decided she wanted a chocolate marshmallow I had to have one too. What? It was delicious.

How were your Christmasses? I hope everyone had a lovely time with family and friends and lots of holiday cheer. It was so nice spending loads of time with everyone in my hometown before I move. Everyone was all in one place which is a rare occasion.

Next up: The New Year and my move to the UK. I couldn't be more excited for both.

Happy New Year, dolls! See you in 2014.

Infinity Rooms

While wandering around the internet last weekend, I came across an article on Yayoi Kusama's solo show, I Who Have Arrived in Heaven, which is currently at the David Zwirner Gallery in New York. The show's infinity room's are mesmerizing, even in pictures. I can only imagine how amazing they are in real life. Wouldn't you feel so lost in the best possible way in there?

the article, via a cup of jo

Journals

Keeping a journal has been something I've done since I learned to write. I'll write anything in my notebook of the moment - what I did that day, why I'm mad at the world (a frequent topic from age 14-16), what I want to do with my life, where I want to travel, a nice song I heard on the radio, a moment of nostalgia - pretty much anything and everything goes into the pages.
Every so often I like to look at my journals. Flipping through them is a lot of things - humbling, embarassing (most of the time), laugh-inducing - realizing how ridiculous I can be and how I blow things out of proportion so often. I think keeping journals is one of the best ways to grow as a person, not to mention it's a good way to keep track of moments in your life you might otherwise forget! You're not likely to forget the big things like graduation, huge trips, new crushes, breakups.. but you might forget what you did one random Thursday afternoon in 2005. It's nice to have something to remind you of the little things you experienced and went through!
As you can see, my first journal is from 1996, I was just a tiny smidge of a six year old. I desperately wanted to be able to write like an adult, and the entries from that little red and black journal are full of hilarious attempts at doing this. I'd put random quotation marks around letters and use semi-colons in the middle of words. My friend Felicia moved away when I was in the eighth grade and for ages we sent journals back and forth to each other every few weeks. The green one down on the bottom is one of the ones we sent. I love that one because it has some of me and some of her in it, and we were ridiculously funny at the time (I might be a bit biased but I still laugh at some of the things we wrote).
Every so often I forget to write in my journal for a period of time, and I know how cliche it sounds but when I start up again I feel so much better. It is, like everyone says, therapeutic to write down all your thoughts and ideas, the things that have happened to you and the things you hope and want to happen. Do you guys keep journals? I'm not sure I'll ever stop writing in one.

Recipe: Cranberry White Chocolate Biscotti

And so the Christmas baking begins!
Well.. if we're being real here, my mom started about a week ago. We take Christmas very seriously in this house.
I decided on a cranberry white chocolate biscotti. I love biscotti. I mean, there's not many baked goods I don't like. I'm kind of a sweet fanatic, if you haven't gotten that from my blog yet. A few years back (a good few.. I think I might have been in high school? Oi..) my mom and I found a recipe for something like this and I remember loving it and feeling so sophisticated eating biscotti and then for some reason we never made it again after.
Side note: Why does blogger want to correct biscotti to Scottish? Don't they know what a biscotti is?Anyways, while in the grocery store today on a whim I decided that's what I wanted to bake today. So my mom and I went on the mad hunt for the dried cranberries which were oh-so-conveniently located beneath the oranges and lemons (what?).
I'm not going to lie, I didn't drink that hot chocolate up there. I used it solely for taking pictures because the biscotti looked a bit sad on it's own on the napkin. (I did, however, eat all of the marshmallows off the top because they were melty gooey perfection.)
Anyways, would you like me to stop rambling and give you the recipe? Here you go:

Cranberry White Chocolate Biscotti
Originally from The Globe and Mail

Ingredients:

1/4 cup (57g) unsalted butter at room temperature
2/3 cup (140g) granulated sugar
1/2 tsp 
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 eggs
2 cups (285g) flour
1/2 cup (60g) chopped dried cranberries
1/2 cup (55g) chopped pecans (I omitted these)
2 tsp milk
1/2 cup (95g) white chocolate chips (I used about 3/4 of a cup - 1/2 in the dough and 1/4 to drizzle on top)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Cover a cookie sheet in parchment paper.
Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add salt, baking powder and almond extract and mix until combined. Beat in the eggs one at a time, scrape down the sides and beat until combined well.
Stir in the flour until most has been worked into the wet ingredients, then fold in the cranberries and white chocolate chips.
Form the dough into a ball and lay onto your cookie sheet. Press into a 35cm long/8cm wide log.
Bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes, until slightly golden around the edges.
Turn the oven down to 325F. Remove the biscotti log from pan and cool on wire rack for 20 minutes.
If you are impatient like me you may want to read some of a Christmas book at this point to pass the time. I highly suggest The House of Wooden Santas, by Kevin Major.
When it has cooled, transfer to a cutting board and with a bread knife cut the log at an angle into 2cm wide slices. Place the biscotti upright on the cookie sheet with about 3cm of space between each piece. Bake at 325F for 20-25 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown.
Once the biscotti has cooled, melt the remainder of the white chocolate in the microwave. Place the biscotti on parchment paper and drizzle the melted chocolate over with a spoon.
Store in a tin or at room temperature for up to a month.
If your house is anything like mine at Christmas, these definitely won't be around for a month.

