I haven’t been posting much lately for the following reasons:

1. I have been working pretty much 15 hour days.

This is my car.  Last in the parking lot in the middle of the night. Again.

2. My iPhone smashed one day at lunch while I was running around trying to get shit done.

This is my iPhone, all smashed up.  It was devastating.

3. My dog got a wicked case of mystery hives.

This is my dog, with elephant-man hives all over her face. 

Not that bad, you say?  WELL HOW ABOUT THIS:

Yeah, it sucked shit.

Anyways, I’m back in the saddle.

As mentioned previously, I had someone doing a shoot of my apartment this weekend (HA HA HA I am so fancy.  I have people “doing shoots” of things in my life.), and I felt the need to complete a few last minute unecessary crafty things to make my place look more interesting than it is.

My loft space has that huge, blindingly bright Turkish Kilim Rug, and although I LOVE it, it’s really really hard to design around because it’s like, overwhelming and basically attacks your eyeballs.

On an unrelated-but-related note, I have been thinking about making a floor “pouf” for some time.  First, because it’s always good to have extra seating, second, because there was this extra space at one side of the loft, and last because I like to say “pouf”, over and over and over.  POUF!

I saw these at West Elm.  And they are beautiful.  And I thought that the crazy same-but-not-the-same kilim fabric would compliment the craziness of my rug.

AND THEY ARE THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY DOLLARS.

Like, seriously?  Come on.  FINE.  I get that they are like, “one of a kind” and someshit like that, but you clearly just took old rugs that couldn’t be sold as rugs because they were defective and cut them up and sewed them into fucking squares.

Then I was all like “I CAN CUT SHIT UP AND SEW IT INTO SQUARES ON MY OWN.”

So I went to designer fabrics and found me some “kilim-esque” fabric.  25 bucks a yard.  Bought a yard and a half.

Molly approves.

Then I cut it into two squares and four long rectangles.  It’s not fucking brain surgery.  Here are your instructions:

Then you stuff the box with shit.  I literally filled it with a bunch of old blankets and some old gross pillow or something, then I tore apart the stuffing from some other pillow I didn’t want any more and filled that shizz up.  A note – you will need WAY more stuffing than you think you will.

Molly approves.

Then you top-stitch around the seams at the top and bottom of the box. That is all you need to do.

I’ve just saved you $280.00.  You are welcome.  Buy me a present.

Through a friend I managed to get in touch with one of the Toronto photographers for Apartment Therapy… she perused my bliggity blog and decided that I was worthy of a shoot and house tour on the site.  Yeah.  I know.  I pretty much exploded out of my brain.

Anyways, so I spent the majority of the weekend furiously cleaning my house, completing some last-minute and totally unnecessary DIY projects, and basically creating a fictional utopian home design environment that I felt would be suitable for the post.

For example, I do not usually have single, perfect blooms of flowers in small French ceramic vases next to the faucet in the bathroom.  HOWEVER, for the purposes of the shoot, I needed to increase my fanciness.

Hopefully, all went well.  I *think* it’s going to be on the site in late August.  Of course I will milk it to death if/when it is posted, so don’t worry, you’ll know.

I also had to answer one of those surveys that asks me like, what my “style” is and what my “inspiration” is.  I hate those so much because you sound like a huge poser no matter what you say.  If you say “My style is mid-century modern with a dash of edgy flair”, you sound like a poser.  If you say “I really don’t have a style, it’s more whatever grabs my attention”, you sound like a poser.  Rest assured, my answers were poser-y and you will read them and be all like “What a poser.”.

Molly was unimpressed.

She always thinks I sound like a poser.

My hydrangeas are all like “hey.”  And I’m all like “hey. I’m going to cut you up and put you in my toilet room.”

I made some homemade gazpacho this weekend.  It’s fascinating how you can give something a fancy name, and people forget that it’s basically ragu tomato sauce with some cucumbers in it.  I added a parsley sprig, due to my extreme fanciness.

This was my dinner last night.  That little block of cheese was $12.00.  I ate it in about 3 minutes and 20 seconds.  It was totally worth it.

So Levi’s is finally re-issuing its High Rise Skinny… BUT, it’s not re-issuing its High Rise “Demi Curve” Skinny.  That “Demi Curve” is Levi’s-speak for “Chick with Hips like Shakira”, so I totally need them.  Serious dilemma… unless you are me and you have basically full control of the Earth due to your power over the Internet… because then you can find discontinued items like obscure jean-cuts in your size for half price and have them sent to you within days.

