good friends

i love cramming my apartment full of the people i like best in the world. i love my friends -- thanks for coming by last night.

cook's kitchen: midweek magic

okay, so by wednesday, in general, i have usually lost any desire to cook.

... except when i have bought some super colourful ingredients and come up with a super simple scheme in advance.






















check out those colours!!! what's that purple stuff? you had better believe that is some purple yam.

























whilst the root veggies (yam, carrot, parsnip) got friendly with some salt, pepper and herbs de provence in the 'ol cast iron, i had chicken already roasting away in the oven. the meat dish i call "sort of morrocan chicken" : basically i took some chicken thighs, coated them in olive oil, salt and pepper, laid them over top of eights of onion and apple (plus a couple smashed garlic cloves). i then sprinkled the whole deal lightly with cumin and cinnamon, and baked it in an aluminum foil covered dish at 400 for 30 minutes.






















half an hour later i was enjoying the delicious results.

what i most enjoyed: out of thin air i invented a meal plan that was ready in no time, really pretty, simple enough to be worth making for one (as was tonight's case) but easily scalable to feed extras next time. i mean how often can you get a meal that looks that good out of two pans and a cutting board?


p.s.

okay ...fine ...i have to admit it: the purple yams were actually disappointing. i found them super starchy tasting without much of the warm sweet flavours of a normal yam. but they do look awful pretty though, don't they?

an experience to remember

I have just returned from Memories and More. Now who thought putting 8,000 girls and women in a stadium overnight was the best way to celebrate Guiding's 100 year anniversary I don't know, but it certain was an experience none of us will soon forget.






















the calm before the storm, the girls kick off the birthday with a circle game...

















what we arrived to find. this picture was taken before everyone had arrived...






















this was probably the most fun anyone had that evening: 8,000 beach balls released into the crowd to be batted around for the remainder of the event (despite efforts to quash the activity)






















... and this was probably the least fun part of the event: actually figuring out how one sleeps 8,000 people in a stadium. visions of refugee-ism came to mind.

However - despite adult feelings towards everything that went down - the end of this story is that the girls seemed to really enjoy themselves. This is what appeared on CTV news.

onwards and upwards

vancouverage this weekend

a sleepover with 8,000 other people

sounds like concentration camp to me - fingers crossed for fun

also big developments in life in general. stay tuned...

in the meantime, an "A" line dress design + one more

another little something

i always feel like ponchos are a little much to pull off - but consider how cute it looks when drawn...

a little something

just a wee drawing today, some lines to occupy your peepers despite the busy-ness factor currently keeping blogging (and all other extras) to a minimum.