Monday Books

I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about today, but then last night on Instagram, I saw Jen’s post with some questions about books.  So I took a screenshot and will answer them here.

What’s your favourite book?

I have so many, but I’ll go with The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

What book do you regret reading?

I read Gone with the Wind every summer when I was growing up and although I don’t regret reading it, I do sort of regret romanticizing the antebellum era. I did sympathize with Scarlett O'Hara at the time, wishing for those good old days of the pretty dresses and barbecues.  Now I can see the book for more than that. I should probably read it again now that I have a new filter.

Which one are you currently reading?

The Palace Papers by Tina Brown.  A bit of Royal Family trash reading, but I love it.

Recommend a book?

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.  My favourite book from last year.

A book you can always reread?

I don’t re-read as many books as I used to. But I think I would buy the Winter Street trilogy books by Elin Hilderbrand because I would like to read them every Christmas.

What’s your favourite genre?

My current favourite genre is British mysteries (yes, I’m in my 40s! Haha) Books by Clare Mackintosh, Ruth Ware, etc.

What kind of book do you hate reading?

Lately the books I’ve not enjoyed have been too trying to weave together short stories as part of a larger tale, but with no forward momentum, nothing is really happening to the main characters.  I’m talking to you The Beguiling.

Do you prefer buying or borrowing them?

I get most of my books at the library, I probably buy 3-4 books a year.

Would you like to write a book someday?

I used to say I wanted to write the prequel to Gone with the Wind, and it would be about Scarlett’s mother.  But that would require a lot of research and a skill that I don’t really have.  I have thought about being a book editor.  I’m sure it’s not as easy as just “reading for a living”.

That was fun! Happy Monday!

Friday Favourites

 

Hello, Happy Friday!! The kids don't have school today and we are leaving the city to spend a coupe of nights in Huntsville.  E has a race on Saturday at the ski hill there and we wanted to avoid a super early morning.  We have a U14 team dinner tonight that we are looking forward to. 

Now, onto some favourites for this Friday.

To celebrate the signing of our contract, my colleagues and I went out for lunch on Monday.  We went to Beer Bistro. I had not been there in many years.  I ordered the mussels and duck fat fries and they were as good as I remembered them.

This cool dude joined me on Tuesday morning when I got up early to workout.  He came down in shorts because he couldn't find any pants.   

On Wednesday I posted about our new closet. From looking at others' posts in that link up, I get the feeling I need to go shopping!! Haha

I got my haircut and highlighted this week.  It's always nice to brighten up my hair a bit.

I took down all of our Christmas cards. We are so fortunate to receive cards from friends and family from across Canada and around the world.  I appreciate each and every one of these cards.

With the Hunger Games movies leaving Netflix this week, we needed to power through the last two.  We stayed up late on Wednesday and Thursday but we are done.  I love these movies and glad that E does too, and so nice to see Philip Seymour Hoffman again.  He's one of those people that I get sad about every once in awhile, like Robin Williams, and Heath Ledger. 

My Instagram algorithm is all skiing reels right now, my favourite this week was the one where the bear ran across the trail. Could you imagine?!  We have booked a week at Mont Tremblant in Quebec for March Break. There are some families from the kids' school going so we pivoted there for this year.  I hope the bears are sleeping!

Have a great weekend!

Linking up with Andrea and Erika

Let's Look - Closets

It's another year of Let's Look with some fun topics.  Today we are talking about how we clean our closets.  Which is great timing because I just got a new closet and I'm excited to show it to you.

If you want to see how far we've come, you can check out what my old closet used to look like here. 

Here is our brand new closet (IKEA!), designed by Dave and built mostly by him too, with some help from me and E. Our contractors had just finished the empty room as we weren't sure what we wanted to do right away.

Up above in the bins, I have all of my summer clothes stored away.

I've got my cardigans and plaid shirts hung up on the left.  And then I have my jeans, sweaters, scarves, sweatshirts and dress pants folded up on the shelves.  

I've got my jewelry somewhat organized in the drawers. 

Skirts on the lower bar, and dresses to the right.  The rest of my clothes are in my dresser.  And of course Dave's clothes are all there too.  He has more things to hang up than me and he likes to hang his golf shirts.

As for cleaning out my closet, as you can see it's fairly sparse right now.  When we moved down to the basement I got rid of a bunch of things.  I'm actually hoping that just because I have the space I don't just fill it up with things I don't need. I like seeing what I actually have out in the open so I already feel like I have plenty of choices. 

Usually I go through my clothes in fall and spring when I'm doing a change over of seasons.  I will throw things out that don't fit, I haven't worn, or that look a little tired. I don't really have a system or unique tips, but excited to show you part of our new renovations.

Linking up with Shay and Erika

 

Weekend Recap

On Friday I was finally able to get the contract signed that I have been working on for several weeks (I mentioned this in my Friday Favourites post).  It was nice to get that done! 

We had a very cozy meal of Stanley Tucci's recipe for Pasta e Fagioli and Andrea's recipe for garlic bread. 

We headed up to the ski hill on Saturday morning.  It was raining when we left Toronto and we had some wet flurries up at the hill. It made for some sticky snow and I didn't love the skiing.  But we did lots of runs anyway.