I have a feeling there is some kind of wasp’s nest hiding out on my deck.  I anticipate an epic, Lord of the Rings-esque battle between human (me) and insect (this guy) in the coming weeks.  Stay tuned.

Beers with friends > beers alone.

Diet Cherry Vanilla Coke < Diet Coke.

Finally, went to the Junction Flea this weekend.  Micah our pal from Russet and Empire, along with some other go-getters in the hood put this thing together at the beginning of the summer and it is pretty much blowing up.  Pam and I might try to do a Shoebox table there next time if we can get our shit together. 

FYI it was BLOODY HOT.  I immediately regretted bringing Molly, because I basically tortured her in the sun and heat for two hours for the selfish purpose of searching for like, old “vintagey-looking crates” to add to my already massive collection of “vintagey-looking crates” to complete my “vintagey-looking vignette” of “vintagey-looking stuff”.  I am a horrible mother.

Good news is I FIN-A-LLY got a tan on my pasty ass.  Not literally my ass.  I hate to say this because of all the bad things that come with sun exposure, but I look A BAJILLION TIMES BETTER with a tan. 

Anyways.  End communication.

In the spring, I had these grandiose plans of creating an organic utopian herb and vegetable garden on my deck and dancing around it in while wearing long floral dresses in barefeet and playing a tambourine, but then I thought “I have TONS of time to make an herb garden”, and decided to get drunk in my underwear and watch The Bachelorette.

Then, on the weekend, I realized it was friggin July and my poor deck was still barren of organic herbs and shit.  Unacceptable.  So yesterday I decided to get my shit together and get started.

Problem #1 – What to plant
Although I would like to say that I picked my herbs and vegetables based on future plans of cooking up some delicious domesticated pasta sauce recipe like mothers on mom-blogs and shit, it was  mostly dictated by the following:

1. The vegetable plants that were left at the local corner store and didn’t look like they were on the verge of death; and
2. Herbs that I could put in booze to make a delicious cocktail.

So I got a tomato plant that was big (but no tomatoes on it…), a pepper plant that was small (with no peppers on it…), but looked like, green or whatever, and the following herbs: basil (for caprese salads), mint (for mojitos), lavender (for fancy aromatic classic cocktail things), and parsley (because I needed four to make my herb garden symmetrical and I couldn’t think of anything else).

Please note my helper in the top right corner of the photo.  She made sure she was around me at all times, snoozing leisurely while I sweat and slaved in the heat.

Problem #2 – How to hang them up
So I had planned to hang my herbs up on the fence, but I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on some like planter-hangy thing because I’m cheap.  So I put something together that was likely modified from something I saw on Pinterest or some shit.

Basically, you buy terra cotta pots, and those like, tube holdery things that are silver and you always see at the hardware store and you think to yourself  “What the hell are those things?  Could I make something with them?  It looks like I could make something with them.”  Test the size and make sure they go around the pots, but stop right at the lip (so you can hang them).

Also buy galvanized wire, nails, and picture hooks (galvanized means “no get rusty”).

Here is my super-ghetto hanger creation:

Then you just smack the picture hook into the fence, hang the wire-tube holder thing on it, and stick your plant in it.

Ghetto?  Yes.  Expensive?  No.

Note – when I hung it, the planter was tilting a *little* too much, and the water like, spilled out the front of it, so I had to add another nail in the wire closer to the ring to keep it tilted up.

BOOM.  Instant herb garden for like, ten bucks.

I also planted my tomaters in a big pot as well as my “pepper plant”.

I give them both a 10% likelihood of producing edible fruit.

Here is my new and improved organic hippie garden!  Time to put on some Donovan and dance with a tambourine!

I decided to reward myself with things that are bad for me.  Molly also thought she deserved a rest from ALL THE WORK SHE DID.

After a day of fishing, swimming, screaming, and gorging ourselves on food, it seemed fitting to blow up a bunch of expensive fireworks into the bowels of nature.  So some of the boys decided to let their wieners hang low and set up a handy “setting off explosives” area at the end of the dock, right next to the gas tanks in the two boats.

