Da Big Winner...is...

Here are a few preliminary pics from the acceptance festivities at Safeway today.
This is the store manager, Norm



My award...a trip for two to the Dominican ...perhaps Punta Cana...

The magnificent bouquet of flowers they presented me with

Last but not least, my huge cake which we shared all around.
Much to my surprise I had a little crowd there to share in my happiness... my sister Joyce, my sister-in-law, Lori, and her mom and dad, Ron and Phoebe, and of course, Emil , my sweets, who took all these pics! Thank-you all for making a special effort on my behalf, and thank-you to all who congratulated me and said their thoughts would be with me today when they couldn't make it.
The back of the cake was one huge slab of chocolate... and the cake was vanilla, all done up very neat with the poker chips and the poker hands...very cute.. Thank-you so much, Canada Safeway and their promotional group, Promotavate, and the supplier of the trip...Redtag. A huge thank-you to all my sweet rellies and friends who came to support me today... I wish that I could take everyone on the trip with us! We'll try to give everyone a heads up of our dates, then maybe others can book a trip there at the same time.... It will be a party for many reasons!
Love you all, and it was the best day of 2010 for me!
"The Creator"

Sat. Feb 6th, 11:00 am

Mark the date on your calender, as this will be my big moment of stardom at the Nelson Safeway store. This is the date that has been arranged to make the grand presentation to me! ( and Emil)...Yes, everyone, he has opted to come on the trip with me! So if you aren't doing anything and you want ot see me cry, then come on out to Nelson Safeway this Saturday and see what its all about. I'd love to see a few familiar faces amongst all of those cameras and media people!
I have no idea what it will be like, but hey, maybe they will give out free doughnuts and coffee or something.. who knows???
Sorry my blog was thin over the weekend. I cooked a big Chinese dinner for our friends from across the lake, on Saturday night. After dinner we got into a couple of games of Euchre and then it was late to bed. We had fun and I think I am catching on to Euchre finally.
Sunday was a busy day with clearing up the main side of the basement. Emil has visions of getting drywall hung in there before the end of the week, so we had to move everything away from the walls and then cover everything with plastic that couldn't be moved . That was an all morning project, and half the afternoon. Randy and Frances came over for Happy hour and then back to laundry and bed. I have to say that the new sheets we ordered from Costco are devine to sleep under. My pillows came today...Yay! I have woken up with a sore neck about three nights out of four ,due to my very mashed ,flat pillows. I have a knack for killing them whilst I sleep. In one year, my $60.00 Obus form pillow is a bag of dust particles and a hardened bar of foam underneath...enough to make your neck cry out in pain... I totally flattened it!
Okey dokey...Have a great week... I sure intend to!


"The Creator"

Wanye and Derrick are the winning guessers!!!!

Both of them did a little googling around to find that my surprise is not so secret if you want to find it out!
Lucky me had my name drawn by Safeway in their recent Texas holdem contest and I have won a trip for two to the Dominican Republic. Yes that is the DR that is attached to Haiti in case you were wondering. More details to come when I get them! Have a great day!
Sent on the TELUS Mobility network with BlackBerry from Bea

1 in 1,561,267

Thats what my odds were... Stay tuned to my blog for news of my extraordinarily lucky day!

Giggle giggle!

"The Creator"

Vancouver Fog in High Definition...a Time Lapse Video

A friend sent this to me from You tube... a video that captures some of Vancouver over a period of time... done to an upbeat musical score - it is quite interesting. Just double click in the black area of the video to the right and it will open a new window at You tube . From there you can click the grey arrow to the right to see it full screen. It is worth looking at. Now I am going to go back and see the one of the Grand Canyon... Enjoy!
Well, the Grand Canyon was good, but the typhoon coming in at Hong Kong was even better...especially if you watch right to the end when the city lights turn on... very cool...

"The Creator"

Costa Rican Coleslaw and Fahitas

On Saturday night I decided to make that yummy coleslaw with the whole head of cilantro in it... I call it Costa Rican Coleslaw. I took so many pics that you will have to look at the web albumn
to see them all. Here of course, I've loaded them up in exactly the opposite order, but am too tired to exchange them all, so bear with me and you'll get the gist of it.

Here is the finshed beef fahita and coleslaw. Yum... Serve with grated marble cheese, sour cream, salsa, chopped tomatoes and guacamole if you have it. You can also do chopped lettuce, but I figured that the coleslaw did the trick.
You can heat the tortillas in the nuker one by one, or do a pile of them in tinfoil in the oven. Don't overcook them or you'll have tortilla chips!





Rolling it up is important... flip up the bottom of the tortilla and then roll it. That way the filling stays inside.

No quacamole, but here it is... a layer of grated cheese on the hot tortilla, then the pepper, beef and onion fahita mixture, topped with tomaotes

I marinate the meat in a half can of beer and also some lime juice and all my spices , for about a half hour or so before beginning to cook.

A squirt of lime on the beef or chicken mixture at the end of cooking gives it a little pizazz. I use lots of tex mex spices, fahita mix spice, and anything else I have around the kitchen. This time I added a hot sauce and that brought the heat factor up a notch or two.

I cook the veggies first in the wok. I added plenty of chopped garlic too. Then I empty the veggies out into a bowl and throw in the chicken or beef... this was beef from a little striploin steak.
Once the meat was cooked , I added the veggies back into the meat. Usually I cut my red peppers in rounds but slipped up and made them chunky this time... still tasted good. Always check for saltiness...usually that is the spice I am lacking in the meat.

Here is my finished colesaw. Yummy! The dressing is nothing more than vinegar, oil , salt and sugar and garlic and a dash of hotsauce. The key , once again is to add suficient salt. This brings out the flavour of the cilantro and helps soften the cabbage. i used a bag of coleslaw mix to make my life easy peezy.

This is a cute little Ikea chopping board than came in my stocking. I used it to do most of my chopping. Here are the green onions getting chopped up.

here is my coleslaw with the chopped cucumber, tomatoe and cilantro. I went on to add chopped red pepper to the colslaw as well.

This is the nifty double bladed chopper that comes witht he chopping board. The chopper is good for herbs and a small dice.

This is the culmination of my fahita night. I have a new understanding of the word "Trajectory!"

The salsa bowl slipped off the counter and when it smacked ontot he floor, it produced a 360* radius of spewed salsa all around my kitchen... on every cabinet, on the baseboards, the rug, on top of my stove, and ever place unimaginable! Silky did her darndest to help me out but wound up hacking and sneezing from the jalapenos in the salsa. She gave up on being miss floor cleaner.

Two hours later I finshed cleaning every cupboard, my stove, my dishwasher, and anything else down low that I don't even usually see. It was a mess and looks much better now, but I'd recommend not to ever try it!

"The Creator"

Ray's Kayak...9 years in the making...

This a labour of love so to speak...Ray L. has spent nine years cooking up this baby in his basement or shop and now it is done... a piece fit for a museum...but he intends to put it out on the lake at some point. We'll be watching for it. Thanks Ray for sending the photos my way...

 

 

 

 


"The Creator"

Amarylis Blooms!

 
Here's my beautiful amarylis ,at various stages of bloom...note they aren't in the right order. Do you have any tips to keep them so they bloom next year?
 
 
 


"The Creator"

Beddingtons.com

Beddingtons.com
This is a Canadian web store that sells loads of lovely looking bedding and towels. The shipping is very reasonable and is actually free if your order is over $150.00. I might have to check this out a little more myself!


"The Creator"