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A Fish, a Fish

The other weekend Taylor went on a fishing retreat for work and came back with a Chinook salmon too big to fit in our freezer. We have SO MUCH salmon right now, we gave some to friends and still have close to three kilograms. I only have one go to salmon recipe so I asked my friends to give me some of their faves and now I think have enough recipes to for all that fish!

Salmon Pita with Hummus // Big Omega Sandwich // Roasted Salmon with Creamy Greens // Maple Salmon (this one is so easy & SO GOOD) // Baked Salmon with Parmesan Herb Crust // Crispy Salmon // Seared Salmon and Sauce Gribiche // Indoor Grilled Salmon // Blackened Salmon Tacos

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Gwen & Ballet

On Monday Gwen had her last ballet class. It was a twice-weekly class at the community centre with 3-6 other little kids and oh my god did she love it. It was so adorable too, all these tiny kids concentrating and trying so hard to get the positions and movements right. I don’t think Gwen is ready for “real” ballet class at the dance school yet, but I’ve already picked out another community centre class for her to start in September.

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The Ordinary Vitamin C Suspension 30% in Silicone: A First Impression

Before you think I’ve suddenly become some kind of fancy beauty blogger that gets sent products for review REST ASSURED, I ordered a different product and was sent this one by mistake. I received my order last Friday, so I’ve only been using it for a few days and can’t speak to it’s efficacy in reducing the signs of aging, but I wanted to share my experience with it so far for anyone who was considering trying this product.

Although I haven’t tried the Vitamin C Suspension 23% + HA Spheres 2% (because… they sent me this instead? haha), many of the complaints I’ve read about that product is the gritty texture, poor absorbency, greasiness, inability to use in the morning due to the aforementioned poor absorbency & greasiness, and difficulty dispensing the proper amount leading to wasted product. In my opinion this new suspension neatly sidesteps these problems. It’s a medium-weight white cream that comes packaged in a tube. The consistency is thick enough that it’s easy to dispense only the small, pea-sized amount I want to apply with no product wasted, yet light enough that I can easily smooth it over my face. There is a little texture too it, but it’s very fine rather than gritty, so it’s not unpleasant. There is a light prickling/tingling sensation when the product is first applied applied, which is to be expected. It absorbs quickly and has a matte finish with no greasiness at all and therefore can be easily used in a morning routine, which is great because I’m definitely lazier about skincare at night than in the morning!

The Ordinary Vitamin C Suspension 30% in Silicone, $6.80/£5.80 for 30mL

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And Then He was Ten (Months)

The closer Nicky gets to being one year old the more I’m surprised by how fast his first year is going. This is so silly but with the two girls born in early November in my mind that’s the “birthday month,” so September seems like too soon for him to be one!

July has been a pretty epic month for milestones with Nicky. He finally graduated from army crawling (on his belly) to crawling crawling (on his hands and knees). He still drops down to his belly when he gets tired or wants to put on a burst of speed (he’s so fast!). He also started pulling himself up into a standing position and can climb on top of low furniture (like my little mushroom table). We lowered the mattress support in his crib and have had to do another “layer” of baby-proofing for all the new things he can reach.

He’s growing in leaps and bounds and is now about 75cm tall and weighs a whopping 10kg (approximately). He’s unsurprisingly tall, so much so that I actually gave some of his old clothes as hand-me-downs to a friend’s baby who just turned one! Another friend gave me a big box of her one-year-old grandson’s hand-me-downs and almost everything was already too small.

The most progress he made this month though was with teeth. TEETH. SO many teeth. In his 9 month post I believe I said he was getting three new teeth, bring his total to five. Well, he did get those three, and another, and another, and then this past weekend, ANOTHER. This brings his total tooth count to eight, and getting six teeth in five weeks? Seems excessive.

Even with all the teething his personality continues to delight us. Nicky is such a happy, friendly baby, with smiles and giggles for everyone.

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Life Lately


Nicky can stand!

I made some quartz crystal tiaras for my friend to sell at a music festival next month, and this week I’ve been working out how to package them. I settled on dyeing some muslin bags black and putting together some labels for them. I’m going to print the labels onto iron-on fabric and iron them onto the bags, which I think will work well. I’m like 90% sure I’m going to keep making these to sell in my shop soon, I just need to figure out the best way to ship them; they need to be protected but the way I was doing it before was really complicated and it actually took longer to pack them up than it did to make them!

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How does Gwen’s Garden Grow

At the end of June I was offered a raised garden box for myself & the kids. My neighbourhood had received a grant to build some for people who can’t access any of the community gardens for whatever reason, so it was totally free and even came with all the dirt it needed! I’m notoriously terrible at gardening but I figured WHAT THE HECK and said yes. The garden box was built and left in the part of the yard I’d specified, and over the long weekend Gwen and I went to pick out some plants. We got two tomato plants, a yellow pepper, a green pepper, one pumpkin, a strawberry, a blueberry, sage, parsley and chives. I put Gwen in charge of watering them and she’s very diligent about doing it every day.

We’ve had our garden for two weeks and amazingly, not only have I managed not to kill any, some are even starting to bear fruit! The pumpkin seems like it might not be long for this world, and I have my doubts about the blueberry (which is basically a single twig with some leaves that squirrels have dug up twice, but I dearly want it to live and grow because it is actually a PINK blueberry bush) but everything else is growing and thriving. The tomatoes especially, but the yellow pepper looks like it’s ready to blow up, and the sage and chives are doing well enough to use in meals already.

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night & day

At the beginning of July, there was a huge change here at our house, and the difference has been like night and day… because it literally is! After fourteen years Taylor is no longer working nights. This was a change I pushed for, by which I mean I sent him a series of texts with all the awful health problems you incur from working night shifts. He put in a request to switch to days, and we were expecting it to take some time to get approved (we figured they’d need to find a new night person to replace him) but to our surprise the change was effective the very next week. He’s been on days for two weeks now and it’s been really great.