We had a choice between the “$85.00″ fireworks and the “$250.00″ fireworks at Costco, and being reasonable people who aren’t rich Kings of Siam, we decided to go with the $85.00 ones.  These ones were HUGE and lasted like ONE HOUR and we still didn’t get through them all (due to a brush with death-by-fireworks, we decided to stop). 

And then, as is inevitable when blowing up fireworks, there was the one firework that went horribly wrong, almost killed everybody, and blew up a big planter at the end of the deck.

Fortunately, the only scars from the incident were of the “emotional” and “wiener-deflating” kind.  Thankfully, we had the “smaller fireworks bonanza” package from Costco.  I can only imagine the number of limbs that have been lost as a result of the $250.00 Costco fireworks package.

Fast forward to the next day, where we had some EXCITING ADVENTURES planned for Molly. 

Being a city dog, Molly is not used to having free reign in the wilderness.  So my fear is that she would run off, get killed for fun by a pack of small wild rats, and never be seen again.  However, I wanted to give her some liberty to enjoy herself in the backwoods.  She is a fucking dog after all.

So I got all amped up to have her swim in the lake.

NOW.  To preface this next photo, I want to emphasize three things:

1. According to my intensive Internet research, snub-nosed dogs don’t swim very well because they have trouble breathing AND it’s hard for them to keep their stump-snouts out of the water.
2. Molly had never really swam before.
3. I am a crazy person.

SO I BOUGHT HER A LIFEJACKET.  OK?

YES.  Get all your making-fun-of-me-ness out.  Although I’m sure she could have swam without it, I know she would be labouring, and we were all drinking… and I was just being careful ok?  OK?  LAY OFF ALREADY.

Anyways.  HOW CUTE IS THIS SHIT:

YEAH PRETTY CUTE.  Who’s making fun of dog life jackets now, you heartless asshole???

Anyways.  She was not exactly *loving* the water, so we gave her a few toots in there and she ended up just pooping out on the pontoon boat for the rest of the day with Cece.

That night, another huge, delicious pasta meal.  Sausage and peppers what.  I literally (like, I weighed myself before and after) gained ten pounds eating all the food this weekend.

After we ate so much that we all almost threw up, we decided to play a game.

The game was called “The Game of Things”.

At first, we were all apprehensive about The Game of Things.

But then we starting playing The Game of Things.

Essentially, there are a bunch of cards.  On each of the cards, it asks you to write down a “thing”.

For example, it might ask you “Things that you shouldn’t say to a police officer”… or “Things that make you feel young”… or “Things that you wish existed but don’t.”

Then, everyone secretly writes down their response, they are given to someone who reads them all out.  Then you all have to guess who said what. 

As you can imagine, with a group of drunk adults playing this game… things got a little out of hand.

The game got understandably competitive. 

By the end of the night, most answers contained the words “blow-job machine”.

So all in all, it was a good night.

The next day, we left. 

Everyone was exhausted.

Especially Molly the Adventure Dog.

 I went to a cottage last weekend.  Jealous?  I thought so.  It just so happens that I have super affluent friends (read: friends who can use their grandmas’ cottages) who whisk me off to cottages for the weekend where I live like a Russian Czar (read: fat chick in a bathing suit eating jelly beans) for three days.

The big difference this weekend was I decided to bring Molly, who is, to be perfectly honest, a fucking city dog who is pampered and would never be able to survive for five minutes in the wilderness, because she would probably, like, trot up to a porcupine and lie on her back all playful-like, then get porcupine needles shot into her abdomen-slash-private parts.  So I was a *little* worried that she was going to be a handful.

Did I mention she loves riding in the car while sitting on my lap?  What a spoiled bitch.

Day one, we got up early and went fishing.  I’ve never been fishing before, and I really sucked shit.  I had to use the old-fashioned casts where you hold onto the line with your finger when you throw the cast-y thing, because the ones with the button on the bottom of the cast were too advanced and complicated for my piddly brain.

I also caught nothing in case you were wondering.  Well, one time I felt a little bite, and one time I caught an old stick, or “wood bass” as I understand they are called.

However, I really enjoyed being out on the lake in the early morning.  Like I was a sneaky nature-person, instead of a totally un-nature person like I am for real.

I told these guys they had to do a Titanic shot because they would look stupid and it would make me laugh.  They happily obliged.

Here is one of the places we fished.  Just want to reiterate here that I did not catch any fish.

