Keep Reading for HOT DEALS

Been quite busy lately - sorry about not putting anything up for a while.

Here's a book I came across, quite whimsical.



Overview:
Welcome to The Secret Life of Food, where your food is actually masquerading as ordinary objects found in and around your home. This stunning gift book, overflowing with lush photography, shows us a new side of the kitchen, where what you see is definitely not what you get! Easy-to-follow recipes turn potatoes and string beans into stylish flip-flops. Sushi cupcakes are served with chopsticks, but they are really tasty morsels topped with coconut icing wrapped in green fruit roll-ups. And in the gorgeous Jell-O aquarium swims a chewy Swedish fish. Parents will have as much fun as their children creating these culinary masterpieces.

On BookCloseOuts.com, this book went down from $20 US to $4.


Recently I've been helping my church organize a trip to Seattle for a conference called Dare 2 Share. It's geared towards youth and is a very fun, very educational and very inspiration conference where thousands of people gather in praise. I designed a shirt using some elements that are available online for them to wear - take a look! Guys will get the honey shirts, girls the kiwi...but I will get myself the orchid coloured.

I will sell the shirts at $10 a piece, if anyone wants one, let me know!






Also - some red flag deals on right now worth looking into.

Bluenotes is having a buy 1 get 2nd half off deal.
Spring/Transit shoes is having an extra 50% off for their sale items. Check it out! There are things available for less than $10.
Lancome.ca is offering a great deal. If it's your first online purchase, they will give you a free $92 value gift set plus free shipping on your order of $50 or over.
Overstock.com offers products from the US priced in Canadian dollars. Great deals like the Fendi Cotton Logo Scarf only $13 CDN! (Currently sold out but many have more stock. Meanwhile check out other items - such as their Miss Sixties Coat for under $100!).
Banana Republic will take 30% off any full priced in store merchandise on Thursday Feb. 26th ONLY.
Petro Canada is giving out a free coffee with purchase of another coffee via this coupon: Expires June 30, 09

SPC ALERT!

If you've got an SPC card, note that it's double discount day on MARCH 7th. Some highlights:

• Bluenotes: 20% off regular and sale prices
• Lucky Brand Jeans: 30% off regular prices and 10% off sale prices
• Guess: 20% off regular and sale prices
• Athletes World: $10 off purchase of $50 or more & $20 off purchase of $100 or more
• Esprit: 30% off regular and sale prices

And finally - for those wants to study for the sake of studying and not for anything else...MIT is now offering their course material for whole courses online FREE. For the fun of it, you can learn about any topic from Chemical Engineering to English Literature.


Enjoy all the great deals!

Poo Poo Paper

Trademarked from www.poopoopaper.com

Soo...I know we must go to extreme measures sometimes for the environment's sake. There are many changes we've been making in our lives already - such as shopping with re-usable bags, drinking out of metal bottles, and using less paper. We even go as far as wearing cloth made from bamboo charcoal or coconut fibres.

And then there's using poo poo paper.

A company called poopoopaper.com makes eco-friendly paper out of elephant . In case you're wondering, this image of the poo poo is from their website.

The company takes dried elephant poo, which is high in long fibres from the elephants' bamboo and grass diet, and wash it in water. When nothing but the fibres are left, they take that and boil it in high temperature water for sanitation purposes.

After the sanitation process, the fibres are mixed with dyes as well as fibres from the banana and pineapple trees. These other materials help to strengthen the paper.

Once that's done, patties for the paper pulp are made and then spread over large mesh screens. The screens are then laid up against tree trunks to sun dry. When they are done, the poo poo paper is ready to use.


Guys - this paper is hand-made, completely natural, and eco-friendly. It barely uses any energy besides boiling water and the sun, and no chemical perservatives. Not a single tree is cut for the sake of these sheets.

You can't get much more environmentally friendly than that - and yet one wonders. What will it be like to write on poo?


For those of you interested, poo poo paper products are available in the Opus art store at Granville Island, as well as through some of the products from Boulevard Advertising.

www.bankers.ca - a supplier for Boulevard Advertising

Succulent

In 1601, somewhere a word was born from the Latin root word suculentus - having juice, or from sucus - juice, sap.

I can't help but wonder - who said it first? What man or woman, and with what kind of food, made he or she describe something as succulent?

Now, of course, we can't turn back. It has become a standard. What do you think of when I say succulent? Is it a rack of lamb? Is it a tender steak? Corn?

I'm not sure what I can use the word to describe - if there are any limits. I know that on Saturday I am going to be having a very succulent dish of sablefish - my favorite type of cooked fish.

Sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria), or butterfish in the USA and black cod /coalfish in Canada, is one of the West Coast's most valuable species of fish. Its texture is at a buttery medium, flakey, and its taste is sweet and light.

My sablefish dinner will take place on Saturday at Monk McQueens - their usual sablefish dish is $31 on the regular menu. For Dine Out, $38 gets you the fish plus an appie and dessert.

Can't wait!

Monk McQueens - Vancouver, BC

Pining after Colours

I spent a good chunk of my time looking up the internet for coloured TP.

Yes, I want the coloured toilet paper paper badly. I know there are concerns out there regarding the dye that goes into coloured toilet papers. There are fears that the colour will come off - that it's not "waterproof", so to say. There are fears that the dyes could irritate the skin as well.

But really, a responsible manufacturer would use dyes that have been clinically approved. If you do have sensitive skin though, I understand your concern. In North America, we rarely, if ever, see coloured toilet paper precisely because of these concerns. Even so, coloured tp is very popular in Europe still and prevalent in Asia, where white toilet paper is rare.

I found two websites that sold coloured toilet paper. One, Renova Online, offers bright designer colours that match with bold and modern interior designed bathrooms. There's tp in black, fuschia, red, orange, lime green....the list goes on. But man, these tp are pricey! Apparently a gift pack of 3 rolls (which happens to come in an awesome looking container that looks as if it might hold a bottle of Brandy) costs as much as $40 US, before shipping.



The other site (frenchtoiletpaper.com) offers colours that much more tame. They sound as if they can appear in your grandmother's bathroom - soothing colours like Green Apple, French Vanilla, Jelly Bean, Orange Cream, or Grapefruit. Heck, with names like that, who wouldn't want to rub Tangerine Sorbet all over your bum?



They're a bit more reasonable in terms of pricing - 6 rolls for $16 USD. Shipping is $10 US for every 6 roll pack. These are coming all the way from France, so they do take a while to ship!


Now, you may have wondered why this obsession with coloured tp. Yesterday I was in London Drugs (LD from here on in) and I came across Kleenex in pink and blue. I haven't seen colored paper since I was in China, and I always thought it was a shame. They can cheer up any day, especially these days, when the fog is unceasing and the sunlight barely there.

The splash of colour can bring a smile to your face. When I was a kid visiting China, I was delighted by the pink and the blue and yellow. People carried the rainbow tp home in clear bags, they made a serious day a little more lighthearted. I mean, how can you stay mad at someone or be upset about something when you're lugging a rainbow with you?

Of course I bought the pink and blue. At $3 a box, it was a rip-off. But still, I bought them, and now when I look over at my dining table there's a puff of pink to greet my evenings.

Tiles upon Tiles of Fun

A friend showed me this website about a Japanese designer who took a certain art form to a retail level. Using science, mathematics and art, he created these awesome designs that you can play around with for hours.

Each square in these tiles can be rotated in any which way and still fit the rest of the tiles flawlessly. Every time you play with it, you get a different and unique wall design.

The Japanese designer, Asao Tokolo, came from a background of teaching in the Tokyo Institute of Computer Science. I think I can understand how the perfect harmony and beauty of science can lead to art. Afterall, what God made is artwork beyond compare. We can only marvel at his perfect pieces of work.

To read the full article on the tiles, visit this link.

For those of who tried to leave a comment on my page before but couldn't, I'm sorry - I've got the problem fixed now. You don't have to be a member of anything to leave a message.

So please feel free!

Thanks!

Great Deals - EXPIRES JAN. 12th!

Hey all,

Check out these great deals from Saks online - right now it's up to 80% off and free shipping to Canada! They can also bill you in Canadian using the exchange rate at the time of purchase so you know how much you're spending.

Example:

Design History - Cashmere Tunic Sweater. Original Price: $363.35. Sale Price: $72.67 CAD



See more at www.saksfifthavenue.com

Big Ideas

I was reading Lisa's blog (http://sololisaynadamas.blogspot.com) and was inspired by her comments on giving up Big Love.

Do I have an earth-shattering resolution?

I think I've passed a lot of my earth shattering moments alone in my room. I wish I have a record of them - The Things That Are Broken and The Things That Are Made. I just feel, after these things happen, that words cannot express what I newly am, and to try would be futile.

Now that I do try to recall, I find that I can't. It's as if the old is gone and I know nothing else. What are my views on love? There was an epic battle about the power of love, about the nature of love. I surprise myself all the time. I actually gave up real love. For what? People tell me it's for a different sort of love. I feel as though I've been given a lobotomy.

I feel like I've fought some fantastical beasts and now I've tamed even my enemies within to be on my side. So perhaps growing up means to become more integrated. Almost like a video game - you unlock characters to fight with you. But first, you must overcome them.