Home repairs

Problem #1  The kitchen sink has been clogged for about a week.  I've tried Drano twice with no luck.  (And sadly, that is the extent of my plumbing skills.)

Problem #2  The dishwasher was making a racket this afternoon.  I mean it usually sounds like a freight train running through the kitchen, but this was even worse.

Dan has been working on both problems for about 5 hours now.  When he started he just needed a new plug for the trap because the old one was rusted and corroded.  Of course he ended up replacing the whole unit because the thingamajig connected to the whatchamacallit broke.  Then in the process of replacing them, the thingymabob on the whatsit cracked...
First a trip to Rona and then a trip to Home Depot because the guy at Rona sold him the wrong part...Home Depot, of course, didn't have what he needed.  Looks like we won't have a sink until Rona opens again tomorrow.  Poor Dan.  As if that's not bad enough, he has to deal with the paparazzi too.

I can't believe he's still smiling.

New Toys

Well, the technological neanderthals made a leap into the new millenium this week with the purchase of not one, but two new toys.  Yeeha!!! 

The iPod Touch is a handy-dandy little gadget that fits into my wallet or Dan's shirt pocket and gives us internet access pretty much anytime, anywhere.  It stores music, photos, games and most importantly  - books. (Even library books!)  Our cutting-edge friend Kaycee (Hi, Kaycee!) was over last weekend and showed us what this little puppy can do.  We went out the next day and bought one.  Now we need Kaycee back here to show us how to work the damn thing.  I played with it most of the afternoon today, and I managed to load a couple of photos and a sample of a book on to it.  I later  discovered that I should have been more discerning about which photos I uploaded because there's no "delete" button.  It is possible to delete, it's just not push-button easy.  Near as I can figure you need an advanced degree to be able to get a library book onto the iPod Touch.  First I had to download a program which would allow me to choose a library book and download it to the PC.  Did that, then discovered that the book I'd chosen was in PDF format and would now need to be converted to EPUB before it could be transferred to iTunes before it could be synced to the iPod Touch...Yikes!  That's a lot for a technologically challenged bumpkin to fathom.   My brain hurts!  Maybe I'll try again later...

And, the long-awaited Kindle finally arrived.  After talking to Kaycee on the week-end about the pros and cons of the various e-readers, I had decided to either return or sell the Kindle as soon as it arrived and go with the Sony  instead.  I wasn't even going to open the box.  Yeah, right.  Who am I kidding?  I've been waiting for this for 2 weeks, there's no way I'm not opening it up and playing with it.  So, I've decided now to keep it and love it.  If any of the cons become a problem, I'll switch to the Sony later.

And on a totally un-related note.  We went to China Rose for dinner tonight because I've been craving ginger-fried squid for a couple of weeks now.  Look what was in my fortune cookie!

Gotta go pack...

Empty House

Cindy & Karel's flying visit is over already.  They arrived on Thursday afternoon and left early this morning in order to make it to Hinton in time for the birthday celebration.  So it was short and sweet. 

On Thursday evening we went downtown to watch the Canada Day fireworks (along with several thousand other people!)  Great night for it; warm and wind free.  We had a nice stroll along the 8th avenue mall and saw some interesting buildings along the way.

And who knew we had such cool old doors in Calgary?

Waiting for the fireworks.

Oooh!!! Ahhh!!!

The fireworks were great, but my photos are rubbish.  I've never tried to take pictures of fireworks before and obviously, there's more to it than just pointing the camera skyward.  The good news is that the Calgary Stampede starts next week, so I'll have 10 nights to practice.  I'd better do some reading before then and see if I can learn the secrets.

The Calgary Tower had the flame lit to celebrate Canada Day.  Can't really see it from this angle, you'll just have to take my word for it.

A walk on Tom Campbell's hill on Friday morning.

After our walk we went to the River Cafe on Prince's Island for lunch. 

I meant to take pictures of the food, but between the wine and the chit chat, I didn't remember until there was nothing but empty plates in front of us.  It was delicious though!

Last night, the planets and the stars must've been aligned in our favour because 2 very busy mutual friends just happened to have a free night at the same time, so we had a little impromptu party. Sure we see Trudy every day, but we don't often get to do more than exchange quick greetings as we're coming & going and the only time we see Kaycee is when Cindy is in town. It was nice to have a chance to catch up again.

So now Cindy & Karel are gone and our house feels pretty empty. (Sigh!)

On the bright side, the bouquet of flowers from Shirley is shrinking, but still beautiful!

Mini Vacay

Cool!  By taking just one day off work (Friday), I've given myself a 5 day mini vacation.  I'm off now until next Monday.  Woohoo!

Cindy & Karel are coming out to visit for a couple of days.  They were heading East for a 60th birthday celebration and decided to make a side trip to Calgary too.  (Yay!)  They arrive on Thursday and have to leave again on Saturday.  Naturally, the weather is supposed to turn to crap while they're here, but that's okay.  We don't see eachother very often, so sitting indoors with a bevvy and catching up won't be a hardship.  This photo was taken in March of this year.  We managed to fit in a quick visit with them in New Westminster on our way back from Mexico.

