Our Menu

This is the menu we have decided on for this year's Wigilia feast on Christmas Eve.

Starter: Devilled eggs, with bacon and shredded cheese

Salad: Spinach Salad, with yogurt dressing and quail eggs

Main course: Leg of lamb with fresh rosemary

                        Broccoli cooked a la Julia Child

                        Pierogi filled with potato and cheese

Dessert: whatever looks good at the bakery

Drink: Cranberry punch with frozen berries

             Red wine

We are going to focus on a few things to make ourselves, then allow others to do the work for the rest! lol  For the sake of time and space, we will be buying our pierogi and the dessert. We have never done leg of lamb before, but it is a simple dish to make.  The eggs can be cooked in advance.  The spinach salad recipe calls for hard boiled eggs, which we will use whole quails eggs for, instead.  We have long wanted to try quails eggs that haven't come from a can. ;-) For dessert, I see no point for us to make our own when bakeries can do so much better then us! lol It's just not worth the extra time, energy and stress to do any of that ourselves this year.

Later on,I will share the recipes for the lamb and spinach salad.

Getting Ready

This has been a very unusual Christmas season for us. Dh's back seems to have given up on him entirely. He is in massive amounts of pain and barely able to move.  He has been almost completely housebound for about two weeks now, and the rare forays out has taxed him to the limit. Thankfully, he has been able to work from home.  I must say, we are really appreciating how supportive his employer has been, though I imagine they are getting pretty frustrated over the situation by now.

Dh is working right now, actually, so I am currently posting this from the tablet.  I apologize for any weird typos in advance. lol

Meanwhile, our Christmas preparations continue, if slower than usual.  We didn't get our tourtiere done until a few days ago.  The temperatures have been too mild to store our pies on the balcony as usual, so we could only do as many as would fit in our fridge freezer.  We ordered 12 pounds of ground meats this year, and made deep dish pies. That translated into only eight pies.  We have had one so far, and they turned out quite well. We won't be doing deep dish again,though.  The meat to crust ratio is better in a regular sized pie.

Our gift shopping is done. We gave the girls some cash from the gift budget, in addition to anything they had saved up themselves. Dh hasn't done any shopping at all, of course, so I have done all the gift buying at our end.  Youngest decorated the tree this year, and Eldest has decorated the house.  The tree is full of gifts under it, which has been entertaining for the stray cat and her kitten that we have taken in for a while.  

All that is left right now is to do the final food shopping, which should be done tomorrow, though I am thinking of doing it tonight, instead.  I will post the menu separately.  Hopefully, once that is done, we won't have to go shopping again for a good while! 

That'll be me...

The girls decide to take in a movie at the second run theatre. No problem. They will take the last bus from our area, though it will get them there an hour early, and I will drive them home.  They leave for the bus with plenty to catch it.

Half an hour later, we get a call. The bus never showed.  So I throw on some slippers and head out to give them a ride.  Along the way, I decide it's not worth making the drive twice, so I will hang out in the area until their movie is out.

Aside from a grocery store and a coffee shop, the only place open this late is the Walmart.  I just realized I am going to be spending almost 2 hours there, wearing a pomegranate stained sweater, my husband's sweats and grandpa slippers.

Half expecting to find myself in People of Walmart some day.

Let's try this again

I tried to post earlier, but blogger was having technical difficulties.  Here's hoping they're fixed, and my post actually keeps... :-/

It's been a month since I last posted, so there's a bit to catch up on, both good and back.

In the good news...

Eldest talked me into doing NaNoWriMo, which has a goal of writing 50,000 words in the month of November.  The first day was a very good start, which promptly fell apart after the second day.  That stalled me a bit, but I slowly started to catch up.  In the end, I completed the goal a couple of days early!  Doing her part to encourage me, Eldest agreed that if I completed NaNoWriMo, she would sing at an open mic night.  A nearby coffee shop had weekly open mic nights, but they closed for renovations and, since reopening, I haven't seen anything to show they're still doing it.  We'll have to figure it out.

