A Handmade Valentine Card : Red, Black and the Printed Word

c="http://www.loulou.to/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/how-to-make-some-valentine-cards.jpg" alt="how-to-make-some-valentine-cards" width="640" height="480" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-27414 blk-brdr">Here's a card I made for each set of parents this year. I couldn't help but go with the black and red colour combination that I love so much, adding a page from an old novel for visual texture.

A Favourite Wintertime Cocktail : Nick’s Sinners’ Tea

ass="aligncenter size-full wp-image-27389 blk-brdr" src="http://www.loulou.to/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/hot-tea-and-rum-cocktail-orange-and-rooibos-teas-lemon-brown-sugar.jpg" alt="hot-tea-and-rum-cocktail-orange-and-rooibos-teas-lemon-brown-sugar" width="640" height="480">When it's cold and snowy outside, here's a cocktail that will make you feel all toasty and warm inside. It's been my favourite frosty weather drink since the day that Nick placed a warm mug of this concoction into my hands after a freezing winter walk last year.Made with rum, fresh lemon juice, brown sugar and a combination of naturally caffeine-free teas, it kind of gives you the impression that it's medicinal, regardless of whether you have a sore throat or not. It is delightfully soothing and delicious.

Dinner at the Home of Friends

On Saturday night, we were treated to a very nice dinner at the home of our friends Chops and Leslie. These two have been pals of ours for a long time, so time spent with them is familiar and comfortable.

And speaking of comfort, they just happen to have what might be the most comfortable sofa ever! Their whole home is lovely and a visit with them leaves me with an urge to paint our walls.

Friday Night Out : Comedy, Cocktails and a Scissored Snack

It had been a while since I'd been out to a comedy show, so when Meghan put word out that she was ordering tickets for The Second City, I wanted in. She, two more of her friends and I went on Friday evening.

The show we saw was called 'The Meme-ing of Life', a production first put on in 2013. It had had such a positive response that they brought it back for a 3-night limited engagement, so we caught the last staging of this particular show.

When I was a teenager, growing up in the west end, The Second City was something my friends and I would come downtown to see on a fairly regular basis. Now that I've been reminded of how much fun it is and I'm not sure why I stopped going sometime along the way. Set up as a series of skits performed by the original creators, simply saying that this show was funny would be an extreme understatement. Let's just say I had a smile on my face for the full hour and a half that it ran.

No photos were allowed in the theatre, located at 51 Mercer Street which is just east of Spadina and one block south of King St W., but I got these of the lobby.

Cooking with Friends on a Sunday Afternoon

Andrea offered to cook for us on Sunday afternoon and, of course, we said yes. Our mutual friend Isabel also joined us.

It being the heart of winter, our place was decorated with pine-cones, cotton flannel and wool. I kept some white and silver decorations out after packing away the Christmas stuff.