Vintage Bulimia

I've been busy around here preparing for a big yard sale on Saturday. I'm purging shit out of my house, Etsy shop and vintage mini-shop to make room for new stock and, more importantly, less crap around here. I spent last weekend cleaning out our old barn and I've gone through every drawer and closet in the house getting rid of things. I must say, as good as it feels to find cool stuff at yard sales and thrift stores, it feels even better to get rid of it. Binge, purge, binge, purge...the story of my life. In honor of all the old stuff I have hoarded and then tossed, I thought I would share with you a few pictures from my old apartment in Toronto that I lived in from 1997 to 2005. (The quality of these pics will be a bit shit because this was old school, crap digital cam technology. Just pretend I added some sort of artsy blur filter on them, k?)

Ha! Look how short those curtains are. I still loved them though so who cares. They were Capri curtains, yea...

I wish I still had that couch set. I bought it off an old creep from Craigslist for $100 and he delivered them. I did have to get a few girlfriends to carry them up to the third floor, which really sucked and they hated me for it, but they were worth it. After a couple of years they started to fall apart and I had to ditch it all. Boo!

These two pics are pretty boresville...

And then...WHAMMO! A vintage kitsch explosion!

This dude used to hang out on my back porch all the time. I couldn't even scare him away by banging a metal pole on the garbage can lid right beside his head, he'd just sit there and give me a death stare. What an asshole.

Jesus, I had coral pink walls, bubblegum pink trim and a lime green accent wall. Whoa. I have always hated pink so I'm not sure what possessed me but I did like it for the year it stayed this way. (Yikes, those lampshades sure do suck!)

Capri curtains...again..I also went through a weird plywood shelf phase...

What a barf/shit show! Although there are a few things in these pics that I still have or wish I still had, most of it has come and gone and I'm not one bit sad because of it. I have to keep reminding myself of that when I pick up the next thing I convince myself that I must have. I hate to admit it but my love for about 90% of this stuff is, and always has been, temporary. When you have the decorating bug in your DNA, everything seems to get old fast and your love quickly turns to "get rid of it, now"! So, bring on the yard sale (I'll leave out the part where I tell you that this is about the 7th or 8th sale I've had in about 4 years).

Sod Off!

When we first moved here about 2 1/2 years ago, we immediately started to do everything we could to have as little grass as possible (keep in mind, we live on almost an acre of property).  In our attempt to rid ourselves of grass, we created a 600 sq. ft. vegetable garden and 5 gigantic flower beds, plus we tried to set up a few areas of native/wild flowers to just do their thing. The problem was, we still had a lot of grass that needed to be mowed on top of maintaining so many huge areas of vegetable and flower gardens. My hands! My back! My sunburnt skin! So, after two seasons of growing vegetables, we have decided to scale it back to a few staples. Not only are we scaling back but we're trying out container gardening so we don't have to weed so much. It makes me feel like a bit of an environmental asshole to switch vegetables for grass, especially when I could remove some flowers instead, but there comes a time when you have to reclaim your life and the slavery that comes with growing your own food.

So last week, me and my 5' 2" body laid just over 60 rolls of sod over most of the vegetable patch. It took me just under 5 hours to do it all but it was tremendously rewarding. The whole time I was working though, I was thinking about the politics surrounding grass and why I felt like such an asshole for giving into it. Grass has really taken a beating in the last decade or so for being a suburban, SUV, drive-thru hamburger style of landscaping.

Sure, I could move into a condo and say screw it but condos are horrible. We could live in a house with a postage stamp sized lawn, which we have done, and mow it with a push mower that needs no gas. But this would mean moving back to the city and frankly, we're just not interested. We could just let nature run its course and have a lazy ass "native garden" and let the trees and weeds take over so it looks like Grey Gardens again. Regardless, thinking of the alternatives and the bullshit around some of this eco nonsense really made me warm up to the idea of grass again. Is it really so bad? Here's what we do to have a low maintenance and eco friendly lawn:

1. We never water it. Ever. If it dries up too bad, it will grown back when it rains.

2. We never fertilize it.

3. We never use any weed killers other than on the rare occasion when we use some vinegar on one or two prickly bastards. We usually hand pull or just mow the weeds when the grass is cut.

