And then I started to shriek like a little girl, because I literally couldn’t contain my excitement for my hedgehog meeting.

He was delightful! He was literally quite prickly at first, but his owners had spent a lot of time socializing him and when he got used to the new person smell he was very curious and cuddly. He was surprisingly quick on the ground and  was very adamant about not having his things taken away from him- and when he was upset he curled up tightly and huffed!

It was all far too cute for me to handle.

So he may be a little moody, but it’s pretty much decided that we’re running away together. Have you seen his button nose? How could I resist!

I love the etiquette notes and vintage ads the best.

Relationship Advice from the 1930s:

“Above all, do not run off and tell anyone about a difference of opinion between you and your husband – do not take it seriously. Don’t forget to smile. Kindness, patience, good temper, and good sense will always win and they build that trust and love that endures when everything else passes away. Avoid the first quarrel. Don’t have it. Do not quarrel. Stay away from it, he means well and so do you.”

It’s packed full of recipes for drinks, doughnuts and five course meals. There’s a guide on how to tell what kind of man your husband is, instructions on how to manage your household budget, and charts on how much sunshine your baby should get in a day.

I love flipping through it, but all I can say is thank goodness for the internet age. I don’t think I’d last an afternoon in this world ;)

There’s something about the summer that just bubbles over, and when festival season starts you know that sweet time you’ve waited for all year is finally here. From folk music to theatre, food, and culture July and August can leave you breathless in the best way.

This past week was crazy- I almost finished a new hot pink cowl with the help of my new friends at knitting night, Mister was away on business which made for an interesting juggling of chores and puppies and work, and all of my friends who moved away in the past few years were back in town and catching up over wine on my deck. It was one of those weeks where by the start of the weekend I was ready to curl up and sleep for days… only who can sleep when there’s a theatre festival on??

I collected Mister from the airport and we headed downtown to wander through the endless pop-up shops while bumping into old theatre friends, and eating the most delicious cake (called cakettes) that I’ve ever had in my life from a shop called Cakeology. The graffiti outside the shop doesn’t do it justice at all – it needs at least a hundred more yum’s.

This weekend was a reminder of what makes life really delicious: old and new friends, cheap & tasty Indian food, and reuniting with the people who know you best.

Oh, and cake for breakfast when you need it :)

]]> http://www.kylaroma.com/2010/07/the-delicious-kind/feed/ 35 http://www.kylaroma.com/2010/07/the-kitchen-garden/ http://www.kylaroma.com/2010/07/the-kitchen-garden/#comments Wed, 14 Jul 2010 09:00:01 +0000 Kyla Roma http://www.kylaroma.com/?p=4457 Last year was our first full summer in the little house, and since we had a little time for a weekend project we decided to put in a vegetable garden. Mister built four four foot by three foot plots, we grabbed mulch and compost and soil, and built a little place for me to grow veggies and herbs.

Kitchen gardens hold a special place in my heart. I love how old fashioned and relentlessly practical they are, and growing up my Baba’s garden was one of my favourite places. I loved pulling out peas and carrots for snacks, and when I was really small I would hide under her huge rhubarb plant with her tabby cat Chuckers, and pretend that I was Alice in Wonderland and that Chuck was my tiger guard.

Last year I was over zealous with my planing and my first attempt garden got huge so quickly that I stopped taking pictures of it in favour of trying to beat it back as fast as was humanly possible. This year I was careful not to over plant, and I’m hoping that I can enjoy it at more of a leisurely pace…

How about a tour? :)

I have five raspberry bushes that are starting to give a little fruit, lettuce, basil with leaves the size of my hand, all kinds of different hot peppers, pickling cucumbers, four different kinds of tomatoes, beans and even leeks!

I’m definitely just making up my gardening skills as I go along, but so far my plants are getting super sized really quickly. And while I don’t have a tiger guard in my grown up garden, peeking into the backyard to see everything grow and waiting the right time to dive in is a pretty close second.

And until my garden is ready to give me more food than I can eat? I have two words: farmers market!

I love a good long weekend! The queen was in town on Saturday and there was an energy in the air with all the security and fanfare downtown. Mister and I went on a proper date to a beautiful little pub, and ended up talking for a very long time and finding out some new (silly & random) things about each other that were really fun. We always make sure we have our “couple” time and are talking about the big and little things, but having been together for 5 years & lived together for 4 it’s always fun when you have to do a double take and say “Wait a minute, you what?!”

I think he must have felt that way when I said I wanted to get a big giant tattoo ;)

This weekend we went to a huge Canada Day street festival full of live bands and mini-doughnuts, visited friends who have opened up a beautiful shop, listened to friends on the radio, and ate crazy amounts of watermelon. I finally received a big supply order I’ve been waiting for and made a huge push on jewelry making for my future etsy store. I have so many pretty necklaces hanging on my wall, and it made me feel like I’m finally getting somewhere! The wait time on international shipping has been killing me. To celebrate we escaped the heat and hit a matinee showing of Get Him To The Greek in a theatre we had all to ourselves.

I’m even back on track with my couch to 5k training and I’m sticking to a regular schedule like I’ve never been able to before. With the early mornings and late nights, it’s all a little exciting and dizzy.

Doesn’t everything seem to happen in the summer? Thank goodness the days are longer.

ps – hope all of you charming American’s are recovering from a wonderful 4th of July! See you later this week <3

]]> http://www.kylaroma.com/2010/07/the-sweet-humid-kind/feed/ 53 http://www.kylaroma.com/2010/06/a-new-tattoo/ http://www.kylaroma.com/2010/06/a-new-tattoo/#comments Mon, 07 Jun 2010 10:00:37 +0000 Kyla Roma http://www.kylaroma.com/?p=4046 The big day has come and gone and…. I have my outline!

