Jennifer Aikman is the community manager at UsedEverywhere. Making content special since the beginning of this century via Tweets, blog posts & whatever it is the kids are using nowadays.
Interested in Mid-Century modern decor? American Look, the 1958 film made by Chevrolet, will educate and inspire you . Ready to start decorating? Check out our Mid-Century Mod Pinterest page for all sorts of period furnishings and decor pinned from our Used sites across Canada.
With Christmas neatly tucked away, we can finally concentrate on everyone’s favourite winter holiday – Valentine’s Day! Okay, so maybe it’s not EVERYONE’s favourite, but like it or not, it’s here. Today! So, what do you have planned? A boring store-bought card with someone else’s poem written in it? A billion-dollar bouquet of roses? Snore. You can do better.
Valentine’s Day is the time of year to prove to your loved one that he or she is…loved. And nothing says, “ I love you,” like giving a pre-loved gift! For real. Giving a “used” Valentine gift can be very romantic. Obviously, we’re not talking about half-eaten chocolate or a mangy old stuffed animal, but there’s a certain romance to giving a gift with a little history.
Vintage jewellery comes to mind. Not only can you afford to buy a higher quality piece, but some of the older settings are so much nicer than what you find for the same price at the jewellery counter.
Sure, flowers are nice…and expensive…and they die. A book of poetry or perhaps a hand-bound romance book is much more thoughtful.
And you’re SURE your sweetheart’s going to love those novelty boxer shorts emblazoned with little hearts? Maybe he’d prefer some retro bar ware or a pocket watch that you can have engraved. At least he can show those things off to his friends.
Still not convinced? Then consider this: If you really love someone why not help preserve the planet they live on? Buying second-hand keeps perfectly romantic gifts out of the landfilI and money in your community. And if you’re looking to pitch woo to a tree hugger, you can’t get much more environmentally-friendly than that.
Or maybe don’t buy anything. Pull out some construction paper and make cards with the kids or bake some heart-shaped cookies. Go for a walk together. Share a nice meal. Be nice to each other for a WHOLE day. Sometimes a sweet nothing means a whole lot more than a costly and commercial sweet something or other.
There’s been a fair bit of buzz lately about new Transport Canada and Health Canada car and booster seat safety regulations. There’s also been a lot of confusion. Here’s a break down of the new regulations and how they may affect all of us who have kids or who drive them around.
img via Transport Canada website
As of January 1st, 2012 all car and booster seats bought and sold in Canada must meet the updated safety standards. You can read a full run-down of the new legislation on the Transport Canada website, but the major changes include new testing requirements using a three-point seatbelt to secure car seats in vehicles, changing the definition of an infant from 9 kg to 10 kg, an increase in the maximum allowable weight limit of child seats and adopting most of the U.S. testing parameters. Manufacturers were given from May 12, 2010 to meet the new regulations and while some complied immediately, others waited until the deadline.
Keep in mind that the car or booster seat you bought last month (in December 2011) may not be compliant with the new regulations. You should contact the manufacturer to find out. If your seat is not compliant and you no longer wish to use it, you should look for a recycling program or facility in your area.
These new regulations affect people buying and selling car and booster seats on the Used sites. To simplify things, we’ve removed all existing car and booster seat ads from our sites and have contacted the sellers directly. We’ve asked all sellers to contact the manufacturer to find out if the seat they’re selling is compliant and to repost the ad with the compliance information. We’ve also added an explanation in our car seat category to help inform buyers.
You want to pay careful attention when purchasing a used car seat. Here are some tips to consider:
Parents and caregivers have always had to be vigilant when buying or selling a used car or booster seat — the rules are just a little different now. If you have any questions for us, please feel free to leave a comment.
You can find more information about the regulations on the Transport Canada website and by calling Health Canada 1-866-662-0666.
(from top left to bottom right) Barbie case/dollhouse, Vintage crochet sofa cover, side chair, leather & chrome swivel base chair, Rubbermaid ice tray, vintage Windsor diamond bowl, painted vanity, mid-century vintage Metlox Vernon ware, pink diamonds dresser, Elvis collector plate, Barbie Dream Townhouse, double stainless sink, Hello Kitty hair clip, Tippy Toes Walking Doll circa 1967
Fantastic Voyage, 2011 ~ Slinkachu
UK artist Slinkachu has been capturing people’s imaginations since 2006 with his Little People Project. These teeny installations set in urban environments are incredibly detailed and thoughtful. What I wouldn’t do to stumble across something like this walking home from work…
turquoise AND a DIY? love.
Brooke over at All Things Thrifty came up with this super gorgeous DIY. Now, I just need to find a new best friend with a jigsaw and I’m set! If you try this, please brag about it in the comment section. Photos too, please!