4. We cut the grass at a higher level than what is usually recommended.

5. We plant things like clover, creeping thyme, etc to mix in with the grass.

6. We leave the clippings on the grass to compost back into the soil.

Here's what the patch looked like when I finished it. Yes, our boxes look like little vegetable graves but who cares. It's practical and it's tucked away at the back of the yard doing its thing. 

I think grass is pretty awesome and strangely underrated. Yes, there are a lot of lawn-loving idiots out there who have ruined it for everyone with their Round-Up and fertilizer addictions but I really think that you can have a lawn, dare I say even a nice, manicured lawn, and not be an asshole as long as you find a balance of grass and other plants. Obviously I'm not breaking out of the landscaping design mold with any new trends here - no xeriscaping, no green roof on my barn, no Japanese gardens with water features - and I am more than happy with that. I just want to play badminton and have picnics and you can't really do that when there's a giant Buddha head, polished stones and coy fish in the way all the time, right?

Paws Off My Dream Car!

I'm not much of a car person, but when it comes to old, gas guzzling, inefficient classics I sometimes fantasize about having one of my very own to cruise around in. Once in a while (well, maybe about 3 times in my life) I wish I was a mechanic, even if it meant I'd be missing a few fingers and look permanently greasy. I would love to buy an old car and fix it up but without the know-how, you'd not only be an idiot but a very poor one at that. This past weekend, I went to a redneck auction where I saw this awesome little machine.

I know it was a Porsche but I don't know what kind. Let's just say it was a Porsche LOL Y2K. 

Yea, so what if it's inefficient and slightly obnoxious. I just wouldn't take it through the drive-thru or leave it idling while I was getting my a grande mocha at Starbucks, ya know?

As I walked away from this impossible (and idiotic) dream, I walked right into another. Yet this one, this aerodynamic marvel, was not only in my price range (probably $50?) but it was a true one of a kind work of art.

Holy Hannah in her underwear! This is my dream machine! Just hop on in through that flap in the side and rev that, um, puppy up!

Imagine pulling up to the grocery store in this sucker. Of course the muffler would be super loud and obnoxious and I would have to crank 'Who Let The Dog's Out' over and over again when I drove it. 

Do your friends need a lift? No problem! Just hop on the arse end of 'er and hold on tight!

Blind spots? Where? 

Aww, a girl can only dream.

Wild Asparagus (Pee)

After a yard sale run on Saturday morning, I stopped by one of my favorite (and very secret) wild asparagus patches to do some picking. I parked my car on the edge of the highway and headed up the somewhat scary, serial killer body dumping dirt road to start my search.

Now, I don't know if many of you are familiar with asparagus hunting and what you have to look for, but it is often harder to spot than you would think. It blends in with the long grasses really well so the best thing to do is keep your eyes open for the dried out stalks from the year before. 

If you're lucky, there will be some taller stalks of fresh asparagus that you can spot without having to dig around too much but most of the time you'll have to root around. (Yea, it was me, I snapped the tops off those tall suckers. Yum.)

I must say, they are somewhat penile coming up out of the ground like that.

Here's a stalk that wasn't picked in time and is just starting to go to seed. You can still pick these and eat them but they're not quite as good.

After about 15 minutes up there I managed to score this big pile of tastiness! I took it home and we steamed some and ate it with fried potatoes and a poached egg straight from the cloaca (aka vagina?) of our neighbor's chicken. Delicious!

Then, for dinner, I made a homemade pasta sauce with fresh tomatoes, a ton of garlic, more of the asparagus and some fiddleheads. I love fiddleheads as much as asparagus but I try not to talk about them too much as they make me feel a little...uncomfortably whimsical...like I should be hanging with some leprechauns while playing a harp, ya know?

