Sunday Shop-A-Thon

We got up early on Sunday so we could do some home things.
Like adjusting and assembling my shower caddy corner shelves.
Which I've had in a few different places.
This one is by far my favourite.
ORB (oil rubbed bronze) which is also an obsession of some of my favourite bloggers at Young House Love.

Then new (well recycled from my Aunt's old kitchen cabinets) drawer pulls!

Remember when I scored this dresser (minus a few knobs) in this post here (aka "the before" picture scroll to near the bottom).
Here's what they look like up close.

These home "repairs" are much more my speed then this failed attempt here.

Then I got dressed in some comfortable shopping clothes.

And this new bangle my mum gave me.

Okay I think I've said it before but the way my family shows we care is through material things.
SO on Sunday what else was there to do except shop?
We headed over to Yorkdale mall because I had gift certificates to JCrew and TopShop (courtesy of the girls you can read about that here).

So of course when you have gift cards what do you find???
Nothing.
Seriously not one thing.
That made me want to part with my precious gift cards.
Isn't that how it always goes.

So I did have a chance to pick up these things.

Compact for Shiseido Makeup, Urban Decay Eye Primer, Smashbox PhotoFinish primer, and my birthday bonus gift from Sephora a yummy vanilla cake shower gel (which I am LOVING!) and if you look really close it says "Happy Birthday Beautiful' on the bottle.

And of course my parents totally spoil me.
But this year it was a change.
I tried on these boots from Burberry....swoon!

After all if I have to suffer in the cold miserable Canadian north
I may as well do it in some fabulous boots.
And I've only been pining away for a pair of Burberry boats since forever (or this blog post).
Only when I tried them on I felt...

guilt.

Then I looked at the price tag....$440 (PLUS 13% tax).
And my dad said "get them" and I said "well let's put them on hold".

Then we went to Ann Taylor to look at full length wool coats.
After all I had to survive another Canadian winter.
And I tried on this DKNY pretty.

And again I looked at the price tag $575 (and you guessed it PLUS 13% tax).
My dad said "get it" and I said "well let's put it on hold".

And though it killed me.
I didn't get those things.
Because I need to grow up.
And sometimes these gifts come with strings attached.
So I left them all behind.
Which makes me think I need to put things on hold much more often.

But of course that doesn't mean I didn't get spoiled with other things.
Like these gloves (on sale 30% off brought them in at just $41 dollars).

They are AMAZING because they have  a little square of fabric on the index fingers and thumbs so that you don't have to take your gloves off to use an iPhone!!!!
GENIUS!
Especially because I do NOT care for these type of glove/mitten mutation monstrosities.


And then I got these fun reasonable tops from Joe Fresh.

I love this sweater because to me it is soooo Canadian.

My mum did compare it to an ugly Christmas sweater...sigh.

Oh well I still like it.

And magazines.

And FOOD, and a Christmas plant.

Food for my dog (special food because he is isn't doing great).

Chocolates.

And really that is more than enough spending and spoiling for this princess.
And you know what I made it through this years birthday (so far) without balling my eyes out like last year.  And without wishing I didn't wake up the next day.  And without such a big huge gaping hole where my heart or stomach was supposed to me.  And THAT is a massive improvement.

Pics from here here here

A Royal Invitation

So the usual bubbly happy positive Teagan would be all about the Royal Wedding.
I probably would have taken the day off work (from my temp job not my career job-that is a shoutout to you SoMidwestern!) and had a tea-party complete with hats and gloves and dresses.

I would have probably scoured all the details I could find.
I love the Royals...love the idea of everything behind it.
Probably with a slightly childish dream of being a princess.

Then my world went dark.
I will soon tell the whole story of my fairybook wedding I was planning.
To the man I was already married too.
Confused?  Well you should be but it will all come out in MyExboyfriendProject.

I was obsessed.
Well likely because I had nothing to do at all.
Just hours of boredom.
So I planned every single detail of every single thing for the September 2011 wedding.

I dragged my parents to wedding shows (Spencer couldn't come because he had his career in Florida and I was stuck in Canada awaiting my spousal/fiancee visa).
It was a mix of do-it-yourself and some over the top aspects.

My dad and I soon started the tradition over June through September of watching Say Yes to the Dress and Four Weddings on TLC every Friday night.
And then everything came crashing down.

I had to cancel all the vendors.
I remember when we booked everything thinking...gee that is terrible that they have to include cancellation policies...never thinking I would be the one to use it.

I had to make the decision to keep the wedding dress or not? (it was 75% paid for).
When I went to the Wedding Shows I had labels made up of our information so that I didn't have to fill out ballots.
I wanted to win us free honeymoons, and photography etc.

Instead all I got was put on a zillion wedding email spam lists.
So now I get DAILY emails of all the things I'm NOT planning for.
I keep trying to delete and insert filters but still get emails that sneak through daily.

So when the Royal Wedding was announced I avoided everything about it like the plague.
But the last few days it has been everywhere.
And I have to admit I love Kate Middleton's style.

I think she is beautiful and smart and elegant.
So now I'm slowly getting pulled in though it makes my heart ache for what I don't have.
So for now I will safely just admire her fashion.
And maybe just maybe I will watch the Royal Wedding...though I'm still undecided....but maybe.

