Where will this take me I wonder?

When I started this site last July I really had no idea where it was going. The site itself was a suitablycool experiment, taking me where it would. I would know where I was when I got there; the getting there was the adventure.

Hello there!

An opportunity to join forces with regular contributor Diana Coatsworth on her etsy shop A touch of Vintage has come along and I am going to jump on board! My love of all things vintage, scouring thrift shops and my online obsessions will have loads of room to grow in this new venture.

Vibrant violet.

What does this mean for Suitably Cool? A Weekly Wednesday post will start next week. A weekly post will make it possible to put my energies into road trips, vintage finding missions and late night shipping! I have a few new guest writers working on some exciting posts in the next few weeks so be sure to pop in!

Vintage brooches.

You can follow on suitablycool on Twitter for updates or join my RSS feed at the top of the page.

Pyrex!

And check out A TOUCH OF VINTAGE here for some really beautiful vintage fashion and decor with lots more to come in the following weeks!

Peek-a-boo.

Thank you for your all of your comments and support these last 7 months! It means the world to me. I am so lucky to have such wonderful readers!  I hope that you will continue to pop in on Wednesdays and let me know what you think!

Lovely lace.

Have a sparkling weekend!

Vic

This is what happens when you start working on your yummy “Vietnamese salad roll” post and realize you didn’t buy the proper ingredients, the avocados you did buy are not ripe and it is now 10 o’clock at night….

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Pretty sure today will be better!

What do you do on a rainy grey Sunday afternoon in January? Have an “at home manicure party” with your friends of course!

My hands post renovation clean up. I left them for the big party!

I was so excited when Sarah invited me, Karen and Hinna over to spend an afternoon drinking tea, eating sweet treats and getting beautiful manicures with hand scrubs and massages last Sunday. It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon catching up.

Yum!

Want to throw a manicure party? Here’s what you need to make this fun afternoon happen:

• Cookies, chocolate and another sweet treats- ask everyone to bring one thing!
• Many pots of tea.
• A great play list on the IPOD
• Tea towels or hand towels for hand drying, and for catching all the hand scrub that falls off during the massage/scrub.

Pretty colours.

• Nail polish, nail files, nail polish remover and cotton balls
• Homemade hand scrub! (Use this recipe but use brown sugar instead and add a few drops of your favorite essential oil.)

Soak away the afternoon!

• Little bowls of soapy water for hand soaking
• Your friends of course!

A lovely scrub.

After much catching up and eating, we took off old nail polish, soaked our fingers in little bowls of warm soapy water, filed our nails and then gave each other hand massages with the homemade hand scrub! It was heavenly and my skin was so thankful.

Steady hands!

The next step was choosing the polish and taking turns painting each other’s nails! Sarah chose a pretty pale opalescent for me!

Much better!

We wrapped the manicures with a bit of hand cream and a promise to do it again soon. Next time it will be a hair party! Hinna is going to show me how to do those lovely French braids that wrap around the top of your head that are so popular these days! I can’t wait!

Thanks to Sarah, Hinna and Karen (and Lila the cat) for a beautiful afternoon!

FYI- I lost my camera in a pile of clothes so these pics came from my phone!

Headache grey skies again.

Does the grey weather leave you feeling a bit flat? Are you starting to daydream about April showers and yet it is only January? I have a cure for your winter blahs. The Hyacinth.

Hyacinth madness on Broadview!

Yes, the hyacinth is out in full force in sidewalk flower shops, grocery stores and even hardware stores. White, pink, purple, you chose.

Not yet in bloom!

Their intoxicating scent will announce their presence long before you see them. The heady fragrance will transport you to lush flowering fields, warm sunshine and the promise of spring. Your shoulders will drop an inch.

Springtime on a winter's day

I seem to recall Hyacinths being available at Easter most years, but here they are in January, ready to combat your rainy day blues!  Place them in a window and let the fragrance fill your house and remind you that the days are getting longer and that spring is around the corner. (Ok, the corner is a few blocks away, but you get the picture.) All this for about $6.00. Better than a trip to the spa!

Wedding invite.

While prepping wedding invites a couple of years ago, my friend Mo asked me what kind of stamps I was going to put on the red envelopes. I hadn’t really given it much thought until then, but I realized it was a tiny detail that could put a finishing touch on the invite.

The Year of the Rat 2008.

She then told me about the Lunar New Year stamps that Canada Post issues every year. The stamps depict the namesake animal of that particular year in the Chinese Zodiac. I saw them, fell in love with them and bought sheets and sheets of them. (That was 2008, the Year of the Rat.)

The Year of the Ox 2009.

I am now an ardent admirer and every year I wait with anticipation for Canada Post to issue these stamps.

The Year of the Dragon 2010.

The new stamp just arrived in my mailbox on Friday. It is the year of the Tiger and it has special resonance for us as our little “Bun” is due this summer and will be a Tiger! You can check out the Year of the Tiger stamp here.

I haven’t stopped my stamp obsession there. When I go into the post office now, rather than just asking of a book of stamps, I ask to see the selection of stamps they have available. Some are commemorative, others printed in order to raise awareness. All of them are lovely.

The Year of the Dragon souvenir sheet.

Stamps make beautiful thoughtful, useful gifts and mementos. They are tiny works of art glued in the right hand corner of your envelope. Next time the mail comes in your house, have a look at the postage stamp. They deserve your appreciation!

