21 Days Till the New Year – Why Wait to Make a Change?

Went for my first yoga class in a while today. I feel so good. Found a studio that’s a 7min walk and beside a great coffee shop. I also downloaded a countdown app for my next trip (California!) and set a countdown till the New Year. There’s 21 days till 2017 and since it’s been such a sh*t year for heaps of reasons, I’m gonna try and make the last bit really great. IF NOT NOW, WHEN? In case you’re just tuning in, I had breast reduction surgery this summer and have been a bit slow getting back to it. The recovery was not too long/hard but big stretches with arms over the head were not in my favour. I did some aerial yoga about 3 months after but not full on yoga-yoga. Plastic surgery is something that I had been thinking about for a long time so I made sure to do as much research as I could before committing to a procedure. One of my friends has recently had a breast reduction operation at the luxurgery facility in New York. I cannot wait to meet up with her soon so we can swap stories about our procedures. Today was the day. Registered for a noon class at YOGA YOGA and set out to make it a good one. A couple weeks months ago I picked out some great yoga gear from the new Gaiam website as a gift from the brand. THANK YOU! Today I opened all the packages and put on new stuff for class. WOO HOO. YOGA YOGA is a vinyasa yoga studio in the Junction Triangle super close to my house. Had it not been a snow storm I’d totally have been there in 2mins via bike. Felt good to stretch. The class was warm…

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These Are The Vines of Our Lives

I loved Twitter’s Vine app. I used it heaps when it first came out and have 200+ thousand views and 400+ videos. Yesterday Twitter announced it’s shutting the app down (and cutting 9% of global staff). This is a good reminder, it’s not about the platform, it’s about the content. As someone who’s been on the internet, making stuff for over a decade I’ve seen a lot of apps have their rise to fame, go viral, get a huge user base, then die. Lets look back at 12secondstv, I was one of their top users and in 2010 they got bought by AOL and closed up shop. I made short videos of almost everything I was doing and posted them on the app. Around the same time I’d been an active user on Dailybooth, a website where you shared a photo of yourself everyday (mostly from your computer webcam). When Instagram came out, nobody needed Dailybooth anymore, there was a new app with filters right in your phone. Dailybooth died in 2012. Anyone remember Viddy? I hung out with the founders in 2013 at CES in Vegas and joined the app right away. It was the video version of Instagram!  Justin Bieber and bunch of celebrities used it all the time. Then, one day, Instagram added video. It was game changer. In months Viddy was done. Users jumped ship to an app they were already on to share content to an existing audience. “it’s not about the platform, it’s about the content” SOME OF MY FAV VINES OF THE TIMES Here are a few of my fav Vines from my channel and the Internet. I hope you enjoy. As a reminder, keep making good content and try all the platforms to see what is out there.   LADA GAGA SCARES LEO – Remember this? OOP! https://vine.co/v/iMAHYTw00bH https://vine.co/v/inAiBuI6UOX THIS KID IS ALL OF…

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Summer of Turkey! Recipes to Try from Chef Sahir w/ Butterball.ca

A couple weeks ago I had Emily help me at the cottage with hosting hacks for summer (see that post here!). The other night I gave a few of the recipes by Chef Sahir for buterball.ca a whirl. I made a spinach salad, tacos, and burgers for our last night as a fam at the cottage before back to school. The directions weren’t hard to follow and the shopping list feature made it easy to see what things we needed/already had. Scroll down to compare my photos with the professional ones, we didn’t do too bad. ? I really got in the turkey mood and even found an extra recipe for a delicious grilled turkey sandwich! I’ll have to make it for work one day. Thanks to Sean for being an all star helper on this one! ILY! There’s plenty of time to bbq before ‘old man winter’ so fire it up and give one of these recipes a go! Recipe 1: Beet, Spinach and Apple Salad, w/ Pomegranate Vinaigrette I love beets and they’re so good in salad. Instead of peeling, cooking, and cooling them I picked up pre-cooked from the salad section at Loblaws. No shame! The almonds are a nice touch with pomegranate dressing. ?? How to Make the Beet, Spinach, Apple Salad ?? shopping list For dressing, place all ingredients except oil in blender container; cover. Blend well. With blender running, gradually add oil through opening at top of blender, blending well after each addition. Pour dressing into storage container and refrigerate until ready to use. For salad, combine all ingredients, except almonds. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Whisk dressing and toss with salad mixture just before serving. Sprinkle almonds on top. Recipe 2: Turkey Tacos These tacos were so good. I ended up making a…