It's week #6/52 of my photography project. ("F")  This week's entry isn't terribly imaginative, but it practically fell into my lap.  This Fence is right outside my office window, so I've had it in mind since the beginning.  Next week is "G".  Now that's gonna be a tough one...

Taz has had her annual summer buzz cut and yes, she looks ridiculous! 

We never claimed to be expert dog groomers.   Actually, she'd look silly even if we did know what we were doing with a pair of clippers.  Her head is SO red and her undercoat is SO white, it looks like somebody attached the wrong head to her body when they assembled her. 

Go ahead and laugh!  She doesn't care, she's a lot cooler.  And I don't care because I'm no longer ankle-deep in dog hair in the house!

Uh oh

Like I need a new chocolate addiction! 

I had a couple of these, then a handful, then they became dinner... 

Oh well, life is short;  gotta treat yourself once in awhile.

Learning to cook

When I lived with my parents, I wasn't allowed to cook on accounta I might make a mess in the kitchen.  I guess messy is different things to different people, but my mother was one of those over-the-top neat freaks who would have a conniption fit over things like crumbs on the counters, so experimentation in the kitchen was definitely frowned upon!  When I moved out on my own, I didn't so much cook, as practice chemistry.  It wasn't easy being a macrobiotic vegetarian in the 70's.  Remember "Diet For A Small Planet"?  That was  my bible. (And only cookbook)  I pretty much lived on steamed vegetables, brown rice and homemade yoghurt. (gag!)  Of course, as a good earth-mother-hippie-chick,  I did this very stylishly while wearing long cotton skirts and peasant blouses!   In my 20's, I survived on beer and bar snacks.  Period!  In my 30's, I was single again, but by then, microwave popcorn had been invented, (Woohoo!) so I would alternate between that and toast.  (because it's important to have a balanced diet, y'know)  When Dan & I married in 1987 he was working shift work and we seldom ate meals together - and that's just the way it was for some 20+ years.  We ate a lot of frozen or packaged convenience foods - separately! 

So finally, after 23 years, we can sit down and enjoy a meal together.  We can even entertain guests because we both have weekends off now, but unfortunately, neither us ever bothered to learn how to cook.  Umm, bit of a problem.  Sure, I now own a whole shelf full of cookbooks, (I love the IDEA of cooking) but most of them are in pristine condition - and dusty!
Luckily, we live in a technologically advanced age.  I like to browse through the Flickr group called Recipes to Share.  People there post photos of good looking dishes that they've created and they include the recipes.  Quite often, these photos lead to a blog link where there are many more wonderful photos and ideas.  One of my favourites is Cookin' Canuck's blog.  She always shows step-by-step photos and has easy to follow instructions.  Perfect for an old rookie. 
Last night's delicious barbecued salmon was made from her recipe.

Because I can no longer imagine life without a blog

The last couple of blogs were pretty event specific.  Travels With Vincent was to chronicle our first winter as snowbirds, travelling around in our VW van, and Mexican Madness  was to give friends and family an idea of our life in our new winter home in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico.

Blogging became a large part of my life and I find myself a bit lost without one on the go. 

So this one is simply an ongoing, day-to-day rambling of things and stuff that interest me.  Photos, craft projects, books, recipes - whatever strikes my fancy at the moment.

F'rinstance, this is my latest knitting project:

I've been on a serious knitting kick for a couple of months now.  I've made a matching set of scarf, mittens and a hat.  A couple of pairs of socks and a pair of flip-flop socks. (over which, I took an enormous amount of flak) 

 

I expect my enthusiasm for knitting will probably run out before I finish this sweater.

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And my first photo project is in its 5th week of 52 weeks.  The first 26 weeks are the letters of the alphabet and the last 26 weeks are the numbers 1-26.  I'm really enjoying this project.  Unfortunately, the other members of the group are pretty creative, so it's gonna be a struggle to keep up.  Thanks to Monica for setting it up on Facebook.  Creative Photography Click

This is week #1 - A

Week #2 - B

Week #3 - C

Week #4 - D

And week # 5 - E

The rest of the project will be located under the tab at the top of the blog.

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And in other news:  I've just ordered a Kindle2 E-reader!  I'm so excited!  I can't wait for it to arrive!

I hope I like it after all this anticipation.  I mean, I really like BOOKS.  I like the look of them and the feel of them and the smell of a new book is wonderful!  I love caressing the cover and cracking the spine for the first time.  Yes, I do that!  I know some people consider that sacrilege, but how else do you get the book to lie flat so you can read it while eating breakfast?  And after all, reading is the POINT of a book.  Right?

I am gonna miss this, though.  I love the look of a stack of books waiting to be read.

Of course, being able to take as many books with me as I want when we travel, will make up for it!

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And finally, kitchen experiments.  Found this tasty (and easy!) dessert here:

Do these look good or what?!  And it's just mango and ice cream.  Even I can do it!