Apple-y goodness.

I borrowed this sweet recipe from Jody after she made it for us at her house in the fall. It is easy and delicious. You probably have the ingredients on hand at any given time so if you are in a pinch for a desert- here is your answer.

A perfect fit.

Jody said she used a recipe from a back issue of Real simple. I changed a few things up mainly because I read the recipe wrong. The recipe called for 8 apples but I found that the filling was just the right amount for 3 apples.

Chopped pecans.

Also the original recipe said that you should mix the unmelted butter, nuts and sugar together and then load them into the apples. Well, I melted the butter before hand, added the rest of the ingredients and then put them in the apple. I am not sure if this made a difference or not. Give it a try and see what works for you.

1/3 cup brown sugar.

4 tablespoons of butter.

Here’s what I used:

• 3 Apples- I used Granny Smith.
• 1/2 cup pecans chopped
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1/3 cup brown sugar.

Spoon in the sweet stuff.

• Core the apples and place in a baking dish. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Mix the sugar, pecans, and butter together and spoon into the apples. Bake the apples for about 25 minutes. (Check them and see if they need a few more minutes to make them perfectly mushy- mine needed another 10 minutes.)

Mama!

I made it for my Mother in Law over the holidays and she liked it!

Delightful!

I used to consider myself an above average speller but I have been noticing lately that my spelling is no longer my strong suit. There is no one to blame but myself. I have become completely dependant on my spell check.

Now spell check is an amazing tool, and if you use it correctly it will actually mean that you use it less. Spell check gives you the correct information; the trick is to learn from your mistakes so you don’t keep misspelling the words over and over.  I have been missing that part of the equation.

Depending on my spell check causes me real no issues assuming that all of my writing is done on my computer. But try handwriting a thank you card in a café. I have actually left spaces blank for words that I am unsure how to spell, so I can fill them in after I check the spelling at home.

The other day, in a jam, I checked the spelling of a word via the text program on my Iphone. I then accidentally sent that word to my sister E and then had to text again and explain why she received a text that said only: intricacies. That’s a lot of work- maybe I should have learned how to spell the word correctly the first time around.

So this month I am dedicating myself to writing down the words I misspell three times in a book by my computer. I am now off to spell check this post before publishing. Happy Thursday and thank you spell check- I am learning!

Mint in its grocery store packaging.

A week and a day ago I started an experiment to see if my homemade French Press herb keeper would keep my herbs fresher than in plastic bags/boxes that they came in. And the results are in.

Cilantro in plastic.

I had been checking in regularly on the herbs and things were neck in neck for a while so you can imagine my surprise I took the final pictures this morning. Was my homemade herb keeper a smashing success or was it back to the drawing board?

The Winnahhhhh!

THE HERB KEEPER WAS A SMASHING SUCCESS!!!

Thyme on right was kept in the herb keeper

The herbs on the left were kept in plastic bags and boxes they arrived in and the herbs on the right were kept in the Herb Keeper.

Mint on the right was kept in the herb keeper.

You will notice the biggest difference in the mint and thyme and more subtle differences in the cilantro and dill. Although to the naked eye they are much greener and certainly crisper than their limp bagged counterparts.

Cilantro on the right was kept in the herb keeper.

Give it a try. You can see how to make your own herb keeper at home with your old French Press right here.

Dill on the right was kept in the herb keeper.

A word of advice: If you can, try to keep your herbs close to the front of the fridge or in the fridge door to keep you water from freezing!

I was under the weather this weekend. I had been fighting off a cold and it finally got the best of me. When I am sick and I want comfort I always turn to the same movies over and over again. (I only own a few.) They are like old friends.

This weekend I watched one of my favorites movies: Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset. (2004)

I have seen this film at least a dozen times and it always illuminates something different about the nature of romantic love and fate every time I see it. It is also beautifully shot in the streets of Paris.

It made me want to travel and feel the warm sun on my face.  It reminded me to be “there” in every moment, because this second is all you have. It made me marvel at where our lives take us, where we find ourselves, perhaps so far away from where we expected. It made me wonder what must conspire in the universe for two people to find one another in this life. Are we fated to love a certain person or is it all just beautiful chaos?

All the awkward, excited conversation and random philosophy made me feel alive and happy as it always does. I love the nutty, heads-y, chemistry between Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke- it feels immediate and real. I feel hopeful for them and I laugh a lot and that is good medicine for my soul.

What are your “Sick at home in bed” movies?

A few of the others that I watch over and over:

I have been trying this little experiment, while I am out and about, for the last few years. It is inspired by the real Suitably Cool that was originated in the early 1990s, but it is on foot and can be done everyday.

There are many routes/shortcuts/ paths one can follow to get to one’s destination so why not see what happens when you let the flow of the traffic lights choose your path?

You make your way towards your destination. When you reach an intersection where you DON’T have the walk signal, take another way.

Maybe it will take you to a street you never walk down or maybe you will just walk on the other side of the street.  Maybe you will run into someone you usually never get to see, or maybe you will find a new cafe you have never been into or maybe you will actually get to where you are going faster than you thought, which in the winter cold is not necessarily a bad thing.

I think it helps to keep things fresh. It also helps me to be open to the possibility of sweet, little adventures in my day to day!