Month: February 2015

Clearing the Air with Lampe Berger

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After two weeks taking turns curling up on the couch to hog the blankets and the tissues, yesterday we were all finally well enough to have people over. And by “people” I mean “the kids’ friends” because when are we ever entertaining? (Rarely. Who has the energy?) In the wintertime, I like to light my favourite pine-scented candle or throw a batch of cookies in the oven to make the house smell warm and welcoming and mask the ever-present scent of fried egg whites (I eat a lot of egg whites), but yesterday I tried something a little different: a beautiful air purifying lamp, Lampe Berger. Lampe Berger sent me one to facilitate this review and has generously offered a starter kit to one lucky try small things reader so you can try it too.

What makes Lampe Berger different than your run-of-the-mill air freshener is its patented burner, originally developed over 100 years ago in France (ooh la la!) to help disinfect hospitals. The burner purifies and perfumes the air, destroying the molecules that make undesirable smells and diffusing one of over 50 scents of your choosing, including a fragrance-free So Neutral blend to use on its own or dilute another scent.

There are over 100 different lamps to choose from, ranging from classic designs like my Ovalie lamp, to more trendy and/or ornate models. I read the instructions a few times because I’m bit bumbling and nervous around flames (I almost lost my eyebrows the one time I tried to light the barbeque) but really, it’s very straightforward:

  • Remove the protective top, stopper, burner and wick
  • Insert the funnel and fill the lamp 2/3 full (I used the Fresh Linen scent)
  • Remove the funnel, insert the wick and burner and put the stopper on
  • Wait for 20 minutes
  • Remove the stopper and light the burner
  • Wait two minutes
  • Blow out the flame and put on the protective top
  • When the air is perfumed as you like, remove the protective top and put the stopper on the burner

My seven-year-old has lots of practice blowing out candles on birthday cakes so we let her blow out the flame. But it was hands-off after that.

Our main floor is all of 500 square feet, so in 20 minutes or so the entire downstairs smelled fresh and clean. A few hours later we made fish sticks for dinner and the house smelled like a wharf, but I lit the lamp again and within minutes Captain Highliner was a guest no longer. It’s like magic!

I’d love you to try it and see for yourself. To win a set just like mine (that’s a lamp, a burner, a 180 ml Home fragrance and a 180 ml So Neutral fragrance –a $48 value!), enter your contact information here, then come back and tell me which Lampe Berger lamp and/or scent you’d like to try. You must leave a comment to be eligible. The giveaway is open to Canadians (excluding Quebec) and ends March 8, 2015.

You can learn more about Lampe Berger on their website, Facebook page, Instagram account and on Twitter and follow them everywhere at #LampeBerger. Lampe Berger products are widely available across Canada. In Ottawa you’ll find them at C.A. Paradis, Suite Dreams Home Emporium, Hallmark Davis (Carling) and The Cookoo’s Nest.

Best of luck!

Update March 9: Congratulations to Rebby! And thank you to everyone who entered. 

Five things

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Today I’m borrowing from the best with a new format for my Five Things series (the same one Samantha uses for her Five Things, Meg for her Weekend Update, and Elizabeth for her Week’s End). The collage of photos up top means less scrolling and a quicker read for you, and a fresh look for me. I hope you’ll like it!

1. I’m back to #Girlboss after a brief hiatus to read Etta and Otto and Russell and James, Funny Girl and Lost & Found and it’s so, so good. Can’t wait to read Elsie’s take on it when I’m finished. Have you read #Girlboss? What are you reading now?

2. I made Chatelaine’s slow-cooker French onion soup to enter into the magazine’s photo contest, only to see afterwards that I’d missed the deadline by a few days. Duh. This month’s challenge is this sweet Dutch baby pancake.

3. My son took this selfie this week at Starbucks while his sis was having her piano lesson. I love this half-hour we have together every week with just the two of us. Do you have a weekly ritual with someone special?