In the more neutral news, Eldest has left her job.  She liked the work well enough, but there were a couple of issues.  One was the surprisingly bad public transportation to the location she worked at.  We knew it wasn't good - that's partly why she applied to a different location in the first place - but good grief, it sucked.  It's one thing to be driving her in for 3 or 5 am shifts.  It's another to be driving her home again because the buses in the area don't run on Sundays.  Or evenings.  Or that it take 3 times longer to take the bus compared to driving.  There were other issues, though, and she did tell one of her managers about it.  It turns out there's plenty of reason for this location to have such a high turnover rate.  She's going to take a bit of a break, then start handing out the resumes again.  The job market has really perked up, and not just for Christmas, so it should be interesting to see how that works out.

Then there's the bad news.  A few days ago, our younger cat suddenly started having difficulties walking and lost all bladder control.  We thought she might have had a spine injury or something.  It turned out to be massive kidney failure, and she had to be put down.  She was not a particularly nice cat, and was really rather dumb.  She could be pretty nasty, would sometimes go after the older cat for no reason, and generally didn't like people. Yet when she was in a friendly mood, she could be the sweetest thing.  Most of the time, though, she would just lay around like a fluffy black puddle on the floor.  I swear, that cat had cartilage for bones!  It was sad to have to put her down.  Especially so suddenly.  She was only 3 years old.  She was Youngest's cat, too. This is the second pet we got for her that ended up being put down.

Now, we're not sure what we're going to do.  You see, we still have a stray and her kitten around.  They had been on our balcony, but when the temperatures dropped, we brought them inside.  We're not allowed to have more than 2 pets, so we've been trying to adopt them out.  We had a couple of potential takers fall through.  I don't think there are too many people willing to take on both  mother and kitten. I was just about to contact my friend at the pound to find how to turn them in when we suddenly found ourselves down a cat.  Youngest has been wanting a dog for ages, but this kitten has been loving on her like her own cat never did.  The mama is pretty high strung, but friendly and playful.  We got tacit permission to hang on to them a bit longer.  If nothing else, we'll wait long enough for the kitten to be old enough to be separated from his mother.  In the end, it will be Youngest's choice.

Aside from that, we're slowly getting into the Christmas mood.  We've put the tree up, without decorations, to train the cats to stay out of it.  So far, it hasn't been an issue.  I really expected to have troubles with the kitten getting into it, but he seems content to leave it alone.  Of course, once it's decorated, it might be a different story.  So far, so good.  Decorating will start this weekend.

We haven't ordered our meats for our annual tourtierre this year.  Partly it's because we suddenly don't have the money.  Getting the cat to the vet, then put down, ended up costing us over $450.  That was money that was supposed to go for Christmas preparations.  Not that we could make our usual number of tourtierre, anyhow.  It's not cold enough!  After a brief deep freeze, the temperatures went right back up again and are now bouncing above and below the freezing level.  Our only freezer is the top of our fridge, so we relied on being able to keep the tourtierre frozen outside.  It's not cold enough!  So I'm thinking we'll place a meat order for perhaps a dozen pies.  There isn't room for that many in the freezer, but wee can fit a few in and still have a couple to give away or something.

I haven't done my annual Christmas decorations this year yet, either.  I had an idea in mind, but it required access to the kitchen sink, stove top and counter space.  Every time they all got cleared, they immediately got covered!  So I'm trying to come up with something else that will be quick and fairly easy.  I've got some papier mache ornament shapes as bases, as well as some paints and glue.  I have other supplies in the craft cupboard to use as well.  I'm thinking, for some of them at least, I'll be doing things with spices.  I've usually been doing items that reflected light in some way.  I think this time, I'll be more rustic.  We shall see how that works out.

A quick run through

Just a quick run through what's been going on lately.

First up, we've got a new tablet.  No, not that one.  It's a NEW new tablet.  After having it less than two week, in between activities, I picked up the tablet, pushed the button in the corner to "wake" it, and nothing happened.

Push and hold.

Nothing.

Push and hold longer.

Still nothing.

Plug the USB into the computer.

Can't view it.  It was as if it wasn't there.

The next day I took it back to the store.  While chatting with the salesperson about it, describing what happened, he tried the press and hold thing, too.  After about half a minute, just as he was about to let go because it obviously wasn't going to do anything, it suddenly started to reboot!  Once up and running, it was fine.  Because it was so recently purchased, however, they would to a straight exchange for me.  It shouldn't have shut off on its own like that (shutting it down requires a prompt as well as pressing and holding the button, so there's no way I'd shut it off by accident).  They didn't have one in stock, though.  They ordered one in from another store, telling me it would be in the next day.  They would phone me when it was in.  Meanwhile, I took what I had home again.

