sorrow

I know I should probably write something happy and uplifting with it being Monday and all. You know, the whole beginning of a new week kind of thing...
Unfortunately, I don't really feel very happy tonight.
I really try to keep this blog a happy place for myself and others and I don't write very many posts like this one. It is hard for me to write posts about my feelings and views because somewhere on the inside I fear judgement and disinterest.
However, today I want to share about one thing that has really brought me down this weekend. One that will probably haunt me for a few more days to come.

Sunday started off well with the sun actually peeking through for a few too short minutes in the morning and a happy toddler that did not seem much affected by the one hour time change. We headed out to pick up an order for a friend from a store and get groceries. We had a good time doing these very mundane things just enjoying being together as a family. On the way home I checked my phone and found out that a little boy, barely much older than Logan, had fallen 11 feet down into the painted wild dog exhibit at the Pittsburgh Zoo and tragically been mauled to death.
The same exhibit we just visited not even two weeks ago on the most beautiful warm and sunny autumn day.

I remember a time where surely I found stories like this sad and unsettling but could easily move on from it. These days, stories like this bring me to tears, they make me feel sick to my stomach and make me want to squeeze my baby and not ever let him go. It is another one of those things that make me realize how much becoming a mother has truly changed me. How love can bring us so much joy and suffering at the same time.

So many nights I go to bed thinking about the chance of losing my baby, which makes me sick to my stomach and feel crazy to even mention to anyone I am close to. It makes me wonder if I'm the only one who can't shut off these horrible imaginings her brain comes up with and whether it is normal to have such thoughts? I keep thinking that it must get better once he isn't so tiny anymore. No?

I can only imagine what these parents must be going through right now. It appears that the mother was holding the child up on the barrier where he wiggled out of her grip and fell into the exhibit.
Now of course it is never a good idea to put your child in such an unsafe situation but some of the comments I have read from people on facebook and other places online just make me shake my head in awe as to what insensitive and truly hurtful things people feel the need to share with a mother and father who have just lost their child in such an awful way.

This is a horrible and truly unimaginable pain for someone to have to go though that I do not wish upon  anyone. Let us not judge and place ourselves above these parents but remember the young life lost in this tragic accident. If you don't have anything kind to say then just don't say it at all.

I am sorry if I have just made your Monday a little sad and unhappy. I promise to keep the rest of this week light as it usually is. I just needed to share my thoughts and feelings on this tragedy and how it has affected me. Thanks for understanding :)

500 Follower Giveaway!!!

Friends, today i want to say thanks. I am so happy i surpassed the 500 follower mark :) and to celebrate I am hosting a nice big giveaway for you all!!!
I am very grateful to all of the lovely ladies who are generously sponsoring these giveaways and hope know you will go visit their blogs/shops and leave them some love :)

There are so many fabulous prizes to win you will want to enter all of them!
Please make sure to complete the mandatory entries and unlock some bonus entries for an even better chance at winning.
I would also love and be very grateful for anyone of you willing to give a little shout-out about this giveaway through your blogs or social media.

Thanks a bunch and Good Luck!!!
You're the best readers ever :)

First up we have 3 Head Wraps from Haley at Bloom by HaleyAnne. 

3 wraps means 3 winners :) 

Go check out her Etsy shop here.

US residents 18 or older only! 

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The lovely Christin and Mel at Spread The Love are offering one of their 2013 Dutch Calendars up for grabs.  This is an actual print and not a digital file :) 

You can also follow their blog Turtle Bunny Love.

US residents 18 or older only! 

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So I am extremely jealous that I can't win this Handpainted Driftwood Jewelry Holder from Ashley at ThisFictitious myself!! How absolutely gorgeous is it? Ashley's shop is brand new and I want everything in it. Go check it out here or follow her blog here! 

US and Canada residents 18 or older only! 

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Next we have $30 to Gage Huntley Designs. Check out Amanda's website and fall in love with just about everything she creates.
Thank you for giving my readers another great chance at winning some GHD swag Amanda!

US and Canada residents 18 or older only! 


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One of my favorite girls, Mandy at This Girl's Life is kind enough to give away this unique Wooden Bead Bracelet from her etsy shop Love Squirrels.

US residents 18 or older only! 

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The adorable Lissa at the Looking Glass wants you to be one of her featured ad (200x300) sponsors for an entire month. That's some great exposure for your blog or business!!

Open to everyone 18 or older :)

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Lovely Amy at The Charming Blog and Charming Life Studio is giving away any 8x10 print from her shop as well as $15 worth of ad space on her blog.

