Posts

Vine Maple Trees - iStock

The Surprising Things Trees Can Do For Your Garden

/2 Comments/in , , , /by
In honour of Earth Day, we look at a few of the magic tricks trees can perform in your garden.


Vine Maple Trees - iStock

 

MONEY WELL SPENT | In the landscape of memory, trees define the countryside. As the most prominent and long-lived of all vegetation (think giant sequoia), they are the one green symbol guaranteed to represent place. Mention Italy and Italian cypress come to mind. Images of southern France always include olive trees. The English landscape, that great affectation, is symbolized by large-scale deciduous varieties planted in “clumps” (by Capability Brown) that look from a distance like a single stylized tree. In the Pacific Northwest, iconic evergreens—Douglas fir, Western red cedar and hemlock—colour much of the landscape black-green, a situation that both pleases and perturbs me. Read more

We’re All Heart: Find Free Valentines Here

/1 Comment/in , /by
This year, make it personal with downloadable and DIY valentine cards to give—and eat. (FREE, PRINTABLE VALENTINES + RECIPE)

Heart breaker Candy filled Valentine's Cards

 

FREE & EASY | Lucky in location, I live in one of several provinces in Canada that celebrates Family Day, a statutory holiday dedicated to promoting family life, on the second Monday in February rather than the third as some other provinces do. Having an extra day off just before Valentine’s Day means my kids and I have more time to make valentine cards to hand out at school and the heart-shaped cookie notes we share with one another. Read more

Dirty Apron Cooking School: Brunch

Recipe For Happiness: Cooking At Dirty Apron

/0 Comments/in , , /by
Put your money where your mouth is—take a hands-on cooking class at the Dirty Apron Cooking School.

Dirty Apron Cooking School: BrunchMONEY WELL SPENT | According to psychological research reported on recently in The New York Times, “spending money for an experience—concert tickets, French lessons, sushi-rolling classes, a hotel room in Monaco—produces longer-lasting satisfaction than spending money on plain old stuff.” Findings further suggest that the happiness accrued by spending money on leisure activities is amplified when the experience is shared with someone else.

Which brings us to our new favourite experiential “happiness place,” the Dirty Apron Cooking School. Everyone we know who has taken one of their four-hour hands-on cooking classes raves about it. Read more

Lady Gaga

How To Always Get The Event Tickets You Want

/2 Comments/in , , /by
How to ensure you won’t lose out on tickets to the concerts and events you most want to see.

Lady GagaWORK THE SYSTEM | Has this ever happened to you? Your favourite performer or sporting event is coming to town and you want to make sure you get great seats the second they’re up for grabs. You know that buying tickets in person at a Ticketmaster location or over the telephone will not be faster than purchasing them online, so on the day they become available, you access your Ticketmaster account and begin refreshing your computer screen repeatedly in the minutes leading up to their release, pouncing like a tiger on its prey when the Find Tickets button goes live. Even with your lightening quick reflexes, every ticket is gone in a matter of minutes, and not one of them sold to you.

What can you do to ensure this will never happen again? One thing would be to try to buy tickets before they go on sale to the general public. For that you will most likely need a presale password or code. Read more

Bagging Fashion Trophies in Portland, Oregon

/4 Comments/in /by
Bagging some serious fashion trophies at a Portland, Oregon, thrift shop.

Tod's loafers C. PhaisalakaniSAVE ON CHIC | Stuff like this never happens to me, so when it finally did I was gobsmacked—though I shouldn’t have been, because my former sister-in-law Ruth, a Portland attorney with a sharp mind and a gimlet eye for bargains, had been telling me for years that Portland’s Goodwill thrift stores were awesome places to find top brand apparel. Read more

The Mother Of All Heritage House Tours

/1 Comment/in /by
Old houses cost less than new ones even if you renovate—and the heritage house tour can show you how.

MONEY WELL SPENT | What’s the first thing that comes to mind when making an old house more energy efficient? Changing all the windows maybe? Well, relax. A CMHC case study on renovating for energy savings reveals that replacing the windows and doors of a pre-Second World War house reduces just 11 percent of energy loss compared to 34 percent for insulating and draftproofing of walls, ceiling and foundation; 34 percent for upgrading the furnace; and 18 percent for adding exterior insulation beneath the siding.

This is just one of the helpful tips to be gleaned from the 30-page guidebook for this year’s Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s heritage self-guided house tour on Sunday, June 6. Another is that retrofitting an old structure can be less expensive than demolishing and rebuilding—like the $89 million to be saved by the UBC Renews rehabilitation of 10 buildings on the university’s campus. Read more