{Tattoo by Rich at Kapala Tattoo}

The decision to get this tattoo took me a long time to come to. My last tattoo experience was hard. My koi fish was done on the part of my back where my chronic back pain comes from, and at the time I wasn’t doing much to keep it under control. About twenty minutes into the colour, I lost it- the pain went off the richter scale and the muscles in my back started spasming. I ended up having to leave, let it heal, and did two months of physio and massage and yoga to get the pain into a place where it was manageable. I went back and sat through the colour, but for a long time the sound of the tattoo machines made me feel like I was suddenly seasick. I knew that my shoulder pice was something I wanted, I wasn’t sure that my body could handle it.

And of course, my questions didn’t end there. While I loved the idea of having a big visible tattoo in theory, I wasn’t sure how I the old parts of me would mesh with this new part. I see other women with visible tattoos all the time and I adore them. Their art suits them perfectly and they’re these amazing, larger than life indie sirens to me… but until I saw the finished stencil, I wasn’t sure that I could be that kind of girl. What if I got it and it didn’t suit me? What then? My imagination was caught up in a tug of war between what I wanted and imagined worst case scenarios right up until the appointment.

While part of me wanted some kind of a litmus test so I would know that this was the right thing, I knew that all I could do was dive into the experience and see what happened. I was incredibly excited to see it, but prepared to pull the plug if I didn’t like the art… and then if I did love it I was just going to pray my shoulder didn’t feel like my back did last time around. And if it did I wouldn’t make myself be brave, I would just sit still and wait for it to be finished. So at least I had a plan!

When I pulled up to the shop, I still felt shaky (because I’m me) but I took a deep breath, got out of the car, and went in.

I met my artist, who was warm and quick to laugh, put Serenity into the DVD player… and the shop broke into a faux opera rendition of the firefly theme song. When I could stop laughing we did the first part of a flower and I knew that I would be fine. The art was beautiful, the pain felt normal, and I was clearly with my people.

On the other side of it, I didn’t need to be so concerned! I’m in love with it and the experience was fabulous. I’m actually excited to have the colour done, and for someone who’s not made of tough stuff that says a lot. And indie siren or not, I think it suits me perfectly. It’s healing beautifully and the colour will be finished at the end of June. I love how big it is, and that it’s a partial sleeve. I love that it’s old fashioned and feminine, and I love how it peeks out from my shirts and dresses. I’m enamoured.

My cherry blossoms are a reminder of the west coast, of how short our time here together is and how beautiful it is while it lasts. And it’s a reminder that no matter what is happening now, the whole world can change by spring. I feel like its always been a part of me, I’ve just been waiting to meet it.

You can see close ups here & here, and if you have any questions please leave them in the comments, I’d love to answer them.

I haven’t video blogged in a long time, so I brought my Flip video camera out for fun…

I love the cute little quick service places that are popping up in my city these days- and I love them even more because most are locally owned. There’s even a little mexican market opening up around one of my favourite haunts!

This summer is shaping up beautifully.

For a long, long time I’ve wanted to start taking road trips. Big, giant, crazy, ridiculous, time consuming, old fashioned road trips. I’ve always loved the pace of long drives, how the landscape changes and you get to see things you would miss out on otherwise. The diners and funny shops owned by someone’s aunt are my favourites.

For a long time, I’ve tried to synchronize watches with my work & home so I could carve out exactly enough time to go somewhere a little farther than into the northern most central states America has to offer. But it always seems like that kind of time commitment is better spent flying to see family in other parts of the world, or like the timing won’t sync up no matter how I try to force it. A Big Proper Road Trip is a commitment, and while you may not lose your luggage it forces you to change your pace and live outside the normal passage of time, in a place where rest stops and airstream trailers rule.

This winter, I tried again. I wound my watch and held it up against all the other schedules I’m tied to- and in May? There was space! And not just a little space, but ten days of it! And not just over any weekend, but over my twenty fifth birthday!

Where are we going, you ask?

And I can’t wait!

We’re spending a big chunk of time tucked away in an amazing rural space, nestled into a tiny cabin between breweries and diners, and the rest will be spent on the road, reconnecting with old friends, listening to public radio and reading. I can’t even fathom about how amazing these ten days will be. It will be relaxing, rapid fire, and two days after I come home I’ll be getting my tattoo.  /happy sigh

I love planning these things, but I need your help! Do you have any recommendations for shops or restaurants in Seattle, Vancouver, or Calgary that I need to visit? I can google all I want, but you have the best taste- please give me your suggestions! They might even show up in a video blog down the road…. =)

{images: rushmore, seattle, vancouver, calgary}

And after a week or so of this? There is a major bath.

I don’t know how I manage to forget about dirty tummy time every spring! Maybe I’m distracted now that I have a garden to plan for the summer…

We started thinking things like:

Who can live in this little house!? It’s smaller than our last apartment.

And it was decided. We would move. We felt very decisive and adult.

And then Mister asked one little question:

But Kyla, wouldn’t you like to start a business? It’s all you talk about. You could start selling on etsy again, you could keep putting time into your blog, you could start doing design work…. if we move that would be really hard. Why don’t we give you a chance to do what you’re in love with?

That kid is just full of good ideas & this summer will bring many good things, including not moving even a little bit and the launch of a new little business in these parts.

I think a pre-emptive: WOO HOO! is in order.