Next day, no phone call.

Second day, no phone call.  In the evening, Dh called the store for me.  He was told it wasn't in (though they had plenty of a model with less memory) and might not be in for a week or something like that.  The person he spoke to had no clue what he was talking about.  Dh was not pleased.

I went back in person the next day.  One of the managers had to go digging in the back somewhere, but she found it.  Complete with my name and phone number taped to the box!  A quick check of the old one to make sure all the parts and pieces were there, a signature on some paperwork, and I had a new tablet.  Eldest had come along with me, so we walked over to a nearby Second Cup, where they have free wi-fi, to test it out.  I had to plug it in to turn it on, since the battery had no juice in it, but it worked fine.  I had some apps to reload, but things like my calender were backed up online, so those simply reset themselves.  Handy.

So now we have a working tablet again, and I'm really liking it.  Eldest hasn't been using it, but Youngest has.  Lately she's been using it to go online and practise the written test to get her learners permit.

Yes, unlike her sister, Youngest wants her license and is eager to drive.

Taking the written test... well, the computer based multiple choice test... costs less than $20 and has a minimum 80% pass requirement.  Youngest has been consistently getting in the 80-81% range, but she wants to do better on the practise tests before she takes the formal one.  Once she passes that, she'll be able to get behind the wheel legally, during the day and with either myself or Dh in the vehicle with her.  This will give us a chance to take her somewhere where she can practise.  She has to have the learners for at least 1 yr before she can get the next graduated license, and then another 2 years before she can get her full license.

Things sure have changed from when I got mine!  I got my beginners at 15 1/2, then could take the driver's test at age 16.  It took me two tries, but I got my full license at 16.  Granted, that was in another province, but my home province has the graduated license now, too. 

Meanwhile, Eldest has a part time job working in receiving at a Michaels.  Not the closer one she had applied for, but not the farthest away, either.  Her shifts start before the buses run, so I've been driving her to work in the mornings.  It's a pleasant thing to do, giving us a chance to chat.  My sleep patterns have been increasingly all over the place, though, and it's not going to be getting better any time soon!

Eldest has talked me into doing NaNoWriMo this year.  It officially started last night.  I stayed up until midnight for the official kick off.  The goal is 50,000 words in the month of November.  Daily goals are 1666 words.  Last night I verified my word count and finished at 3033 words.  I could have kept writing, but I wanted to get at least an hour of sleep before driving Eldest to her 6 am shift.  The buses start running at 5:30 and it takes her 2 buses and about 1 1/2 hours to get there, so even a 6 am shift requires a ride.  Our city has made some noises about starting 24 hour bus service - it was even supposed to start up this past summer, but got cancelled for some reason.  Considering how much traffic and activity we see in the wee hours of the morning, I think we've reached the point where it's a needed service.

Along with that, I've got other writing to do (including the blogs, which are falling woefully behind), crafting and writing about crafting. *L*  I've got a commissioned scoodie to make that's taking longer than it should, the Christmas crafts to do, some patterns to write, my instructors course to finish, and new classes to start teaching.  Oh, and some charity crafts to finish, too. 

With all this on my plate, I've pulled back on a lot of things.   For the next while, I'm focusing and writing and crafting and very little else. 

Except kittens.  We have a kitten.  Sort of.  Some strays have started visiting our balcony.  One of them was a pregnant female.  We can't keep them, but have been trying to adopt them out.  Meanwhile, the female had her litter somewhere.  As the temperatures have been dropping, we worried about the little ones.  We'd made a shelter out of our pet carrier in hopes she would have her litter there, but she didn't.  Then suddenly there was a kitten!  I don't know when she brought it in, but I'm glad she did.  I'd found someone who works at a vet's office that offered to take the mama, but she had her litter before that could be arranged.  Now that we have her and her kitten (I'm guessing a lone survivor), I'm hoping this person is still willing to take them in.  We're not allowed to have more than 2 cats, but if we can't adopt them out, I might have to see if we'll be allowed to bend the rules a bit. 

Well, that's where we are right now.  I'm sure there's plenty I'm forgetting, but I have to move on to the next item on my to-do list.  With writing being on my list of priorities, though, I'm hoping to have posts up more frequently.