So it seems that the whole summer blogging thing really went to the dogs hey?

So to mark my return to regularly scheduled blogging, I thought a dog themed post would be appropriate.

My husband's favourite filmmaker is Wes Andersen, and he has spent many hours watching and rewatching this man's works. So when it came time for us to name our new puppy a few years ago, it wasn't surprising that he turned to those films for inspiration. And so now we have our Margot, named after Margot Tenenbaum from The Royal Tenenbaums.

I have always wanted to get a painting commissioned of Margot, and am forever saving links to artists who I might want to contact eventually. Then earlier this week, I read this post by Jenny, who not only wrote about a great dog portrait painter, but also reminded me of Richie Tenenbaum's art wall, which was full of portraits of his sister.

It was then that I decided that I wanted to pay a further homage to the film, and make a little art wall of portraits of our Margot. I will keep you up to date on the progress. In the meantime, here are some artists who I would love to have make paintings for us.

Robert Clarke

Tali, who has etsy shops here and here:

Lisa Brawn:

These two tiny house have me thinking a lot about what space we really need for living. Both are roughly the same tiny square footage, but both have dealt with the interior in vastly different ways.

This beautiful little Victorian retreat in the Catskills is a great example of what you can do with a space so tiny, and yet fill it with personality.

Sandra Foster took an old 9' x 14' hunting cabin and hunted throughout upstate NY to find salvaged materials to use in it transformation. Old wavy glass windows, screen doors, and handmade scroll trim were all added to the existing structure to create this sweet little Victorian sanctuary. More amazing is the fact that she did all the work herself, and it cost her a whopping total of $3000.

Crystal chandeliers, billowy white textiles, and stacks of old books and china were the final touches to add that sublime and romantic feel. I'm sure that stepping into this place is like stepping into a fairytale. You can see more at the New York Times.

Or there is the opposite approach.

This 130 square foot cabin called the Signal Shed was designed by architect Ryan Lingard to sit in the wilderness near Joseph, Oregon. It was designed as an affordable and sustainable shelter, to meet all the basic needs of an outdoor adventurer. It can be used year round, and is complete with a wood fired stove and portable toilet.

The house is built on a raised platform, so as to disturb the site as little as possible. It is built of entirely wood, with a cedar siding and shutters to close in all the windows during colder months. Total cost for the shelter itself was only $10,000. Not too bad for a fully functioning home away from home.

The interior of this cabin is very utilitarian, with wood floors and plywood finished walls. Can you see they are even eating off of slices of tree trunks as plates? It's very basic and simple. Sunset has more pictures and info here. You can even buy the plans if you want to build a shelter of your own.

So which would you choose?

Last fall my sister and her boyfriend moved into their first home, a small townhouse style condo. At the time we had great thoughts of decorating, but time and money prevented us from doing much. Tomorrow morning she boards a flight to Mexico, to spend a week on the beach. And my mum and I have some grand plans of our own.

My sister talks of decorating, but she has never seemed to find the energy to follow through with her ideas. So we are going to sneak in and get it going. We've decided to make over their bedroom while they are away!

My sister would love the room to be a dark grey colour, so that is our jumping off point. She is very feminine and I would love to do a ridiculously girly room for her, but her boyfriend would not really appreciate that I think. While I would love to do grey with great pops of magenta, I think we will stick with a bright turquoise and other touches of blue, to help make the colour scheme more friendly to them both. So I turned to Domino for some inspiration:

I think you will find that the common theme with these images is a very tonal palette of blues and greys. As they are a young vibrant couple, I want to punch up some of the colour saturation and contrast, and make it a bit more playful. I can't wait to get started.

Image Courtesy of Roz Savage

Earlier this week I tweeted this, after hearing an interview on CBC radio:

Heard a story on the radio about woman who wrote two obituaries for herself. She changed her life to make it like the more exciting one.

I wanted to tweet it so I would remember it for later, but really that tweet barely summed up anything, which is the problem with 140 characters, I guess. So here's the full story.

The woman is Roz Savage, and at the age of 34, she was a management consultant and an investment banker. While on a train that year, she wrote two obituaries for herself. One was a reflection of the life she was currently headed for, and the other was her dream obituary. She realized that while she really wanted to fulfil the dream obituary, her current life was headed in the opposite direction. So she made a drastic change.

And now, almost 10 years later, she has become the first woman to row solo across both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans with plans to row the Indian Ocean next year. She has written books about her adventures, and is also in demand as a motivational speaker. She's also taken up running, and has run both the London and New York marathons, placing in the top 2%.

You can read more about Roz and her incredible story here.

These are some links I've found over the last couple of weeks that I kept meaning to share, but somehow forgot about.

Days with my Father

A photo journal by a man about his elderly father. Very beautiful. via @lushpad.

Fools Rush In by She and Him

Levi's Jeans have invited several artists to record some of the music that inspires them. This is my favourite, but all of the recordings are great.

Sophia Coppola's new film, Somewhere

I love the direction of Sophia Coppola's films, and this one is no different. I love the soft etherial quality they all have. Plus, she does killer soundtracks. Can't wait to see this.