This gentleman caught “the planet Earth” by catching his hook on a bunch of rocks or some shit… not once…

…or twice…

…but three times.  I guess you have to be a really good fisherman to do that.

Some people did catch some fish that we threw back because we are nice people.

Ok fuck that shit.  Let’s go swimming.

Perfect perfect perfect weather and perfect perfect perfect water.

Tough fuckin’ life.

Then we played cards.  How fucking cool is this packaging?  I want to bone it.

This game is called “Pit”, and you basically sit around each other and scream in each others’ faces for 20 minutes until someone who screams the loudest wins.

Speaking of design, the cards are also totally awesome and bone-worthy, as well.

In addition to Molly the Adventure Dog, we had a little golden retriever puppy with us, Cece.  She was damn ass balls cute.

As long as Molly was allowed to take Cece’s toys, the two of them got along just fine.

Anyways, after some fishing and swimming and screaming in each others’ faces, it was time to drink our faces off and eat our… faces off.  Usually when I go up to the cottage with my friends we have a very strict “meal-making” and “drink-making” protocol.  Everyone gets into pairs and makes one “fancy drink” for everyone, spaced out throughout the weekend, and everyone in those pairs is also tasked with making one meal.

Although this sounds like an air-tight plan, it usually culminates into a ridiculous competition where everyone tries to make their drink as BOOZY as possible in an effort to totally DESTROY everyone at the cottage.

This was the “Tequila Sangria”, and I’m pretty sure there’s a whole bottle of Patron in there.  BALLIN’ LARGE WHAT.

Similarly, the meal-cooking turns into this ridiculous competition where people try to out-do each other in an over-the-top, several-hour-long process of gourmet-meal preparation.  For example:

OH NO BIG DEAL:

These guys starting preparing their marinades and “rubs” at 11:00 am.  ELEVEN A.M. IN THE MORNING.  They made:

• Pork tenderloin with some delicious rub stuff on the outside – SO TENDER
• Chicken thighs with like rosemary and delicious sauce of some sort – ALSO VERY TENDER
• Flank steak with pepper and chimmi-churri sauce – THE MOST TENDER OF ALL
• Basmati rice
• Grilled rainbow vegetables

Like, serious ballin’.  VERY DELICIOUS.  Although it made my “eggs on a microwaved tortilla” meal from that morning seem somewhat lacking.

Anyways, then we put on some fireworks that I’ll show you tomorrow.  To tide you over, here are some ARTY PICTURES!

Also, here are some freak-moths.

Molly hates thunder.  She doesn’t freak out and get excited, but every time it starts to rain she just gets really quiet and sad and wants to come REALLY CLOSE TO MY FACE for some reason.  In the photo above, she is trying to keep her face one inch away from mine at all times.

Alternatively, she likes to be perched on my shoulder like a deformed smush-faced parrot and sit there with her ears back.  Despite being slightly annoyed that I literally could do nothing the whole time that the thunder was banging (due to my dog-shaped shoulder-growth), I was pretty much GUSHING with motherly happiness because I like to think that being close to her mommy makes her feel comfortable and safe.  I AM SO GOOD AT BEING A MOM (to small dogs when they are extremely scared and need human contact from anyone who is close to them).

Just thought I’d mention this because it makes me so happy that I almost plottzed: I HAVE HYDRANGEAS in my garden.  They just POPPED THE FUCK OUT OF NOWHERE and are all blooming in my face.  They are one of my absolute favourite flowers. and like, every time you go somewhere fancy they’re all like “HYDRANGEAS, HYDRANGEAS EVERYWHERE FOR FANCY PEOPLE!”  Unless you are Madonna.

In other news, a good friend from University is getting married this weekend and I’m totally looking forward to it because, in addition to the pure, innocent exchange of virginal nuptials, I have it under good authority that there will be copious amounts of wine and cheese entering my mouth-hole all weekend.  What else could a girl want?

We went out last weekend for her Bachelorette party.  To Crocodile Rock.  If you have not heard/been of/to Crocodile Rock… well… then… you still have a small piece of your innocence intact.  Good for you. 

Basically, if you are a:

1. Cougar;
2. Cougar-Fetishist;
3. 19-year old; or
4. 17-year old with a 19-year old’s ID

Then this is the place to be. 

