Celebration Medley
Description: Apple-orange spiced tisane
Type: Rooibos
On the label: South-African red rooibos sings with the natural sweetness of apple, orange and rose, creating the perfect concert of flavours with spice notes.
With baby due in just over a week, I thought it was time to do a nursery reveal! This gender neutral nursery had a previous life as the dining room (can you believe it?!) in our one bedroom rental. Here’s how to recreate this look for under $1500 or less than the cost of this Pottery Barn glider!
I haven’t weighed myself in the last eight of nine months that I’ve been pregnant and I have loved every second of my ignorant bliss!
As someone dedicated to numbers, data, and anything and everything measurable, it has surprisingly been such a relief to throw out the scale.
I’ve nearly conquered my tree nut allergy.
When I have a reaction, I feel a ton of mouth swelling and have an itchy throat with some wheezing. Luckily, over the past 20+ years I’ve never had to use my Epipen and have mitigated potential disasters with Benedryl whenever I’ve felt a reaction coming along.
Over the years I ate peanuts regularly and strictly avoided everything else (I could easily go through a tray of these homemade O’Henry bars in one sitting). I would ignore the ‘May contain…’ line on ingredient lists but I always carried 2 Epipen’s with me at all times (and still do today).
However, over recent years my allergies have slowly been disappearing.
The last thing I want to do after an exhausting day is spend another 20 minutes on skincare before I go to bed. But, as luck will have it, in the early days of my pregnancy I was hit with the all-too-common hormonal break-outs. My skin apparently reverted to its teenage years and I didn’t know how to fix it! Wanting to avoid harsh chemicals and over-drying my skin (this was in the middle of the winter), I decided I had to change my skin care routine. I found that daily oil cleansing with organic argan oil, a mask once or twice a week, and spot-treatment with a tea tree oil blemish stick worked wonders to get rid of those pesky break-outs!!!!
Oil Cleansing Method
Do this everyday after you remove your makeup — I swear it feels like a mini facial and not like a chore whatsoever!
We tied the knot in late August 2016 with 65 of our closest friends and family. The weather was perfect, we were surrounded by people we loved, but the best part was, our wedding was all a short stop in everyone’s Italian vacation!
Am I the only one who smells each tomato before I add them to my shopping cart? There’s absolutely something about that Ontario tomato smell that reminds me of picking tomatoes in my backyard garden each summer. One of my favourite ways to enjoy the AMAZING selection of tomatoes we are lucky to have in the summer months is by making gazpacho! I also love a good caprese salad, and a caesar or two on a patio…although I don’t think caesars really count as a summer tomato recipe, but who cares! If you’re anything like me, you’ll take any excuse to caesar-it-up.
Back to the gazpacho…
Gazpacho is not a dish to be feared, it can honestly take most of what you throw at it (my gazpacho recipes have taken quite a beating over the years and each one turned out amazing). You can experiment and do an all-green gazpacho with tomatillos, add some fruit like watermelon or strawberries, or in this case, add some heat with red Thai birds eye chilies. You could even make this more Thai-inspired with lemongrass, mint, coconut milk and even grilled shrimp as a garnish! Now we’re talking.
In the meantime, this spicy gazpacho is an excellent jumping off point for you to customize any which way you like. You could even ramp up the heat, tone it down a bit, or remove it completely. Depending on the mood I’m in, I either add half or a whole red chili. Don’t call me a wimp just yet, one birds eye chili has enough power to give this some serious kick.
This is a full, unsponsored review of the Sloane Fine Tea Merchants product line.
Sloane Fine Tea Merchants founder Hoda Paripoush has developed an amazing tea product and brand. Over the past 5 years, one of my favourite (and more expensive) habits has been drinking Sloane tea twice or three times daily — usually a black tea in the morning and an herbal before bed. My husband drinks tea with me and doesn’t even argue when I add some scones and finger sandwiches. The tea is so good that everyone will join in on the party.
The tea containers are so pretty that I never throw them away and they double as pretty catch-alls on my vanity. I always see retailers and restaurants showing off their massive Sloane containers at the bar. What makes it even better is that the tea inside does not disappoint! It is all sourced and blended by certified tea sommeliers and bonus — it is Canadian!
No wonder Sloane tea is so delicious — Hoda has consulted with the Maître Nez (Head Nose) of one of the finest perfumeries in France to develop her products. This explains why I could sniff the containers for hours.
The teas include a range of oolong, black, red rooibos, green, white, herbal, chai and more (Gen Mai Cha is a green tea and brown rice blend). I have reviewed each tea offered by Sloane and noted the good, the bad, and my absolute favourites including the best peach iced tea ever (recipe coming soon!).
Here is a list of my favourite Canadian Real Estate Books for the Real Estate Investor. If you’ve looked into real estate books before, you’ve probably noticed that most of them are geared towards American investors. There is a lot to be learned from the US books, but some books include very specific US tax and legal information that can be a waste of time for investors who plan to stick to Canadian real estate investing.
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- The Canadian Real Estate Action Plan – Peter Kinch. This book is full of great advice and is written in a way that keeps you engaged and gets you excited. It will leave you with a plan for acquiring enough rental properties to be financially independent and lead you to some other great resources for getting there.
- Real Estate Investing in Canada: Creating Wealth with the Acre System – Don Campbell. This is without a doubt the best book for the Canadian real estate investor to start with. It’s got all the basics and enough to get you started. It is the only real estate specific book that I had read when I bought my first rental property. It’s an incredibly entertaining read and it’s got enough facts to get you through your first deal.