This kind of looks like barf now that I look at it again but it tasted really good!

Awesome Real Life Characters: A Fine Assortment

Over the weekend, I sorted through some old photos and came across a few gems I wanted to share with all youse cyber BFFs. Now, some of them are a bit low res as they were taken on one of the first digital cameras ever invented (well, almost) so excuuuuuuuse me!

What the hell kind of anti-depressants is this guy taking!? Or maybe this car IS his anti-depressant? All I know is that this kind of positivity is NOT NORMAL. He's likely the saddest guy in the world. (I bet you he's crying hysterically in there while making that illegal u-turn).

AND THIS GUY IS DEFINITELY THE MADDEST!!!! I saw this weirdo in NYC many years ago and if my terrible memory serves me right, he wasn't actually all that crazy he was just doing some sort of awkward performance art ramblings. It does take a LOT to get noticed there (you pretty much need to have two heads and be the David Beckham of hacky sack on most sidewalks) and, even with that megaphone and freak hair, this guy wasn't making much of a dent.

Could he be any more awesome? The answer is no.

And her? This woman is my hero! Seriously, look at her! LOOK AT THAT HAT! I saw her one day on my lunch break and nearly dropped dead right there. I'm still convinced that I was the only one who actually saw her and she was just a figment of my imagination.

This guy is a modern day redneck Rapunzel!

"Excuse me while I wear a belt and a guitar strap around my naked body and pick my ass in front of you all."

Feelin' HOT HOT HOT (because of my running shoes and tube socks, of course).

Look at that guy up ahead there with his knee length khaki shorts and that stupid blue t-shirt! What the hell is he thinking dressing like that!?

I'm all for expressing yourself through fashion but sometimes...it's maybe just a bit much?

Whoa, check out the tits on her!

I'm with the Band.

Years ago, I played in a band (which I played in for years - mid 90s to early 2000s). We put out 3 (and a half) albums and made a couple of videos, 2 of 3 of which we were more embarrassed by than anything. We made one ourselves though, with our good friend Hammy, and I thought I would share it with you since I just rediscovered it today. It's weird, let's not beat around the bush now people. Let's just say it is an absurd look at a gaggle of kids living in a dump town with nothing better to do other than smoke crystal meth and wreck shit. ***Keep in mind, this is a fictional video with us acting like freaks because we're weird that way, not because we actually did meth or any other drug! I thought I should make that clear in case some of you misread my blurb thinking I was, at some point in time, a meth user or drug addict!

I would suggest clicking through on this direct link as the video is pretty teeny on here for some reason.

Depressing Public Washrooms.

Collectible Collectables for Sale.

I went out on my first yard sale run of the season on Saturday and shitballs, prices are getting steep. People, quit looking on eBay trying to price your stuff! It is a YARD SALE, not an antique store. I went to one sale and the guy was selling old leather jackets for $150 & crappy artwork that had been in a barn for 10 years for $100-150 a piece. I also went to a sale at a church and one of the guys had business cards on the table that said his job title was 'Fleamarketer'! He was selling trying to sell everything from individual screws and deadstock hand salve to 80s dangly earrings all for stupid prices. If you want to sell your stuff on the interweb go for it, otherwise screw off with your 'high end' yard sales. That being said, I did score some good deals at a few places.

See that taxidermy duck on a piece of driftwood?

He makes me sad but he's awesome. And this mid century wall sculpture thinger? I put the car up on two wheels, fist pumped and burned rubber outta there after I found it.

While I'm ranting, I want to address yard sale signs for a moment. Why do people put up such idiot signage? No arrows or basic directions, teeny tiny writing, etc. I think I saw a sign on Saturday that just might be one of the worst I've ever seen.

Can you find it? 

(Hint: It's not the big blue political sign on the right.)