US and Canada residents 18 or older only! 

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And lastly you can win $30 to Outfit Additions for some awesome jewelry and accessories of your choice. Visit them here.
This giveaway will end this Friday at midnight EST so don't wait :)

Open to US residents 18 or older only!

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All giveaways (except for Outfit Additions) end at midnight EST on Sunday November 11th.
Winners will be notified via email and will have 48h to claim their prize or a new winner will be selected. For full terms&conditions please see rafflecopter widgets.

GOOD LUCK!!!

recipe: cauliflower crust pizza

you lovely instagram friends have asked for it, so here it is. 

a very simple recipe for cauliflower crust pizza. yum! 

for the crust:

one whole head of cauliflower
2 - 2.5 cups of mozzarella cheese, grated (or whatever cheese you prefer)
3 eggs
dried basil
optional: garlic

prepare two cookie/baking sheets by overing them with parchment paper and lightly spraying with cooking spray.

grate the entire head of cauliflower into a large bowl. you could also use a food processor for this.
grate the cheese into the bowl as well, add the eggs and sprinkle in as much basil as you like.
stir everything together well with a wooden spoon.

now divide your "dough" evenly between the two baking sheets and use a pancake turner or something similar to pat it down flat.

bake at 450 degrees for about 10-13 minutes.

now prepare your toppings

I like to just add some marinara sauce, mushrooms, zucchini, onions, spinach and cottage cheese (instead of ricotta). Just depends on what I have on hand. Mix some more basil into the cottage cheese too to make it more flavorful.

when the crust is done, add your toppings and place back into the oven for another 5-8 minutes. Just keep an eye on it so it doesn't get burned.

that's it! super easy and a great way to get some vegetables in your kiddos ;)

500 follower giveaway going up tomorrow!! don't miss it :)

a sweater love affair

 

sweater: old navy (last year), t-shirt: made it here, pants: unionbay, socks: sockdreams.com, boots: timberland

i have a serious love affair with this sweater. it started when we met in the clearance section of old navy last winter, went through a brief little break-up for a few months because it got sweaty and now we have officially rekindled our love with more passion than ever before.

ok that was ridiculous I know! you didn't stop me though...

i am currently listening to what is supposedly this awful frankenstorm but in all honesty, it's not that scary at all. maybe i will regret typing these words when sandy rips me out of bed at 3 am? we will see...

and to add to today's randomness: we bought a new washer on sunday and for some reason jason couldn't be more excited about it. seriously, all his idea and now he keeps interrupting my important thoughts here with details from the owner's manual. the thing isn't even here yet.

our current machine is a trusty 1981 maytag top loader, which I will be kind of sad to give up for this high-tech, 274 button, flashing lights and melodies playing front loader. i am serious about this one. 

buuuut I am looking forward to sparkly clean, bright whites and hopefully kick those messy toddler induced stains in the butt. 

i also learned that my husband has never seen or heard of the movie the last unicorn!! yeah!

so now i am seriously rethinking this whole marriage thing...

haha j/k! 

ok, that's all for my randomness today. you are welcome :) 

toronto

as we prepare for whatever madness (or maybe none) frankenstorm will bring us here in western pennsylvania, I am going to share a few more pictures from our trip to toronto a couple of weeks ago.

we had a ton of fun and found toronto to be a very diverse and highly entertaining city with lots to do.
the weather was better than expected for most of the trip and we walked everywhere so I can't say much about the public transportation system, even though it seemed there were many options including a small metro system, busses and PATH (an underground network of walkways that connect different buildings, shopping and points of interest).
unfortunately, there was a ton of construction going on downtown which made it a little more difficult and unpleasant to walk sometimes, nothing to really complain about though. i'm just glad I don't have to deal with the rush hour traffic there on a daily basis.

we stayed at the westin harbour castle which was nice overall. the only let downs were that they charge $30 a night for a refrigerator!! (which we obviously declined) and also didn't offer a few of the amenities they had listed in their info booklet in the room. we had a fairly large room with a view of lake ontario and enough space for the pack'n'play logan slept in.

i caught a light cold on the way up the day before so our first day in toronto we explored the city and had a wonderful brunch at a small place called le petite dejeuner on king street east.
they were very welcoming and even had a booster seat for logan to sit in. the chef sent out a delicious waffle on the house, which he devoured and made for a very happy babe the rest of the meal.

we took a stroll through the distillery district, a village of brick-lined streets with dozens of restored victorian industrial buildings that house everything from bakeries to shops, art galleries, fashion and jewelry boutiques and restaurants. we got some coffee and tea to brace against the cold and couldn't resist the freshly baked goods at brick street bakery. the spiced apple loaf was to die for!

