My Favourite Articles and Links This Week
This snowflake generator is fascinating.
It’s true, the pandemic is taking a harsh physical toll on all of us – headaches, pack pain, and more.
11 tips for dealing with pandemic burnout.
Feeling bored and uninspired? Here’s a list of 45 things to do.
My Favourite Pins This Week
Roasted cauliflower and pesto pasta. Soooooo good!! A perfect winter dinner, if you ask me. The crispy cauliflower is the real star, but I personally love pesto and when you have a good pesto sauce, it really makes it. The recipe includes a wonderful pesto sauce recipe, but you can also cheat and use a really good store bought one. I won’t tell! Pinterest link is here and the full recipe is here.
Isn’t it wonderful when a dessert looks fancy but actually isn’t difficult to make at all? That’s this beautiful strawberry rose cheesecake tart, which can be made with 5 ingredients, and a few more if you want to give it a little more oomph. I love how beautiful this looks. If there are no decent strawberries available, I bet this would also be delicious with raspberries (although not cut into ‘roses’), which always seem to be really good no matter what season it is. Pinterest link is here, and the full recipe can be found here.
How cute is this free kitty embroidery pattern? Just adorable, and perfect for stitching while watching a little TV, if you are looking to mix it up from knitting or crochet. Find it on Pinterest here, and the adorable free embroidery pattern over here.
This is a gorgeous free pattern for a richly cabled cardigan, that is a dead ringer for the famous cardigan from a Taylor Swift video, called (you guessed it) Cardigan! I love the sweater. And the song. Pinterest link is here, and the free pattern can be found right here (the download free pattern button is directly underneath the add-to-cart button).
I think just about all of us could use more plants in our lives, right? This is a great round up of plants that are perfect for low-to-no light areas of your home. Even though so many of the photos show the plants beautifully photographed in well lit locations, ocasionally with windows around, but I assume that was strictly for thw quality of the photos not the plants themselves. I can personally attest to the peace lily, which I had in the bedroom for along time until I accidentally over watered it. Oops! Pinterest link is here, and the full post of all the plants is here.
Here in Toronto we recently got news that the schools will reopen again for in-person learning mid-February, so that is very exciting! We’ve been doing the mandatory at home e-learning, and it has been quite the adventure. Holy smokes, I thought I appreciated teachers before but now I AM IN AWE. I don’t know how they handle it. Also, I can’t believe evey time I’ve asked my kids what they did in class they were so vague – they are doing amazing things! Learning about art and the mathematics of architecture and anti-racism – and all in French and it’s amazing! That’s at least in Lila’s class in Grade 3. James is also learning how to be anti-racist, but he is also learning about greater than and less than, as well as animals camouflaging in winter, and carnivores and herbivores. Also all in French. My French has improved quite a bit since all this, by proxy!
Anyway. It’s all very exciting – one more week to go, and even though the winter is feeling long, I’m feeling really hopeful. I hope you have plenty of small things that make the days a little brighter and help you feel hopeful for the time ahead. Don’t forget to get some fresh air!
xo Julie
Reading what your kids are learning was somehow so precious and comforting to me! The idea of learning such pure and essential concepts for the first time makes me nostalgic.