Tandoori Spiced Halibut Filets

by Gordon Ramsey of course. I've had the tandoori paste in the fridge for weeks now, and we are still using it for different things. So good and easy for a summer evening meal.

I didn't document our Portland food adventure as well as I did in Seattle, so I'm just going to focus on the highlights. Prior to our holiday, we did a bit of research into places to eat. We went to the James Beard Foundation website, who give out the most prestigious culinary awards in the US, in search of some chefs that might interest us.

The first restaurant the intrigued us was Beast, namely because 'beast' is actually one of our pet names for each other. awww.

Beast is run by chef Naomi Pomeroy, who was nominated for Best Chef in the Northwest in this past years James Beard Awards. Each week, Beast prepares a new six course prix-fixe menu, so each time you go, you will have a truly unique experience. The restaurant only seats about 30 people, so the reservations are set for two times during the evening, with everyone seating at two large farm tables, all being served at the same time. It felt like a simple and exquisite dinner party.

We can brag and say that we had the best seats in the house, sitting at a large table facing the open kitchen and plating area, with no one sitting across from us to obscure the view. It was fabulous. Here you can see Naomi preparing for the next service.

It was really great to get to watch the team prepare and assemble all the food and makes you appreciate how much work goes into some of the plates. The courses consisted of a soup, charcuterie, meat, salad, cheese, and desert. The charcuterie was easily one of the most impressive things I have ever seen and eaten. As they were doing the plating, we were mesmerized watching them keep adding all the little details. It made the actual eating part so exciting and memorable, as we were filled with so much curiosity and wonder watching them assemble it all.

Overall, it was an amazing meal and an amazing experience, and I was so happy we made the effort to seek out such a great place. And the best part? It cost only $60 a person for the food. For six courses. Correction. Six of the most amazing and decadent courses that I will remember for a long time. Loads of admiration to Naomi for what she has done and continues to do. So many restaurants could learn so much from her simple appreciation and love for food.

So while at Beast, we got to chatting with the party next to us, who eventually asked why we had chosen to eat there. When we mentioned James Beard, he told us about another Portland treasure that we had to try, which was the onion rings at the Ringside. Apparently James Beard himself said they were the best onion rings in the US. So we indulged. And they were delicious.

And that brings us to another great restaurant. Le Pigeon was actually right next to our hotel, which was funny, because a friend had recommended it to us. The name also sounded familiar to me, and that's because it's chef, Gabriel Rucker, was also nominated for a James Beard award for Best Chef in the Northwest.

We risked going without a reservation, and they shuffled some space and accommodated us immediately. Off to a great start. I have to say that we sat down here only a couple of hours after we had shared that huge onion ring basket, so we weren't hungry at all, but when in Rome, or Portland in this case...

Again the room was homey and simple, focusing all the attention on the tiny open kitchen and the sumptuous plates of food being passed from it. The food was largely classically inspired, with some twists thrown in, as Rucker is known for taking great risks with his food. Portland is known for so many great restaurants and their commitment to utilizing local and sustainable products, and it has created this amazing creative culinary scene.

The standout from this meal was the Lamb's Tongue, which Dave ordered as his starter. It was easily one of the best things I have ever tasted. I wish I had paid more attention to it when I was eating it, because everyone has asked what the texture was like, or how the meat itself tasted. I just remember wanting to remember that mouth watering morsel forever and being blown away that a tongue could taste like that.

Unfortunately, at the end of the meal we were too stuffed to try their Honey, Bacon and Apricot Cornbread and Maple Ice Cream. I've found a recipe here, but maybe someday I'll get to go back to give it a try. I sure hope so.

In between our times in Seattle and Portland, we spent 3 days camping along the Oregon Coast. If you haven't been, please put it on your list of things to do. It is a stunning place to visit. And as my husband would want me to point out, both The Goonies, and Kindergarten Cop were filmed there. So that should definitely encourage you to go.

See. It's great.

And at the outlook at this trip, I looked at my life list and thought of a couple things I could tackle. Sadly, ziplining didn't fit into our schedule. But something equally good did.

Beer Drinking.

I will preface this by saying that I am not a beer drinker in general. And that's kind of why I chose beer for the life list. To try and see if there are any out there that I did like.

Unfortunately, or fortunately for this story, we were tackled by a storm one night. Not wanting to waste the night away shut up in our tiny tent, we drove up to Newport to find a place where we could spend a few hours. And we came upon this little place, Rogue Ales Public House. It has received a lot of awards. We were impressed.

With my list in mind, I ordered a sampler, so I could taste as many of the beers as possible.

We have here (from left to right): St Rogue Red, Dead Guy Ale, Shakespeare Stout, and the Chipotle Ale. The Chipotle was the best from that batch.

Here I am drinking the Shakespeare Stout. It tasted a lot like espresso to me.

Here's the other great thing. When you sit down, they give you a taster beer of their special, so I also tried the Double Dead Guy. And I tried my husband's beer, which was the Golden Belgium Strong. So that's 6 microbrews down!

FYI, I also had a pint of the pear cider, which was sooo good. If you can ever get your hands on a bottle of it, buy a case.

All done.