Here are some of my FAVOURITE of her outfits...enough to make me crave an Issa dress of my own.

The Blue Issa Engagment dress is a DREAM!  Beautifully wrapped I am in love!

The Ivory Engagment Pic Dress is also Gorgeous...

It doesn't hurt to have a FABulous body.  I love white bikinis.

What a coincidence...a Burberry Trench (still saving for mine).

Yesterday she was out shopping in this black dress.  Classic and beautiful.

Of course...my obsession that all started with Taylor in the South...HATS!!!

And my new favourite...Fascinators...I wore one to my own pseudo-wedding.  I'm secretly hoping Kate wears one to her's.  I wore one to Jane's wedding in October and am contemplating wearing one to Eva's wedding next month.  I think they are so formal and fun.

(above is actually her sister I think).

So that is my fashion round up of Kate Middleton... my newest style love.

Day Two: Teagan and Taylor Ruin Toronto Official Trip Photo Post

~Day Two: Sunday~

We woke up slightly dehydrated and ready to get on the move.
Eva called us to see if we were on our way and we were all totally still in bed haha.
Which is enough to put Eva, Jane and Brooke into a bit of a panic so we did try to hurry,
but we were still 15 minutes late...oops!

We had a DELISH breakfast.
The coffee is great and they put cinnimon in it too!
I'm glad the girls got us there by about 10:30am or so because by 12:30pm when we were leaving the place was JAM packed!

They are know for their different eggs Benedict.



My breakfast...huge breakfast portions for $8-12.  You can make a joke about the size of side order sausage...all the girls did. 



We ordered this to split between the 6 of us.  They are known for this it takes a half hour for them to bake it.  It is all kinds of apple Cinnamon deliciousness.  We were all so full I think we each took about 2 bites.

On a bummer note I totally the night before had forgotten to ask Eva to get an overnight parking pass for her condo so we went back to her place expecting at least a $30 ticket...but when we got there we were ticket free!  Woohoo!

We headed to Yorkdale mall to do some shopping.  Taylor is the GREATEST shopping buddy.  We don't need to spend hours but still feel like we are thorough.  We got GREAT victoria secret T-shirts where were amazing.  The front says "Pink Loves Canada" and the back says "Love Pink Eh!" and they are bright pink! (And we got the same ones haha).  Then we ventured into Burberry because I needed to figure out my size (6 now we know) for my Burberry Coat goal (see here).  What was interesting is I found out that in Canada you can only buy what they have in stock.  You can't order anything into the store.  So for me who wants their long classic trench I will have to order it likely from the US (again how lucky am I to have Taylor?)  We both thought is was interesting that only the higher end trenches were carried in the Canadian stores (like the trenchs before tax are $1600+).  So it was still great because I felt like we at least nailed down a size AND learned some cute different ways to wear the trench (hello there is more than one way!!!)  So that was a success.

We then headed to the grocery store to get wine, cheese, baguette and olives for an afternoon snack in the hotel.  We pulled up to the hotel which is freaking amazing!  I am reminded every time why it is my FAV hotel in Toronto.  The hotel bathroom has HEATED floors which is a wonderful luxury.

View from our room (its Toronto and the hotel is only 4 floors)...but a pretty "Canadian" view.

Our Room!

The closet/change area between the bathroom and room area.

The amazing Marble bathroom.

We promptly changed into robes and lay in bed snacking, drinking wine and switched on E to find Keeping Up with the Kardashians (one of our great guilty pleasures)...which turned into the Red Carpet at the Golden Globes.  It was a perfect relaxing afternoon.

Note the Kardashians on TV haha.

Then we got ready to go to dinner because we had reservations at Oliver and Bonacini's Cafe Grill on Yonge and Front (right downtown).  We had at that point eaten too much cheese and bread so we decided to get something light.  So we both had salads and soup and split a bottle of Prosecco.  The soup was so freaking amazing.  It is the first mushroom soup I have ever liked because it had no cream (which I hate in soups) or butter...it was a pureed.  Inside was totally gorgeous too.  For dessert they had a Butter Tarte that was warmed.  A butter tarte is another very "Canadian thing" ...Taylor described it as Pecan Pie without the Pecans.  It was delishious! This was my first time at an Oliver and Bonacini restaurant but I would go to any of them now based on this experience between the service and food it was exceptional.

Prosecco!

Butter Tarte!

We then headed back to the hotel bar.  At first we were the only two in there.  At the most there was 10 people in there.  The bartender was AMAZING and I wanted him to be my new best friend in Toronto but how do you say that to someone?  Hey you are cool and fun to talk to and I need more friends in Toronto so can we be friends???  So no I didn't go there.  There was a total OBNOXIOUS guy that came in with a lady "friend" that waited until she went to the bathroom to buy US drinks (though we tried to refuse at least 3 times)....which made it akward when she came back from the bathroom.

He was annoying so we managed to fake finish our drinks then head up to our room...here are some pics on the way up to our room (Taylor is great at capturing little details with pictures!)

... where we promptly hung out in the bathroom...HELLO heated floors remember.  Had some great chats before heading to bed.

To be continued!