If we ever wanted to make the case that thrift shopping online is safer than on the ground, THIS would be our PSA.
If that baby could talk, he'd tell you the pie was delicious
It’s mushroom picking season! Well, actually it could be drawing to a close depending on where you live. But here on the West Coast the hills are still alive with the sound of mushrooms. I’ve been picking wild mushrooms for a few years and I still consider myself an absolute novice. I’m pretty religious about the whole “when in doubt, throw it out” mantra. And to go one smart step further, when I’m in doubt, I don’t pick it and kill it for no reason. I stick to picking five types of mushrooms: boletes, hedgehogs, shaggy manes, horse mushrooms and chanterelles. And still I inspect very carefully as there are poisonous look-a-likes out there — false chanterelle, I’m looking at you. In short, be very, very, very careful. It’s no joke. Another thing to consider, is that some people have difficulty digesting wild mushrooms. Apparently, par-boiling mushrooms can help make them easier to digest, but I’ve never bothered and I’ve never had a problem. So, yeah. You’ve been warned. Consider this my legal disclaimer. Trust me, it wouldn’t be worth your time to sue me. You’ll have to get in line behind student loans and Columbia House.
Right, so if you’ve never picked wild mushrooms, go with someone who has. Many cities have mycological societies (mushroom clubs) that meet monthly. These groups often arrange beginner’s forays and offer workshops and lectures. I recently joined SVIMS here in Victoria and I attended my first mushroom club meeting last week. As you might expect it was an eclectic gathering — students, academics, first and second-generation Europeans and me. It was very interesting and I can honestly say I learned a lot about the Fungi Kingdom. Oh yes, there’s a kingdom.
So yeah, we went out into the woods last weekend and stumbled (literally) on to a marvelous patch of hedgehogs. Hedgehogs are a late-season mushroom, so there were quite a few of them despite the recent cold weather. And once we were on the ground plucking hedgehogs, we spied a patch of chanterelles a few feet away. Heaven! Chanterelles are selling for a bazillion dollars a pound in the stores right now. A bazillion – look it up. So, we picked and wandered and picked and wandered until our baskets were full and the sun was starting to set. It was time to head home and cook up our bounty, but not before we found five fat boletes just waiting for us to save them from the slugs! Score.
Once I saw how many tasty fungi we’d collected, I knew I wanted to make a mushroom pie. Usually we fry them up with butter and garlic and spoon them over bread. Delicious…but today we had enough mushrooms to justify a whole pie. Here’s the BBC GoodFood recipe I kind of followed :
Preheat oven to 400° F.
You don’t wash mushrooms or they get waterlogged. You just want to brush off the debris and grit. This is why I’m grateful my mushroom picking partner (and life partner, o lucky man) insists that I brush off the pine needles and soil BEFORE I toss them in the basket. It makes cleaning them go by much faster.
Once the mushrooms are clean, slice the bigger ones in to bite-size pieces and leave the little ones whole.
Yes, of COURSE a lovely homemade pâte brisée would be perfect for this recipe. But after scrambling across the forest floor for a day, I didn’t have it in me to make pastry. So, I picked up a handy-dandy package of frozen puff pastry. Besides, the recipe called for frozen pastry. True story.
My grandfather, CPL Hugh Aikman RCAF on the left with an unnamed friend
Today, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, Canadians pause and observe two minutes of silence to pay tribute to the men and women who lost their lives in military service. We remember the fallen from the First and Second World Wars, the Korean War, the Afghanistan conflict and in other peacekeeping missions around the world.
My grandfather was enlisted in the RCAF during World War II. Thankfully, for us, (he always regretted it) he never saw any battle time, but still he was never comfortable talking about the war. He would only say he made a lot of good friends and lost even more. End of conversation.
After my grandfather died, my dad was given a small collection of photos taken at the beginning of the war. In the faded photographs, my grandfather looks young and handsome and happy in his uniform. I think it’s because he looks so happy that I find the photos so sad. The smiling uniformed young man, who had only just married my grandmother, was going to see the world change. His friends were going to go overseas and he would be left behind. Many of them, possibly even some of the men in the photos, were going to die. It seems too terrible to even consider. I can’t even pretend to understand what it must have been like. I can count the people I’ve lost to tragedy on one finger. I’ve lived a privileged life and regardless of my politics or feelings about war in general, I know I have my grandfather and the men and women of his generation who sacrificed their lives to thank for many of the freedoms I enjoy.
And so, today I am going to think of my grandfather and his lost friends and of all the others from different wars and different times and I’m going to try to thank them by bringing them back to life in my thoughts. And not just for 2 minutes either. I think I can manage a little more time than that.
A complete listing of Remembrance Day ceremonies is available on the Veterans Affairs Canada website.
