The greatest view from here

And we're already in mid-to-late August. AUGUST. Summer, where did you go? I've spent very little time at the cottage was this year. I've subbed it out for park hangs and days at the island. The Toronto life, I guess. 

I managed to make it to Lake Erie (likely quite foreign to all people in Toronto) for a weekend at the cottage with the Kentucky family. 

Lots of neighbours.

Cottage neighbours with a boat. It was mere months ago I was cruising on Lake Huron on a similar catamaran. Take me back, please.

The "Dad" hammock was a highlight. A novel, beach views and a built in pillow. I think I need one of these for my apartment.

Le sigh.

The evening ended with s'mores. S'MORES!

Please stay summer forever. 

Let's go Blue Jays

It's been about a year since I saw RM last. We worked together ages ago and reconnected in the nation's capitol a couple of years ago when I moved there for work. Although I ran to Toronto pretty fast, he still lives in Ottawa and manages to make it south(west) every now and then.

Anyway, RM texted me a few days ago and asked if I wanted to go to a Jay's game (the answer is always yes). I hopped on a street car and made my way east. We, of course, caught up over street meat(?) and managed to land the best of the worst seats at the SkyDome. I'm sure it felt like 40 degrees and we got seats... IN THE SHADE. And really, not a terrible view for $14 seats.

RM is a long standing Tigers fan (one of the 4 Detroit fans in section 220), so he was happy they won. I on the other hand was just completely disappointed that JP Arencibia is out for 6 weeks with a fractured hand and thus was not playing... and the Jay's lost. But hey, one of us won!

The perfect summertime activity.

Cats and a ($10,000) Contest!

Meet Baby: A long time lover of climbing to the highest spot in the house and attempting to escape from the place at any chance he gets. 

He was a new edition to the family home about 2 years ago.  Who would have imagined the amount of fur that a cat sheds? More importantly, who found out they were allergic to cats? (me).  I'm not a "cat person" but I've become quite fond of this little(!) guy. 

Speaking of homes and cats, my favourite design team, Stephen and Chris, are hosting a contest. A $10,000 room makeover for you (and your own Baby)!  Go to Indoorcat.ca to enter to win and while you're there, get great cat-friendly design tips. 

If you know me or follow me on Twitter, you'll know my fondness for contests. This one is fantastic. A room makeover. From Stephen and Chris? SIGN ME UP!

Update: I just found this little gem. Baby!!!!

 Full disclosure, y'all: this post was sponsored by Friskies® Indoor. 

Summer in the city

There are a few things I owe you, dear reader. For example, I have completely neglected my road trip from the great city of Toronto all the way to Charleston, South Carolina. Add in some great concerts and evenings spent watching movies in the park and you have the first few months of my summer. My oh my. Back to it, I promise (again… and again).

I'm going to break the road trip up over a few posts. There's too many photos and stories to share for one post… that will come soon. I'm going to have to wait to cool off from this 45 degree Celsius weather first. I'm melting. 

Until then, I have been spending my time doing this:

And this:

Not a bad summer. 

Be careful what you wish for...

Today I learned a valuable life lesson: Be careful what you wish for. There are many ways to learn this lesson. But here's mine... about 25 years late.

I sent out a tweet. I've sent out 4152 of them in the last few years, but this one reached an author (one of my favourite Australian authors) who was, at the time, partaking in a 24 hour novel (himself and 8 other Australian authors). Genius I thought, I will send this:

Well, I guess I got a little carried away on the genius bit. I, in fact, did not heed the warnings of one Nick Earls:

The man does not lie. I wasn't careful. 22 hours into their 24 hour write-a-thon, I took a peek at my namesake. Miss Steffi was doing what? Panic set in. The previous warnings were brought to light. I'm pretty sure there was a few minutes where I couldn't breathe. SELF, WHAT DID YOU DO? (the answer: you didn't listen to Nick Earls). So, after several tweets and some breathing into a paper bag (ok, that did not happen), he remedied the situation. I was back to myself and Steffi was going by another name. Thank you! 

I took away a few things from the past few hours:

1. Listen to the warnings presented by Nick Earls

2. Perhaps find out the story before lending your name to a novel (more importantly, attempt to avoid this whilst having a name that no one else in the world has)

3. Enjoy the story even more now that you are no longer paranoid a potential boss will stumble upon it. 

4. I will likely never have another character named after me, so it's a good thing I saved the chapter Nick wrote with my name in it.

5. I'm pretty grateful to have been a character, even for a very short amount of time. Thanks for the opportunity, Nick! Maybe next time Stef will get paired with Eric Bana... A girl can dream.

Silly Stef (not me--the other one, of course!)

The city I call home

This week has been a strange one.  Full moon strange. First there's a shooting at the Eaton Center. A shooting... at the mall. Then on Sunday, someone is stabbed outside my apartment building at 9pm. I love this city, but what gives Toronto?

An afternoon on Queen St. W.

After countless weekends that have been absolutely non-stop (and weeks that, somehow, are even more filled) I decided to have a relaxing weekend in. Friday night was spent eating frozen yogurt and watching Being Elmo with MC and the plan for Saturday was organizing and grocery shopping.

Saturday rolled around and with the exception of doing the dishes that have been piling up over the course of the week and grocery shopping for the first time in 2 (3?) weeks, zero organizing was completed. But an awesome adventure with Finn did happen and it looked a little like this...

First stop was Trinity Bellwoods. It would be difficult for this to be any closer to my place. It's hard to tell based on this picture alone, but the rest of the park was jammed. Today was the first really (really) nice days in ages.

On the walk I spotted this in a bus stop. I love artists. 

Tres Chic, an Australian designer, started making these in small quantities and it totally took off. The designs are now situated on a shop in West Queen West. I will be making these with '90s jeans I find a VV. I knew my textile class would come in handy. Who's up for some tye dye?

I then spotting my favourite Australian (umm.. world, are you saying something to me?) magazine at Drake's General Store. Super excited to have found this!

Dolls. WWF dolls.

And in the parking lot across from The Drake was my future car.

And finally (I wish I had a picture of the other one) we landed up at the second back alley vintage "pop up" shop. This one had a table with guak and chips and $3 beer. Legal? Unlikely. Amazing? Completely.

After all of that, it was time to make our way back to my part of the neighbourhood. What an afternoon.

Adventure Time!