It wasn’t as bad as it could have been because the people I was with were awesome and I decided to wear orangey-red lipstick which makes me happy.  However, in hindsight it makes me look like a craggly old potato-faced witch… so I’m either going to have to re-think this whole lipstick thing, or I’m going to have to come to terms with the face that when I wear lipstick I will only be approached by blind ugly men. 

Here Nicole says “I have two beers, and do a pouty face.”

Here Nicole says “I have two beers and I do a sexy “both beers in my mouth at the same time” face.”

Oh Nicole, you so crazy.

In order to overcome the shock of being at Crocodile Rock, as well as the realization that I looked like a drowned rat with orangey-red lips, I decided to go to the bar by myself and have three whiskey shots.  Which rapidly pulled the evening into a downward spiral, culminating in the following:

Just so you can appreciate what I mean when I say I can eat A LOT… let me tell you what I purchased and consumed from McDonald’s:

• Quarter Pounder
• Supersized Fries
• 10 Nuggets
• An additional Quarter Pounder
• An additional “medium” fries
• Filet-o-fish

Yes.  I ate it all.  I ATE IT ALL!!!!!!!!!!  TREMBLE AT MY FEET, YOU WEAK ‘SINGLE COMBO’ EATERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I SHALL SOON CRUSH YOU ALL WITH MY HUGE FRENCH-FRY FED THIGHS!

Went to P-Hops’ place (well, P-Hops’ and Franc’s place now…) for a BBQ as a “joining together of our stuff into one place”-type housewarming celebration thingie.  They set everything up so nicely and the food was deelishious.  Unfortunately I was raging hungover because apparently I don’t realize I should probably become a responsible adult like everyone else, and I was out until 3:00 am the night before challenging 200 pound men to drinking contests.   However, the delicious hot dogs and salad were just the cure for my morning after “I-want-to-die-itis”.

These two are officially the cutest in the world.

It was a very laid back afternoon, mostly because everyone there was so, you know… laid back.

How cute are these guys?  Little candid shot of them being all private and smiley together. 

Oh Pam.  How I wish I could wear short shorts like you do.

Holden was there, being bad-ass with his truck.  There was some concern that we had accidentally gotten him drunk on the “beer battered onion” in the potato salad… results were inconclusive.  But he was definitely enjoying livin’ life.

Freak-o hairless cat kept a close eye on us from the second-floor window, where the other tenants live.  Everyone was giving freak-o cat a hard time because of his freakishness, but I feel bad for him.  It’s not his fault he’s a freak.

Anyhoo, after my two hot dogs, multiple servings of salad, and a freezee, I went back home to collapse and continue recovering from my epic hangover while watching Game of Thrones.  Molly joined in.

DID ANYONE SEE THE EPISODE LAST NIGHT?  MEGA-HUUUUUGE!!!   Holy fuck I love that show.

The long weekend was caliente to the extreme, and I think it’s safe to say that summer is totally, completely, officially here. 

I think we all knew this was going to happen, but TB park was so saturated with people it looked like a hipster refugee camp.  So of course I got all gussied in my wannabe Amy Winehouse doo-rag, retro Vuarnet France-esque tank,  and new Supers, and sat in the sun with some girls and one special little guy.

I also spent some time drunk and passed out with wet hair at a pool while smoking cigars and accidentally taking unflattering “forgot my iPhone camera was set to the side facing me”  pictures of myself with a crinkle-neck.

Apparently my deck is a perfect sunbathing spot.  Why?  Because it is basically bathed in full “center-of-the-sun” level heat for 10 hours straight.  Things got a little hot.

Molly wanted to be one of the girls and got her tan on.

THEN THIS HAPPENED:

It’s too hot.

Also spent time gardening.  About three hours.  And barely anything looks changed. 

WHY did I work in the garden for three hours with minimal results?  Mostly because of these stupid, small clover-weed things.   ARGH!  They are such little bitches.  You have to sit on your knees and pull out each little damn mini-clover plant by hand for HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS.  I hate them so much.

Although these peonies have me plottzing with excitement…

Molly had a tough weekend because the new place doesn’t have air conditioning… I think I’m going to have to get a window-mounted one for the bedroom because she is totally listless and unhappy in the heat.  However, she did meet a new boyfriend neighbour on holiday Monday.  These two spent a scandalous amount of time rolling around and presenting their private parts to each other in doggie ecstasy.