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Weekend Roadtrippin’ w/ Enterprise CarShare

Last weekend I had my first Enterprise CarShare experience. I applied for a membership a couple weeks before, then downloaded the app for iPhone, logged in using my Member ID, and started browsing cars and dates.  In my experience it’s nice to have a small car for city driving that’s convenient to park and good on gas. Once my car was booked in the app I was ready to roll. I scheduled pickup for Friday at noon and arrived at the pickup location shortly after. Tapped my card on the windshield sensor and it was unlocked. Spent the afternoon running errands in Queen West then popped over to visit my sister in the Beaches. It took a few tries to get used to locking and unlocking the car but it was a breeze overall (instead of using the power locks you tap your member card to the windshield sensor).

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1,776 Steps! Did The CN Tower Climb for WWF Canada

I’ve ALWAYS wanted to do the CN Tower climb and this month the opportunity came to climb with CLIF Bar for WWF Canada. I asked April to join me and we conquered it in 23 minutes! That’s 144 official flights plus the few it takes to get to the first numbered stairs and then a couple extra flights to the glass floor lookout. Thank you to the @ClifBar team for feeding our climbers and getting them warmed up! #CNTowerClimb #FeedYourAdventure pic.twitter.com/f6XnRuu6Hy — WWF-Canada (@WWFCanada) April 16, 2016

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Anamaya Resort – Welcome to the Jungle, Pura Vida!

Good morning from Anamaya Retreats in Costa Rica! Yesterday was our first full day here and it was magnificent. I’m really making an effort to take a digital detox on this trip but documenting is something I love. I’m running on wifi and often not able to connect with the online world. I’ve been taking photos, making notes, voice recordings, I wanna remember all my thoughts and feeling on this journey. It’s absolutely beautiful, photos don’t do it justice! Feels good to be back on the yoga mat too, I’ve been a bit slack this winter and this trip is like hitting the reset button. Our menu this week is all gluten free and local, Anamaya has a farm that we’re visiting Wednesday to see where a lot of our food comes from. We are staying in a treehouse that is 50ft up with a yoga/hammock deck, and a loft bedroom. It’s the most beautiful treehouse I’ve ever been into, it’s fully equipped a king size bed, drinkable running water, and AC. It’s giving us some good inspiration to build one at the cottage.

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Quick Update from the Treehouse in the Woods

Helloooooo! This week has been absolutely amazing. My batteries are recharged and I’m fuelled with a fire that will last forever. ☀️?????? We have had so much fun out here. It’s truly amazing to connect with nature and disconnect (a bit). We’ve survived the last few days with no running water, a portable burner for cooking, and logs on the wood stove. Thankful for snow to melt! A photo posted by C A S I E S T E W A R T (@casiestewart) on Jan 5, 2016 at 2:05pm PST Woke up early to a pink sky so I trekked to the top of a hill behind us to appreciate it. Video on Snapchat ? casiestewart. TECHNICOLOR DREAMBOAT ✌?️???❄️☀️ Loved being in the woods the last few days. Getting into the swing of 2016 & will share my thoughts on treehouse living on the blog. This suit was my mum’s ski suit in the 80s ?✌?️ #discoveron #cottagelife #glampinghub #vintage #travel A photo posted by C A S I E S T E W A R T (@casiestewart) on Jan 6, 2016 at 1:21pm PST Heading back to the city today!  

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Holiday Mode

This time is year is so hectic, ahhhhh! Lots of running around from now till Friday! Today mum is coming down to help me with some office elfing, aka getting presents ready and delivering to clients. This weekend at home was so nice, a great start to holiday mode. With Christmas on a Friday this year, I think it’ll be easier to really take some time to relax. I’m totally in in love with these little sweaters Telus sent over to help get into official #HolidayMode. The entire campaign is great. [vine id=”imeeM6z0dHx”] Do you know a tablet Dad? [iframe id=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/R37Cx8QwDtg”] I probably spend the most time on my gadgets around my family but this holiday season, my goal is to spend less time staring at my phone and more face-time with the ones I love. I like putting on the (digital) fireplace, reading a book, or simply relaxing on the couch and staring at it. If  you don’t have one via cable already, pop over to the Telus YouTube and put this one on your tv. [iframe id=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/WSpXLtbhRaU?list=PLZzZFlOdIAXahCRBhRx-t44BlBcRFPdEL” autoplay=”yes”] I love the Internet and technology and how it keeps me connected to the world, but, taking a break from it is totally awesome too. Your batteries need a recharge. Thanks Telus for helping me get into holiday mode. Can’t wait to cook Christmas dinner later this week! OK, off to do my efling! Enjoy the day!          