Happy baking! 

officially winter

the past few days have been snow snow snow, and i think now it's officially winter here in central newfoundland. we were lucky to not get hit as much as farther west than us (some communities were in a state of emergency with no water or electricity for days!), but there is a solid layer of snow down now and i don' think it's going to leave this time.
every year it's like my dog, kiwi, has forgotten what snow is until it snows again. she goes outside and sticks her nose in it and then gets lost wandering around the backyard (poor thing is blind), and we have to open the patio door and guide her back inside by speaking to her. my mom is so funny, i think she thinks kiwi understands directions and is always saying "to the left kiwi, there's a step. nope - nope - a little further - thereeeeee you go!"

saturday night

i haven't said much here lately at all, but there hasn't been a whole lot happening in my life. i go to work and i go home and i countdown the days until i move across the ocean.
anyway, a little snippet of tonight. it's chilly out (the snow we had all melted but the weather hasn't warmed at all), so a cup of tea and a good movie seemed perfectly in order. so i put the kettle on, but it didn't seem right to have tea on a saturday night without a treat to go with it. and so i quickly whipped up a batch of little shortbread critters (i really do mean whipped up - they took about 15 minutes to make as i've been making them since i was five years old). i popped on you've got mail - one of my all time favorites - wrapped myself in a duvet and snuggled into bed with my tea hot in my hands.
hope you're having a lovely weekeend!

life lately

hi!
it's been months. and months.
i've neglected this little space on the web. 2013 has not been my favorite year so far, i haven't felt creative or inspired or anything i usually feel.
i am missing england, europe, travels, adventure.
so here is an update of sorts. i need to get back on my blog horse and finish this year off with a bang, before 2014 kicks in and a whole new sort of life begins!

lately i've been..

dreaming
of england

for those of you who don't know (if you follow me on twitter you will definitely know - it's all i bang on about!) the first week of the new year i will be packing up my suitcase and moving to england! i've been homesick for it since the minute i got back to newfoundland in december (can you be homesick for a place that isn't your home?), so a few months ago i decided i may as well move there if i am missing it that much. school was awful, i have no commitments here in canada, it's really now or never!

eating
soups and ice cream and pudding



i had four of my wisdom teeth taken out on tuesday, which was less traumatic than i thought (i'm petrified of the dentist and doctors and needles and.. eugh!) but having four gaping holes in my mouth means no solid foods. chocolate pudding for breakfast has been the norm this week. might sound dreamy, but i really wouldn't mind a big hamburger with a side of sweet potato fries!

listening to
hey rosetta


it's probably no surprise that i've had hey rosetta on repeat all of august. even though this song is pretty christmassy it's still lovely and nostalgic and reminds me of england and so i love it even more. not that i think hey rosetta can do any wrong (i saw them a few weeks ago, they were amazing, as always!)

watching
delicious miss dahl

sophie dahl is just so dreamy and lovely and i want to make everything she makes and have all her jars and pots and spoons!

waiting for
fall (and my hair to grow)

(a photo my brother took when we were in ireland last fall - traveling is always on my mind)
i am a summer creature through and through. heat & sun & long, lazy days are what i live for. but strangely this year i have been craving the fall. not necessarily cooler temperatures.. although, i would like to wear jeans and boots and scarves and sweaters. i want to start eating oatmeal for breakfast instead of smoothies and putting pumpkin in every baked good. i want the leaves to be orange and red and fiery. maybe i'm longing for fall because after fall comes winter and in the winter i'm leaving? who knows.
also, in a fit of insanity in april i chopped my hair. why did i do that? missing my long locks. hair has basically lived in a bun since i did it - hoping that one day i'll take it down and it will magically be long again.

saving
all my pennies

literally.. if i find a nickel laying around i snatch it up and drop it in my england jar. every bit helps, right?

okay, now that this mish mosh of a post is all finished i think time to go rest up in my robe and maybe have another bowl of ice cream.

hope to see you back around here soon xxxxx

a much needed quote

i read this today and it's something i needed to read, so i thought i'd share. in case it's something anyone else needed to read too.

happy new year, loves

"Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk everything."

 -Erica Jong

(via the wild and wily ways of a brunette bombshell)