Lunch time!

In the afternoon the temperatures dropped and the precipitation was snow instead.  Then the conditions were easier for me to ski in.

These are the Daves I know.

We had a social event with Q's U8 team at a local bowling alley afterwards. Q loves bowling.

It was 5 pin bowling with the small balls, the type of bowling I grew up with. I was feeling nostalgic so I ordered a Keiths.

It was a fun event. Mostly the kids bowled and the parents mingled, but I threw a few balls.

Because we knew we were going to be late we had decided to stay at a hotel nearby. 

We met our friends for dinner, who were also spending the night.

We woke up to a very snowy day and we were glad we had spent the night.  Hotel waffles for breakfast!

E ready for his day of training.

Check out the snow on the lift.

And this was the view from the top of the hill.  We were in a blizzard!  But it made for awesome skiing.  Powder days are very rare in Southern Ontario.

We had a great day skiing.  This was our car when we came out to go home.

The drive out of the ski hill area was challenging. It was still snowing and the roads were mostly covered.  We were moving slowly for awhile.  But then we got to Innisfil (for those who know where I'm talking about) and it was like a whole new day! Bright and sunny, clear roads.  I said it felt like I had to pass a test and the reward was clear roads.  I don't really mind driving in the snow and it's good to keep your skills up.

Everything hung up to dry when we got home. I did some laundry and the dishes, and then we had leftovers from Friday for our supper. 

And we get to do it all again next weekend ;)

Winter Cozy

For those of us in Southern Ontario, we are finally feeling the winter weather.   We had a mild November and December, and only had a bit of snow here and there.  Now winter has settled in with colder temperatures and snow.  This is your gentle reminder to take it easy and burrow down. 

We like to be active in winter, as we go skiing twice a week, but that means we treasure those cozy times at home even more.  

We do puzzles.  We play games.  We watch movies.  We sit under blankets.  We turn the fireplace on.  We make warm food.  We light candles. 

Friday Favourites

TGIF! On Monday I posted about jobs I've had, and the one I'm currently doing was very tedious this week.  We have been trying to get a contract signed up with a new client since before Christmas, and it just can't seem to get settled! It's the businesspeople talking now so I've just been waiting around until they give me the go ahead to make the execution version to send out for signature.  Waiting around like that makes me feel like I can't really get started on anything else, so it's just been one of those weeks!!  I'm hoping that I can finally put it together today.

Anyway, moving on, not a couple of favourite things from this week: 

I got Dave this Thermapen for Christmas but I think I've used it more than he has.  I am so paranoid about whether meat is cooked and now I can easily check.  This meal was one of my Nana's recipes - chicken breasts in cream of mushroom soup, do you know the one? It's a classic.

A friend gave us this candle as a "renovated housewarming" gift. It's peppermint and I love lighting it after supper.

Speaking of candles, I got the Jo Malone candle I wanted for Christmas.  I have it in our room and I like to light when I'm showering and getting ready.  It's not too overpowering and it's nice as a little scent.

Q discovered Monopoly at school so when he got home on Thursday he immediately set it up to play.

I couldn't play though because I was going out with the church choir for supper.  We met at a local Chinese restaurant that has not changed its interior for years.  It was like stepping back in time, and the food was delicious.

I was excited to two of my favourite shows win at the Golden Globes last weekend - The Bear and Succession - for best shows and acting awards.  I also liked seeing Cillian Murphy win.  

Linking up with Andrea and Erika.

How we do Ski Lunches

As we kick off another ski season, I wanted to tell you about what we pack for our lunch.  This has evolved over the years but our major catalyst for what we brought for lunch was the pandemic.  Back in 2021 although the ski hills were open, we were not allowed in the chalet, they didn't even let us in to use the washroom, they had porta-potties outside instead.  In 2022, the chalet washrooms were open, and the restaurant was selling food, but you weren't really allowed to go in and hang out.  Instead we had to "car-chalet" meaning we got dressed at the car and had our lunch at the car.  Let me tell you, it was cold on some of those days!  And because of the cold, we needed more than just a sandwich for lunch.  We started bringing hot water so we could make soup and hot drinks. 

Now even though we are allowed inside, and can buy from the cafeteria, we still like to bring a warm lunch. It is a great feeling to be back out on the slopes after being warmed up inside.

The first step is the hot water.  We have this 64 oz HydroFlask, but unfortunately this year it seems that the thermal aspect is gone.  Dave is working on getting a replacement through their lifetime warranty, but in the meantime we are using two smaller bottles to bring along our hot water.

Dave, E and I like the noodle soups.  Q is partial to just a sandwich (peanut butter and jam usually).

And we all like a different hot drink - Q likes hot chocolate, E likes apple cider and Dave and I like hot chocolate and coffee mixed. We have this little pouch to store the various options. 

We have some tin mugs, but this year we have just used the cups we used for juice and coffee on the drive up.

We may also have leftover pizza, cheese and crackers, vegetables, fruit, and trail mix.  And we try to remember to put a snack in the kids' pockets in case they are hungry while skiing.