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Travel | A bad day at the cottage is better than a good day at work! ?

I was a bit slack on blogging last week. Was feeling overwhelmed, I’ve had so much going on lately I feel like I’m constantly running. This weekend we closed the cottage. It was so beautiful out, the weather was fabulous, saw lots of stars, sun was shining shining, the leaves had fallen.  It was lots of work but nice. Something like ‘A bad day at the cottage is better than a good day at work.‘  

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Contest | Doritos Crash The Super Bowl + $1 Million

I spent a good chunk of time watching entries for the Doritos Crash the SuperBowl and this is one of my favs. The Doritos contest is back and I would love to see one of my friends submit a commercial and Crash Super Bowl 50. SUBMISSIONS END IN 16 DAYS. [iframe id=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/2OF7_JB-kq0″] My fav part of the SuperBowl has always been the advertising and my friends at Doritos Canada asked me to share some info about the LAST Crash’ the SuperBowl Contest. Last year, Canadian Graham Talbot (and his twin bro) created a Doritos commercial, “When Pigs Fly,” that aired during Super Bowl XLIX. He also took home a $50,000 USD prize and was the first winner outside the US. YASSS CANADA. Over the past nine years PepsiCo’s Doritos brand has given away more than $7M USD in prize money and helped launch careers by hooking winners up with once in a lifetime job opportunities. This year marks the 10th and final year of the Doritos Crash The Super Bowl contest. [iframe id=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/_PVEAuV11-4″] The winner not only gets to attend to the Super Bowl (50th annual and in San Fran, love that city!) to see their commercial air, but $1MM USD and the opportunity to work with Zack Snyder who recently directed Batman VS Superman. 1 MILLION DOLLARS. ? Winning video from the 2015 Superbowl:   [iframe id=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/2JqRXLQYF9o”] How the competition works: At the crashthesuperbowl.doritos.com/toolkit you’ll find a whole suite of assets to help make your creative dream come true, sound effects, music, product shots, end cards, logos, etc. Make a video – 30 second brand commercial for Doritos Submit – by November 15th, 2015 Vote – starting January 5th, 2016 Win – announced February 7th, 2016 This year, three finalists will attend the SuperBowl and watch the game in a suite and find out with the world who is the winner.  The…

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This Is My Life | Yesterday Felt Like a Day and a Half

Yesterday was an action packed day that started with me picking up this beautiful new pink iPhone 6s. THANK you Telus! I was due to get a new phone and my old iPhone 6 has been cracked for at LEAST a month. I’ve been using my new Samsung tablet heaps for drawing lately and totally love it. Spent a couple hours at the office before heading to Roy Thompson Hall for a private sit down with with the Indigo Girls. This was the first in a new series of events called HALLer w/ eOne Music and Roy Thompson Hall & Massey Hall. It was pretty rad! How do you even find words for a moment like this? @Indigo_Girls up close @roythomsonhall #HALLer pic.twitter.com/0eFgF1Efk6 — Louise Gleeson (@louisegleeson) October 21, 2015 Next was a SS16 fashion preview with Swarovski at the Four Seasons then a foodie event with Elle Cuisine catering.  This week has been awesome and I’ve got 4 things to go to tonight. Tomorrow night is no exception, Sean and I are hitting up Buffer Fest’s opening night gala. Buffer is a YouTube festival. Stopped by @FourSeasons to preview @swarovski SS16. Some real beauties! #seaofsparkle pic.twitter.com/3GWPE486PU — CASiE STEWART (@casiestewart) October 21, 2015 Hi @ElleCuisineTO, this gnocchi is fantastic. Thank you! pic.twitter.com/ChP5POHKQh — CASiE STEWART (@casiestewart) October 21, 2015 Tonight I’m heading to fashion week and wearing an outfit similar to this but different designed by Rachel Sin. My outfit is from her SS16 collection. Never a dull moment!  Look what came in the mail today! This is amazing. I can’t wait to take it home! [vine id=”eVei3EgWxVI”] Been colouring  my hair all week with these fun little Dippity Do chalks. Today’s colour is violet! Ok, I’m running behind, and have spent too much time on the internet once again!…

