1- Someone needs to invent something to UNfreeze you at the dentist.

2- All cookbooks should have pictures. I’m much more inclined to try a new recipe when I can see how nummy it looks.

3- Next time you fry up some bacon add some maple syrup to each piece right at the end. You’re welcome.

4- Some pens just write prettier.

5- Remember fish-tail braids? They were so pretty. I never learned how to do em.

My good friend and automotive journalist rockstar Miranda used to get press vehicles when we worked in the same office together, and we’d meet in the morning so she could pick me up at the subway in one of her new rides. We’d coast up St. Laurent, making the occasional stop at Second Cup, and then park on the side street near work, gabbing till the very possible last minute before we’d join the other drivers and all trudge into the office. And my fave BY FAR was the Mini Cooper. It’s comfy and sooo friggin cute. I love em. This one is especially darling. It will be my first major purchase after I get a multi-book deal.

If you haven’t seen the Discovery Channel show “An Idiot Abroad,” I PROMISE you are missing out! It is absolutely hysterical. I’ll give you a quick sum-up…

Funnyman Ricky Gervais and his sidekick Stephen Merchant send the dry, pessimistic, irritable, and side-splitting Karl Pilkington on an odyssey around the world doing strange and unusual things. The comedic part is, Pilkington doesn’t want to travel the globe and ride camels and try new foods and experience any of it – his misery is our amusement. It’s fantastic! I’m telling you – everyone knows someone in their own lives or families who has a grumbling personality like the crusty but loveable Karl. I won’t mention specifics, but there’s a particular gentleman in my life who, despite being wonderful company, would absolutely hate traveling to foreign lands, being out of his element and trying new things. He would complain and refuse to do half the things that Gervais and Merchant put Karl through… and that’s what would make it a groundbreaking reality show.

Darn, I wish I’d thought of it sooner…

Anyway, watch Karl. You’ll pee your pants.

I’m sorry but these top-hat wine buckets are too adorable!

AHH LOVE!! Pretty!!

Pitter-pat… pitter-pat… (from etsy)

Photo: Urban Expressions

This is the “walk-in china cabinet” of Montrealer Hainya Wiseman, who is known throughout the city for creating her one-of-a-kind, beautiful, over-the-top table settings. And when I strike it rich, I want a room like this for my endless collections of glassware, dishware, serving platters, candlesticks, and more. It’s just too fabulous!

Every year, mostly in wintertime so we’d get a dose of cold weather and snow, my family would travel from my home in South Florida up to Montreal to visit family. It was truly the highlight of the year for me. I absolutely adored coming to Montreal… I loved seeing and spending time with my Auntie Wendy and Uncle Tippy, my cousin Danny and his wife (and then girlfriend) Rima, and seeing my grandparents. My auntie Wendy always worked extra hard to make our trips here wonderful and memorable – her fridge was always stocked with each of our favourites- there was always homemade brownies for my brother and pate and blue cheese for my dad, not to mention how beautifully she decorated her apartment/house on Christmas. Auntie Wendy never fretted over messes or chaos – in fact, she thrived off of it. There would be beds made up and scattered across her entire living room to accommodate everyone and it didn’t seem to faze her. I think she kinda liked it. Mornings were filled with laughter and the sound of bacon sizzling and the smell of freshly-brewed coffee. We’d sit around the fancy dining room table and work out the day’s itinerary, and Auntie Wendy could fit more things into one afternoon than anyone I know. We’d start with ice skating in Old Montreal, followed by lunch at Brandy’s on St. Paul Street, then some driving around for sightseeing, a smoked meat or steamy hot dog stop, or a box of piping hot Cinna-bons, go to the movies, go up to the lookout, and so much more.

Our trips to Montreal always included going up north to the country house. I think it’s one of mine and my brother’s favourite places in the entire world. It was a South Florida kid’s snowy-white dream come true: the house was built on a great hill and if you got up enough speed on your toboggan you could actually hit the shoreline and fly onto the surface of the frozen lake, then coast a few feet more on its slick surface, and we would sleep in this cozy loft bedroom upstairs where it was closed off enough to sleep but open enough to listen to the grown-ups downstairs playing Pictionary or cards. There was a wood-burning stove where we roasted apples and hot dogs and marshmallows, and lots of terrific old movies, big greasy breakfasts, trips to the corner store to load up on lollipops and sponge toffee, and afternoons in St. Saveur where we’d buy icing-laden doughnuts and fresh loaves of bread that were still hot and often didn’t even make it home.

