I just had one of those days today. First of all I'm getting my first cold of the season (achoo!), which had to happened RIGHT before Christmas. Secondly, I had a bout of rude people in my life today.

I was at the mall to pick up a parcel my mom sent me, and it was really big an awkward. While walking from one of the mall to the other I my phone slipped out of my pocket twice and no one tried to help me grab it, so I tried to pick it up while not letting go of my package.

Secondly, the mall was crowded and people were standing in the middle of the traffic just jibber-jabbering away. I would like to give a shout-out to the one nice lady who did open the door for me on the way to my car. Getting this giant parcel in my

car was also a feat, and an old man even laughed at me while I was fighting with it to get into my car! The piece de la resistance is when I was leaving the mall parking lot and someone rear-ended me and then drove off without stopping. Thanks dude! Luckily both my car and I escaped without a scratch, but still.
[/END RANT]

OK, I feel better. luckily there was lots of things to distract me from this less-than-lovely day, like G making me a brie-cheddar-Italian sausage omelette when I got home and my fabulous re-shaped and thinned middy!

The parcel from my mom was filled with our Christmas presents, so now we have piles of presents under our tiny tree!

The other item in the box was these shoes my Auntie Val bought for me in Maui! They are so cute, I love yellow. With an insole they fit great and I'm sure they will perk me up on many a grey day.


Things that are also making me happy: I FINALLY finished my Advent calendar last night. I may not believe in Baby Jesus but I LOVE everything Christmas. The poinsettia ornament is my favourite - I keep meaning to make a larger one to glue on a bobby pin for my hair!


I also get cheered up whenever I look at these fab photos Davin took of me and G last weekend. (All photos (c) Dreaming Outdoors Photography - click to enlarge)





 I like the kissing ones because I'm not making dumb facial expressions. And here is on of my favourites - it's even my tablet background.

What do you do to cheer yourself up after a less-than-ideal day?

This is a bit of a random smattering of photos from our weekend.

First up, we did a photo shoot with our friend Davin of Dreaming Outdoors Photography. We went to the Bailey Theatre and the Camrose Railway Museum to do some fun retro photos. I'll post some more another day but this is one of my favourites:


Then we bummed around the house. I have the Christmas tree up, but I have far more decorating to do, whenever I find the time.

My poinsettia is still alive, only because G takes care of it for me.

Christmas cards!

ready for wrapping

 We eventually made our way to Edmonton to celebrate G's best friend JT's birthday. Being the wild party animal that I am, I knitted and napped while the guys played board games.

In the morning, I met up with fellow blogger Miss Bee for lunch at DaDeO's (mmm, po'boys) and antique hunting. I was able to pass off the Alex Pangman CD she won in my giveaway, while she gave me a beautiful vintage hat and some homemade Christmas baking - she is too sweet! (Also, I fail at taking photos while I'm out and about, clearly).


This is the hat, along with a beautiful camel-coloured skirt with black piping I got at the Old Strathcona Antique Mall. Matchy-matchy.


While we were out I also picked up this Gil Elvgren pin-up calendar.


And since Bailey mentioned how giant my purse was and how I can never find anything in it, I decided to do a what-is-in-my-bag post as well.

All the stuff that was in my purse today...

wallet, checkbook, gum, make-up bag, sunglasses etc

beret, ear muffs, mitts, LiveLocal pamphlet, notebooks, a reusable shopping bag

random crap: phone charger, knitting, expired coupons and receipts

AND in that make-up bag I have:

Maybe I do have too much stuff...

I love Christmas, so every week I'll be adding a new blog post about how I celebrate the season.

I'll admit, I usually bust the Christmas music before December 1. I try hard to keep away, I really do, but sometimes I can't help it. Now that it's December, the Christmas Lounge channel from SomaFM is on most of the time in my house or office (If you aren't listening to Soma, you should rectify that ASAP).

So here are some of my favourite Christmas Carols, in no particular order:

Sleigh Ride / Santa Claus' Party - Ferrante & Teicher & Les Baxter



OK, this one was in particular order. I LOVE SLEIGH RIDE. It is by far my favourite Christmas song. I bounce up and down like a three year old when ever I hear it playing (I never said I didn't have problems).
If I only had one Christmas song to listen to, it would be this one. This version is my favourite, hands down, but nearly any rendition (Big Crosby, Andrews Sisters, The Ronnettes, Squirrell Nut Zippers) will do.

Baby It's Cold Outside - Leon Redbone and Zooey Deschanel



Buddy the Elf, what's your favourite colour?
Elf is also one of my favourite Christmas movies (it stems from my sisters and I being Will Ferrell fans and watching this movie after getting sugar highs from icing cookies) and I think the entire soundtrack is ah-maaaaazing (in fact, the version of Sleigh Ride above is from Elf too). If you haven't seen the movie or listened to the soundtrack, please do. There's lots of great Christmas jazz standards on there (and Louis Prima's Pennies From Heaven, even though it's not a Christmas song).

Sleigh Bells and Wine - Jason Gleason



Even though this song is a little sad, I love it. It's so smooth and relaxing. I listened to the Santa Cause albums in college, but I usually skipped over this one because I wasn't into jazz two years ago (look at what you've done to me, G!) but it's probably one of my favorutie songs on the albums now. Except for.....

All I Want For Christmas is You - Dave Miello 



You know, I tried to listen to the Mariah Carey version. I really did. But then I threw up in my mouth, and that's not healthy.

