Featured Shop : Kid Icarus in Kensington Market

As mentioned in my last post, Julie, her cute baby son and I recently spent a lovely afternoon together in Toronto's Kensington Market, during which she introduced me to a shop that has now become a firm favourite -- Kid Icarus -- located at 205 Augusta, on the east side just north of Dundas, across from that little park.

Hanging Out with Sweet Baby James and his Mom

I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with this beautiful baby boy and his mom Julie.

James is six months old now, and as cute as can be, ready with lots of big smiles and not a single tear shed the whole time we were together, in spite of just beginning to teeth. In a word, the child is adorable.

Our plan was to wear our comfortable shoes, meet at my place, and then walk somewhere from there -- given a few choices of interesting destinations, Julie thought a visit to Kensington Market would be fun and, considering it's one of my favourite parts of the city, I readily agreed. So off we went, with James fast asleep in his stroller.

We did a bit of browsing in the shops, including a new-to-me one that Julie recommended, called Kid Icarus. I'd never gone in because I'd wrongly thought it was a store for children's things. Turns out it's an excellent place, which I won't discuss further now, because my next post is going to be a feature all about it.

Goings On About the Garden : Spring 2016

Hi! Here's a "Bits and Pieces" type of post, about what's been going on outside around here over the past few weeks.

I'll begin with the part that took no effort on our part this year -- the spring perennials -- they were quite lovely, with lots of tulips, lily of the valley, periwinkle, violets and lilacs.

Also, after skipping a year last year, three ornamental onion bulbs that I'd planted a few autumns ago surprised us by blooming beautifully.

An Evening out with Isabel : The Royal Conservatory Concert Season Launch

I realize it's only been a few weeks since I posted (here) about The Royal Occasion event hosted at Koerner Hall by The Royal Conservatory of Music, but hey, I was there again on Tuesday after my friend Isabel, who works at the conservatory, invited me to the launch party for their 2016-2017 Concert Season, so here's another post about this beautiful venue.

The evening began with a presentation inside the hall, where we were told about all the exciting concerts scheduled for the next year. Between the talking, we were treated to some wonderful performances, including a piano piece played by prodigy Rosina Grieco, a jazz trio led by saxophonist Allison Au, a song enchantingly performed by Jaffa Road, and a couple of opera pieces by soprano Monica Whicher and pianist Rachel Andrist.

Tickets for the many shows on the roster will be sold beginning on June 17th for members of the conservatory, and then for anyone beginning on June 24th. You can see the complete listing on their website.

Drugstore Beauty Department Finds

Here are some things I got on a couple of recent "point-spending" shopping trips at Shoppers Drug Mart. As mentioned in previous posts like this one, they have an excellent points program and I like to save them to use on products in the beauty department. This way I get to try out things I might otherwise not purchase.

Shopping-sprees using Shoppers Drug Mart points certainly are fun and leave me highly motivated to shop there on a regular basis for many of our daily needs, including some food items. And, it's not like you have to spend loads to get enough points because they often give significant bonus points if you spend a certain amount on pretty well anything in the store on particular days, so your points add up very quickly if you plan when you shop. You are informed of these bonus days by being on their email list and access them by loading them to your card via their website.

Now, of course, while their points program results in free things, nothing is really free, right? I am aware that the reason they have the program, in addition to encouraging us to spend our money there, is to track everything we buy and use that information in a way that benefits them. But, I see not reason to be concerned if they track what I'm buying, and on the whole, I find that their prices are reasonable and in-line with other similar retailers, and pretty well everything goes on sale regularly. So, if you plan it right you can really save a lot of money there, as well as earn the points.

Note that I am merely a fan of Shoppers and their point program and have not been hired by them to publish the "Drugstore Beauty Department Finds" posts that I do. Yes, I got this stuff for free, but it was because of their points program and not because they sent it to me for review or anything like that.

So, on with the goods!

Starting with a new brand here in Canada -- Joe Fresh Makeup -- that I believe is only sold at Shoppers, Lablaw's and Joe Fresh Stores :