Many of the fond memories I have from my child- and teenage-hood are of our Montreal vacations. And now that I live in my favourite trip destination, I feel like the luckiest girl ever.

I was making bread yesterday, just loving the alone-time in my kitchen, with all the available counter space and a pantry that had been recently filled with all sorts of ingredients. I find this calm when I’m baking, get into my own little groove, making something from individual things with my own two hands. There’s a satisfaction I get from seeing my baked goods piled high on a fancy plate. And it’s all thanks to my mom.

My mom always invited me to help out in the kitchen and she taught me everything I know about baking (because she’s an amazing baker/cook herself). Whenever I’m in the kitchen preparing something I clean as I go (so as not to have a huge mess afterward, a lesson my husband never learned apparently). I can pretty much flawlessly follow a recipe thanks to mom’s cooking lessons, and my best recipes are the ones from a little cookbook she made me when I moved out to attend college of all the dishes I loved that she made… the most decadent brownies and fudgy icing to go with em, raisin hermit cookies, oatmeal lace cookies, and the like. The one thing I can’t seem to master are Hungarian Palacsintas – thin crepes that are filled with marmalade or raspberry jam – only mom can perfect these irresistible treats.

Baking grounds me. I love it, and it’s all thanks to those many afternoons that my mom let me shadow her in the kitchen, learning how to crack eggs without getting shell in the batter, measure things accurately, and most importantly, licking spoons.

Thanks mom.

The fact that I have struggled with my weight will come as no surprise to any of my friends or family (or people on Facebook, Twitter, and the like)… they’ve had to listen to me tirelessly gripe about how difficult it is for me to gain weight (and keep the weight on). Growing up it didn’t help that I was always the tallest girl in the class, which only seemed to elongate my frame. There was a period during middle school where I couldn’t use the public washrooms without someone asking me if I had just gone in there to purge my lunch. After recently moving into our new house I found myself weeding through boxes of keepsakes from my school days and I started reading what people had written in my yearbooks… I was SHOCKED by the number of people who encouraged me to “gain some weight this summer” or “get some curves because you’re a beanpole.” Ouch!

I’ve learned to enjoy my speedy metabolism more as an adult… it’s not too shabby knowing I never have to count calories or feel inclined to jump into a fad diet. But the problem is, I’m still very “long,” and when I do decide that I want to fill out a little more, I have to work at it… A LOT. The same way people have to diet and really fight their cravings, I have to literally stuff my face nonstop until I feel sickly full constantly. It takes the enjoyment away from eating. Food becomes more of a chore. I will eat and eat and eat and maybe gain one measly pound, and then if I get lazy with maintaining, it’ll drop in an instant.

I’ve heard more times than not “I’d love to have your problem,” but would you say that to an overweight person who diets and exercises and can’t lose? No. Being too thin can be just as challenging as being too fat. Be careful what you wish for people. Forcing down thick weight-gainer shakes and a zillion pieces of peanut butter toast is not all that exciting (in fact, I have a complete Nutella aversion after overdosing on it during one of my gain-weight phases a few years back). And people who are underweight can be at risk for other associated health problems, just as those who are obese can be – osteoporosis, fertility issues, weakened immune system, and more. Please do not make light of my plight.

Thin is not always “in” people.

Thanks. Just wanted to put that out there.

…I will no longer have bath towels in my house… only bath sheets.

(What?! He has a bath sheet around his waist!)

For more than a decade I had to wash and dry my clothes in a “common” machine (i.e. the machines in the basement of our apartment), so when we moved into our new house I was more than elated to have my own washer and dryer (yes, I know… as we get older really strange things excite us!). So this week’s RANDOM THOUGHTS… is all about the good, the bad, and the dirty…

1- Can I use cold water laundry detergent in a load with warm water?

2- And is it better to dry one big load for longer or smaller loads for shorter periods of time?

3- Every house should have a laundry shoot.

4- My clothes produce a lot of lint. The trap fills up very quickly.

5- The first time I was running my dryer I came upstairs and same smoke pluming out of the basement of our house outside. I thought our house was on fire. Apparently dryers need to let heat out, and when it’s cold, it looks like smoke!…