4. You know what makes a great hostess gift? (No, not a cat, ‘tho we do love ours.) Magazines! My girlfriend knows I don’t drink wine, so when she brought her family over for dinner last week she gave me some of my favourite mags instead. Such a great idea! What are some of your faves?

5. My giveaway has ended, but why not try your luck at these: Aneta has a $150 Visa gift card up for grabs; Helene is giving away a KitchenAid stand mixer (woot!) and Elizabeth is drawing for a gorgeous print.

Have a great week, everybody!

Lost & Found by Brooke Davis

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Penguin sent me a complimentary copy of the book, however the opinions are my own. 

Shortly after her father dies, seven-year-old Millie is unceremoniously abandoned by her mother in a department store. 82-year-old Agatha Pantha, who lives across the street from Millie, hasn’t left her house since her husband died seven years earlier. And widower Karl the Touch Typist, 87, is on the lam from a nursing home. Together the unlikely trio set out on a trip across Western Australia to find Millie’s mother.

I found the beginning of the book a bit difficult, mainly because I’d rather think about just about anything other than death and Millie — the focus of the opening pages — is fascinated by it. She keeps a “Book of Dead Things”, holds funerals for insects, and asks the questions any curious kid her age might ask (i.e. what happens to dead bodies after they die?) — all of which made me shift uneasily in my seat. Her father dies and her mother abandons her and it’s almost too much to bear. And yet somehow it isn’t.  There is a lightness and humour in Davis’ writing that keeps the tissues at bay. The introduction of Millie’s two quirky chaperones is reassuring (young Millie is not alone!) and shifts the story’s emphasis from a tale of characters at the mercy of an often unforgiving world to a story of unlikely heroes unwilling to accept the hand they have been dealt. They’re off on an adventure!

Travelling on foot, bus, train and car with a department-store mannequin in tow, you can’t help but root for the characters as they out-run and out-fox the authorities (unlikely as it may be). The road trip sees Karl transform from a man living in his memories to a man living in the present, and (cantankerous, shouty) Agatha opens her heart to possibilities long forgotten. And yet we never forget Millie’s loss, as she leaves signs saying “IN HERE MUM” on the windows and doors of everywhere they go. Grief is a through-line but hope is too and both feel true.

Heavy with sadness but punctuated with humour, Lost & Found is a lyrical and ultimately uplifting tale of loss, love and the resilience of those left behind.

Funny Girl by Nick Hornby

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Penguin provided me with a complimentary copy of the novel, however the opinions are my own.

Set primarily in 1960s London, Nick Hornby’s latest novel, Funny Girl, recounts the adventures of a small-town beauty queen turned TV-comedy superstar and the ensemble of characters who enable her stardom. At the height of her success, Sophie, her co-star and their writing/directing team function like a well-oiled machine firing on all cylinders as they feed off of one another’s strengths. As time wears on, however, political and creative differences (as well as a few delightfully messy affairs of the heart) threaten to drive them apart. What is lost, and what remains, make for a satisfying end to a compulsively readable confection of a novel about the joys, surprises, disappointments and tensions of close relationships.

Like several of Hornby’s other works, Funny Girl would translate well as a film, however I’d like to see Sophie’s character become multi-dimensional in the adaptation. In the novel she is steadfastly one-note: ever-optimistic, driven and impossibly brilliant given her young age. (That is, brilliant in terms of her acting; she’s still naive in her personal life.) Although she’s the central character, we don’t see her struggle to the same extent as the writers Tony and Bill and the director Dennis. Even her self-absorbed co-star, Clive, is conflicted by the tension between his on-screen and public personas.

Despite this minor quibble, the story moves quickly and convincingly. The reader is rewarded with a bonus in the form of a substantial epilogue in part three. This last section of the book is my favourite and most satisfying. Set 50 years later, it’s heart-warming to see the characters in their old age and the magic that can happen when their deflated spirits are revived. Despite its seemingly frothy premise, there is heart and depth in Funny Girl, and for Hornby, another success.

Have you read any books by Nick Hornby? Did you enjoy them? Tell me more!