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Darlene Love



Another Christmas album that I love is A Christmas Gift For You from Phil Spector and I could pick out a few more songs from there, but this list is starting to get pretty long. I just love Love's emotion in this song (also, it makes me giggle because I think about the SNL digital short she was in, but that's for another day. In fact, SNL Christmas could be its own blog post, I think).

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So that's my list! I wanted to keep it fairly concise, but it could have been about 10 times as long. I have some great Christmas music (or so I think) so if anyone wants to raid my collection, give me a shout!

xo LC

I normally don't shop for myself around this time of year (unless it's winter tires or dental work, it seems) BUT since I got a huge haul from my sponsor Imagine Vintage, it doesn't really count, right? Right. (Besides, I'm about halfway through my Christmas shopping I think, which is rare for me at the end of November).

Miss Bee!


Congrats B! I've already sent you an email, so please give me a shout and I can send you the CD.
You may notice that I did the draw out of 3 instead of 5, but that was because I only had three valid comments (they other two did not leave contact info). I was really hoping for more entries, but c'est la vie!

I have a few blog posts coming up once it's December all revolving around Christmas, which is my FAVOURITE time of year. They'll only be once a week so as not to totally make you sick of the season.
I've already started listening to Christmas music (I tried to hold out, I swear) but G and I won't decorate the house until Dec. 1.

I hope you are all keeping warm out there as it starts to get colder. We had a big snow dump here but then it warmed up - meaning that the streets the city didn't plow (basically every residential street) is now mush. Good thing I got my snow tires on when I did!

xo Laurie

Penelope Garcia and Dr. Spencer Reid are both great retro/vintage style icons. I love that there are two characters on this show that have a nerdy, retro, vintage feel in their clothing (and attitude towards technology in Reid's case). I love the show (I have a weird fascination with serial killers, totally normal -I read this awesome book on female serial killers) and Redi and Garcia are the onyle ones who have style. Everyone else just dresses so bland and professional (Yes, I know they are FBI agents, but puh-leeze, would a little colour kill you?).

Hell, Reid even carries an old school revolver and refuses to use a tablet - he's just old school because he is like an old man trapped in a young dude's body. And Garcia surrounds her self with fun, colourful stuff because of all the bad sh*t they have to deal with day in and day out.

And without further ado, the pictorial! There are probably more photos of Reid than Garcia because it was hard to find Garcia ones because everyone is gaga over Reid (myself included. ALSO - G totally looks like Reid/MGG. He denies, but it's totally there. And I loved G before I loved Criminal Minds, FYI).

Photo credit: FanPop, one or two I had to Google to get specific images.

Penelope Garcia (played by Kristen Vagness) 

Garcia AND Reid. Look, you get a twofer right off the get-go.

She's always got cute stuff in her hair.

This is just to show off her house (note the old-school film projector and the awesome brick work). Also, long haired Reid!

Dr. Spencer Reid (played by Matthew Gray Gubler)
aka the part where I feel like an icky fan girl

Is this not G? I mean, come on!

In closing, I am off to buy more cardis and skinny ties for G.

Have a lovely weekend dear readers and ENTER MY GIVEAWAY! Come on, it's a free CD! Puhleeeeeze!

Last night I went to the Sugar Swing Remembrance Day dance, featuring the lovely Alex Pangman!
I actually got an email last week from the artiste herself inviting me out, so I couldn't not go. G had to work, so I recruited my friend Nicole as my date as we got all dolled up 40s style.

This is what I wore to work, but changed after I got to Nicole's - there was a small rip in the underarm seaming and I didn't want to make matters worse by dancing in it, but it was so cute and really comfy! I wish I could have worn it *sigh*


Nicole bought the Beverly dress from Heartbreaker - I love love love this dress. I am so jealous. It looks amazing on her, no?



So we went to Sugar Swing. They hold dances every Saturday where you can pay $2 extra and get an hour long lesson. G and I went on my birthday and they taught the Lindy Hop, which I could not get for the life of me. This time they taught the Charleston, which I caught on to a little quicker. I didn't really dance the rest of the nice (no one asked me, sadface) but I did mull around and take photos (can't take the girl out of the newspaper biz).





And I met another local (well, Edmonton-local) vintage blogger! I spotted Miss Bailey in her snood (from Arthelia's Attic) and couldn't help but chat with her and snap a photo of her for my blog. It's always really nice to talk with someone who wears vintage/vintage inspired on a more regular basis than just events.

And when the band went on break I went over and introduced myself to Alex to thank her for inviting me. We ended up chatting back stage about hair woes and dresses for a few minutes - she was so sweet!

I loooooooove her dress.

Alex was so sweet in fact that she signed a copy of her newest album to give away on the blog!






Alex Pangman '33' giveaway, open to readers world-wide!
To enter:
1. Comment on this blog post, simple as that.
2. Mention this blog post on Facebook, tell me in a comment and link to the post/screenshot.
3. Mention this blog post (and me @laurie_callsen) on Twitter, tell me in a comment and link to the post/screenshot.

You can enter once, twice or thrice! Just make sure if you do more than one you comment for each entry so I can count you. Please include some way to get a hold of you quickly.

This contest is open to anyone, family and G excluded because I just don't think that would be fair.

Contest will close Monday, November 21 at 11:59 pm, and I will make the draw and announce the winner the next day. Good luck to all!