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Events | Weekend Dining at Woodbine Racetrack

This weekend I’m taking my sister Carynn on a date to Woodbine Racetrack for her very first time. Instead of eating at the concession, we’re getting a lil’ fancier at Favourites Dining Room (located on the 2nd Floor, west end).  It IS Thanksgiving weekend after all! Thanks Woodbine! If you’re just tuning in or don’t recall, I’ve partnered with Woodbine for the entire racing season. See my previous adventures with Dawn at Ricoh Mile, the Queen’s Plate w/ Carla, and the first race of the season, Woodbine Oaks w/ Sean.     The racing season goes until November so you’ve still got time to plan a little outing. If you are a smoker, you’ll be happy to know there’s smoking areas and you can actually smoke beside the track. Crazy I know.     Woodbine has an #OffToTheRaces contest running the entire season where you can win $1,000 Woodbine Racetrack gift card just by snapping a selfie at the racetrack and post to Twitter/Instagram w/ the #OffToTheRaces hashtag. Get more info on Woodbine and upcoming races by visit their website at woodbineentertainment.com.  CASIE

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 Photo Diary: New Hair, New Boots, Boats, Babes, Champagne, Rain

This week was a busy one. Not like ‘fake busy’, I mean I was full on running from one thing to the next every single day. I directed something Monday that was the 2nd day of shooting for a campaign. When we wrapped around 6pm, I went back to the 1188 office then over to RAINA+WILSON studio to celebrate the Globe Style Summer Issue.   It was only Monday but I was ready to wind down with a cocktail. Grey Goose was sponsoring and they had grapefruit juice, my fav. 416 Snack Bar was catering and the food was A+ too.     We were treated to a small private show by Calvin Love. The style issue comes out TODAY, Friday, June 12th. You can download it for FREE from iTunes right here.   Tuesday was rainy and my hair was a mess. I find it much easier to work and concentrate when it’s rainy out. When the sun is shining I wanna shut my computer and play outside.   You know what I mean?   I went to the Stage TEN office on Tuesday night for a live Pet Skills show.  It’s the world’s first live, interactive, web show! I’ll be sharing more about my involvement with Stage TEN soon.     The lower East side of Toronto is quite pretty, especially driving over this bridge when the sun is setting. It was almost 8pm here.   The bridge says ‘This river I step in is not the river I stand in’. It means the water is always changing, no river is ever the same. Think about it. Read more about it here.   Working together has been quite fun lately. I enjoy the morning drive and singing along to the radio.   Dylan and Sean dressed the same this week. So cute.   Really hoping we can get our car out for a drive soon. We’ve had…

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Good Coffee, Paris Dreams, Always a Good Idea

Well hello there! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNANG. Yesterday was super nice out. It was hot by 8am! I’ve been leaving the house bright and early lately visiting my new fav coffee shop, Cafe Neon. They’ve got a killer BLT and the coffee is fair trade and delicious. The latte art is lovely too. In fact, it has inspired me to invest in some new coffee making equipment for back home. To be honest, I have wanted a new coffee grinder for some time now. Which reminds me, one of my friends has sent me some coffee grinder recommendations from thefullmooncafe.com so I must take a look to see if I can find one that catches my eye. Do you like to make your own coffee at home? Let me know your coffee making tips! Anyway, in between working from the home office I visited the garden centre across the bridge and picked up a few new herbs for my garden. I’ve actually got real things growing this year. ??? Last year was a doozy and nothing lasted longer than 2 weeks. By the time we have a larger garden area, I’ll be a pro! Received a nice gift from Dove in NYC, a canvas with a collage of words I’ve used in tweets. Very thoughtful and personalize, it came with a handwritten note. THANK YOU. A photo posted by C A S I E S T E W A R T (@casiestewart) on May 26, 2015 at 6:22pm PDT Yesterday I was lucky to find a copy of VICE magazine at Rock Lobster (Queen West). Haven’t picked one up in ages. I’ve collected heaps over the years, a bunch from Australia when I lived there. When I first moved to Toronto in 2005, one of my fav things to do on the…

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