since I wasn't feeling 100% and we hadn't expected the wind to be so chilling, we went back to the hotel and took a nice long family nap before heading back out to check out the massive amount of downtown shopping at yonge street and the eaton centre. we also got some dinner at wait for it... red lobster. yeah, I guess we were a little out of it that night and in walking by the restaurant were overcome by a sudden craving for large portions of seafood as a result of our lack of advanced dinner planning. it was safe, it was good and we all left with full bellies.
they did not serve unsweetened iced tea so I went for sweetened and ended up with the nestea kind.
a canada thing maybe?

the next day I had pretty much planned to walk from to hotel through the entertainment district and out queen street west where you will find a ton of fabric stores, jewelry/beads suppliers mixed in with the occasional urban outfitters, american apparel and lots of small coffee shops, bars and restaurants.
we had another wonderful brunch at a place called niche coffee and tea company. the walk there took us almost an hour which was a little more than I had anticipated and we were pretty much starved by the time we got there. logan was slightly unhappy hence that wonderful shot of him above came into being. that unfortunately caused me to pass up every single one of those wonderful fabric and supply shops. such a bummer. (next time toronto, next time!)

after brunch we made our way to china town and explored kensington market - a haven for vintage lovers. again, I wish I would have had more time to shop around at all the different shops but had to limit myself. we let logan play at one of the many parks you will find strewn throughout the city and admired chased the many black squirrels that were running around everywhere.

from here we moved on through the university of toronto campus and up to bloor street which is the toronto mecca for high end fashion. on the way back we veered off of busy yonge street and took the alternate route through the lgbt-oriented church and wellesley neighborhood, made a stop at allen gardens to chase more squirrels and make friends with a few dogs, and down to st.lawrence market to check out all of the delicious food. we spotted a few restaurants on the way back to the hotel and ended up having dinner at fionn mac cool's pub on the esplanade, where it was trivia night and we had the nicest server. their tikka chicken masala boxty was delicious and made me long for more indian food in my diet.

the next morning, on our way back home we had one last brunch at lady marmalade which came highly recommended by the lovely toronto resident ana over at bluebird kisses. go check out her blog full of inspiration, parenting adventures and mostly to admire that cute and fashionable little johannes.
thanks so much for sharing this little gem with us ana! we loved it there and our bellies were filled for the 6 hour drive back home. it was a great way to end a much too short trip to toronto and we will definitely be back to explore more of this wonderful city.


on a completely different note: I will be having a huge giveaway this week to celebrate getting to 500 followers :)) I am so excited to have so many wonderful readers and you deserve to win some amazing prizes. as long as the storm doesn't have other plans for us it is likely to go up on wednesday so make sure to stop back!

also, the outfit additions giveaway is still on until friday night and you should totally enter for a chance to win $30 in jewelry from them. can't wait? order and save 25% off with code FORGE25.

yay!

giveaway: outfit additions

it is giveaway time folks! a generous $30 gift certificate to outfit additions will go to one lucky reader out there :)

all you need to do is follow these easy steps:

you have to be a legal US resident at least 18 years or older with a valid US shipping address. 

for your main entry:
visit outfit additions and leave a comment on this post letting us know which item you like best + follow The Forge via GFC (you have to do both to be eligible to win!) 

this will unlock a bunch of other ways you can enter for a higher chance of winning :) 

also, the 25% off code has been extended through the end of the giveaway :)) use code FORGE25 at checkout! 

good luck! 

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it that shall not be named

jacket: jcrew, shirt: ae, denim: ae, boots: ralph lauren

you may be asking yourself if you've possibly seen me wear this before. maybe.

no? great :) 

yes? well, I guess that would have been as part of a post I did for lovestitched last week. 

unfortunately the "nasty sickness I don't really want to remember or experience ever again" bug hit us all over the past weekend and as much as I have been dreaming about actually getting dressed and trying to look decent, it just hasn't happened yet. 

i am so glad that chubby little babe of mine ended up with the lightest case of the unspeakable because mama and dada where in no good shape to take care of his recuperated and fully energized little self properly. not kidding - i couldn't stand up for more than a minute at a time on sunday. 

it's times like these I am truly thankful for a mother in law that braved the threat of contamination to come over and give us the much needed break we needed. 

thank you j's mom, we love you!!! 

ps: the 25% off coupon code for outfit additions FORGE25 ends at midnight EST tonight so don't miss out on this great offer :))