Now instead of being home alone with the kids in the mornings, he’s here so one of us can get up with the kids while the other sleeps in- or even goes for a run! That’s right, I FINALLY got some use out of all the new workout clothes & shoes I bought at the beginning of the year. We’ve been taking turns so I can go running Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and he goes Tuesday and Thursday. It’s also nice that one of us can take the dogs out while the other stays at home with the kids because me trying to get Gwen and Nicky dressed and fed and out to walk the dogs before I start work at 8am was NOT easy!

He’s working 8-4ish, so he usually gets home a little earlier than I would wake him up in the evenings, which means he has more time to spend with the kids then as well, or help with dinner. He no longer has to go to bed early Sunday afternoons before his Monday shift and can spend the whole weekend with us. And of course the best part is that instead of him leaving at 11pm to go to the office all night, he gets to sleep in the bed with me at night (which means he also gets more sleep). We’ve never slept in the bed at night together for more than two weeks in a row for the entire 10 1/2 years we’ve been together, so it’s pretty amazing.

Of course, such a big change coming so suddenly has not been without its upheavals as we get used to our new family schedule. Now instead of Taylor being home during the day to look after the daycare kids in a pinch when we have doctor’s appointments, dance classes, or speech therapy, I have to figure out how to do it by myself. Gwen has ballet class two afternoons a week, a class I chose specifically because it was during naptime so Taylor could easily supervise the sleeping children while I took Gwen alone. Now I have to take her, and Nicky, and the daycare kids with me. It’s not far, about a 15-20 minute walk, but when I have three or four kids under five with me instead of just one… it takes a bit of doing.

However, none of that matters if it means I get to spend time with my husband during NORMAL hours, and for years longer than I would have been able to if he kept working nights. Working nights for so long can increase your risk for Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, mental illnesses, early onset dementia and certain cancers, so as I like to remind Taylor, by pushing for this change, I saved his life!

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five faves

This is Real Art and I refuse to hear otherwise.

Reading this feels like a punch in the gut.

I know I’ve posted this dress before but it was out of stock for a long time and now that’s it’s available again I’m more obsessed than ever.

I’d love this (in blue!) to add to our collection of cast iron.

This is a great project (and almost fully funded!).

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Caring for our Cast Iron

Earlier this year Taylor and I got rid of our old, damaged & unsalvageable stainless steel and non-stick frying pans and replaced them with cast iron. We started a small, 6 1/2″ skillet Taylor got in his Christmas stocking. This little skillet is ideal for making perfect fried eggs (I’ll share my tips’n’tricks for that in another post) but obviously isn’t suitable for cooking a whole meal for the family! So we’ve expanded our collection to include a huge 15″ skillet, a 10″ square grill pan, a pig-shaped bacon press and the real workhorse of the group, a 10″ skillet that I use for EVERYTHING.

There are a lot of opinions on how to properly care for your cast iron. Taylor prefers to scrub the pan with just a little kosher salt and then wipe it out, but since I use the pans to cook foods both sweet and savoury I like to be a little more thorough. I’m just leery of trying to bake a dutch baby in a pan that still has an oniony vibe from last night’s dinner! After some trial and error (by error I don’t mean damaged pans, just needing another scrub) I’ve developed a method that keeps our cast iron clean and well-seasoned while also satisfying my need to scrub everything until it’s sparkling (cast iron never sparkles but when I’m done it does gleam).

You’ll need:
• kosher salt
• mild dish detergent
• cooking oil*
• sponge
• paper towel and/or clean, dry cloth

First, I like to use paper towel to wipe out the excess grease or any loose bits of food still on the pan (if necessary). Next, depending on the size of the pan and how dirty it is I sprinkle about half a tablespoon of kosher salt and squirt about half a teaspoon on dish soap- I uses Mrs Meyers Clean Day- into the pan. With a damp sponge, I scrub the soap & salt all over the inside cooking surface of the pan. Once the pan is scrubbed clean, I rinse it in the hottest water from my tap and dry it immediately all over (inside, outside, the handle, the bottom, and in all the little grooves and crevices of the logo) with a clean, dry cloth or paper towel. The last step is rubbing the entire pan all over (again it’s inside, outside, the handle, the bottom, and in all the little grooves and crevices of the logo) with a couple drops of cooking oil. That’s all, and it keeps our pans looking (and cooking) great!

* we use canola oil but you can use one of your own preference; you just want to make sure it has a high smoking point.

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Nicky at Nine Months

Nicky is nine months old today! It’s also 39 weeks and 1 day since he was born, so he’s now existed in the world longer than he’s existed in my body, so good job, Nicky. Way to be alive 🙂

Nicky is very mobile and his army-crawling has reached incredible speed. He will pop up onto his hands and knees to rock back and forth but hasn’t yet mastered actual crawling yet. He can now getting into and out of a seated position on his own with no head bonking, and has started pulling himself up into a kneeling position on the couch and toy shelf, which he delights in emptying all over the floor.

He is definitely getting at least two teeth on the top, possibly three. It’s been slow going and while he continues to be mostly ok with teething his emotions are a little hair-trigger at the moment. He’s liable to go from happy and smiling to screaming and crying at the drop of a hat, and he’s been waking up at night more frequently.

His favourite toys are his foxy & dolly that he has in his crib. He is still loving every kind of solid food we give him; this month it’s been a lot of multigrain cheerios, grilled chicken, broccoli stems, cucumbers and bell peppers. And donuts, I guess!

(don’t worry, I didn’t let him have all of these)