Weekend Links

I'm back! Sorry for the month-long hiatus — I got behind on my blog schedule, and life and work got in the way for a bit, but I'm back (hopefully) to a regular posting schedule. Let's kick the weekend off with a few fun links from around the web!

It's Black Friday today! Are you going to do any shopping this weekend? I'm trying to limit my spending right now, but I have snagged a couple of things. Some cute jammies for the kiddo for Christmas. And a couple of these sweaters. (I know Uniqlo doesn't ship to Canada, but I was able to send these to my dad who lives down in the States.) These are the best merino wool sweaters I have found. I think they are better quality than merino wool sweaters I've bought from Banana Republic or J Crew, at a third of the price, and they honestly machine wash like a dream. And you can sometimes snag them for $20! I also have my eye on this shirt, but I'm trying to resist.

Segueing from shopping to the topic of money management, I found this old blog about how this guy paid off nearly $100,000 of student debt in 10 months! Yes he had a very good job, but he had to be pretty darn frugal and come up with some creative ways to get more cash. I find it really hard to opt out of consumerism — there's always something new and cute I want to buy, or something we need to get for the kiddo. We have some pretty lofty financial goals for the next year, thankfully we don't have anywhere close to this kind of debt — I'm so glad to live in Canada where we have comparatively affordable education, but I think I could learn a thing or two from this blog about saving money.

A little less serious — all the food posts I've read about American Thanksgiving have me thinking about Christmas dinner! We're hosting Christmas for the first time in Montreal this year(!) and I kinda want to change things up and try this bread pudding recipe in place of our usual stuffing. It's what Ina Garten serves at Thanksgiving, you know.

Speaking of food, we made fettuccine alfredo this week using this recipe and it was so good! I don't know why I ever buy pre-made alfredo sauce, this was a million times better and so quick and easy to make.

This is last week's news, but I was fascinated by this Leonardo Da Vinci painting that sold for $400 million dollars. If you want to take a deep dive like I did there are lots of interesting articles out there, like this, and this, and this. And this and this. I know it was all a marketing ploy by Christie's, but I would have loved to see this painting in person.

Indulging my true crime obsession, an interesting article on lady serial killers — I think this title says it all: “Girl Poisoner Moron,” or Why Was Everyone So Bad at Murder?

I hope you have a great weekend! I think I'm going to make a batch of these, but maybe with a berry filling? They freeze really well and make for a nice little treat!

XOXO