Visit to Lynn's today

I almost got an early start this morning...but even with a couple of stopsalong the way, I made it just after noon. FYI, the roads between Nelson and Trail are less than desirable. Large sheets of cobble-stone ice that bumps your vehicle along and could send you off into Outer limits if you go to fast. A couple of vehicles were in the snowbank after they did just that.
Little Matthew and Abbi came running up to me...so sweet. Abbi is getting much older looking and Matthew is the cutest little guy around. Hard to believe he is in kindergarten! Robert is the "Lean Machine" with the best red locks on the planet!
It was great to see all three of them and Shayne and Denise and of course, Lynn and Bob too!

Lynn's house was a Christmas pressent with all of her cute decorations and nice tree all done up. We dined on a fab lunch that Lynn and Denise had all ready. The Pizza buns were a hit with the kids and the adults stuck to the gourmet spanokopitas and sausage rolls and chicken wings...all a big Yum, not to mention the cream cheese layered dip that Lynn and Denise had made. Extra tasty with those "Scoop" tortilla chips! I went straight for the Pizzelles ...a Lynn specialty that comes from her kitchen every kitchen...Thanks Lynn...They are great with the aniseed flavour.
After lunch, Lynn and I played a game of Cadoo, the kids version of Cranium...not to be confused with the updated version called "UCranium!"...
...kept us amused as we tried to make something out of plastercine, or do a pantomine to describe something. Matty was my helper, but unfortunately couldn't help us to beat Robert, who won on a sneakey diagonal play!
We said our good-byes and I headed home before dark, as I didn't want to drive the washboard ice capades in the dark.No-one was rushing over the icy parts anyhow, but one always worries about the crazies on the highway coming at you.

Thanks Lynn and Family for the lovely afternoon...Nice to see the kids and kidlets before they head back. Speaking of back, poor Denise fell down the basement stairs and hurt her back and tailbone, so she wasn't doing much sitting. Hope you get all better soon.

Sorry I haven't been able to write individual comments under each photo. Blogger is still working out bugs for uploading photos and as far as I can tell, I can not load them up from Picasa, like I used to be able to....a pain, to say the least.
"The Creator"

Dinner at Fusions

They should make a musical note that one can type, because that is what I'd be typing as I sing "Happy Holidays to Me!"
Chris and Carolyne invited us out to a wonderful dinner at Fusions, a rather new restaurant in Nelson,located kitty corner from the Bank of Montreal, in the old Rice Bowl location. Lets just say the food lived up to its name...a Fusion of ethnic cuisines to make totally new dishes with poignant flavours enough to make your mouth sing!
We started with many appies ranging from Tempura Battered Shitaki Mushrooms , to a Meditaranean Putine with a plate full of angel hair french fried potatoes topped with goats cheese and a spicy sauce. Yum! Also Carolyne ordered Prawns stuffed with a soft cheese ( goat again?) and surrounded by a cilantro and tomatoe mango lime salsa. We shared all of the "Tapas" and then enjoyed our entries. The three of us ordered the seafood special...(the photo of the food on the plate)...Salmon, a Prawn and a piece of Halibut...all very delicious and done to perfection. Thanks Chris and Carolyne for the delicious night out. The martinis were yummy too...Kooteny Kisses.MMMMMM.
The owner and chef off the restaurant is only 27 years old. Our compliments to him. A full page write up in the Friday's Nelson News tells all about him and the restaurant which probably contributed to the full house by the time we were ready to leave.

"The Creator"

Xmas in Alberta

Joyce sent me these very sweet pics of her little grandsweeties. looks like it was all a bundle of fun...and a sidebar note to say that Correna looks fab without her glasses! How goes it with the new eyes?
"The Creator"

Happy Boxing Week

Christmas was the quietest we've had, but we made up for it on boxing day. Emil went out for a x-country ski along the beach again and thoroughly enjoyed it. We both went over to Ron and Phoebe's, (Ronda and Lori's parents)for a little Boxing Day party.
Certainly was wonderful to see all of their family and the little kidlets.Ronda and John were there and already had established who "The Real Bosses " were! Pretty funny,since Ronda had hung signs all over the place demoting Ron and John. Ron and John were ripping them down, and Ronda was putting them back up! Nice to have a few laughs and see everyone again.

We left at the beginning of the snowstorm and drove back home over snowy roads.It was really coming down!
I got dinner organized even tho we had stuffed our faces at Phoebes with chicken wings and veggies and chips and dips...Yum, but I knew we would be hungry for real food sooner or later. Emil made the salad and soon, John and Ronda arrived...and yes, it was still snowing out...only worse now.

We opened gifts and had a few laughs when I couldn't figure out what this odd shaped package was that they had given me. It looked like a spice rack or a picture hanger,in cubes . Turned out to be three wonderful smelling Body creams from Victoria Secret.
Ronda orders from them all the time and there seems to be no problem with having it delivered right to your mailbox. Thanks Ronda for the tip... MMMM...a new place to shop online!
In the pictures, we are toasting Ronda and John's engagement with champagne that has been mellowing in my downstairs fridge for a few months.
We enjoyed the leftover turkey and stuffing for dinner, then headed for the hot-tub. It was still snowing out,so quite beautiful.

The snow continued for the night and by morning it was pretty hideous out. Fortunately John and Ronda didn't have to drive back home.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, Joyce and Morgan were having the drive of their life back from Alberta. Many accidents and cars off the road, including a huge cattle carrier around Moyie Lake. They never made it home till eleven o'clock at night.
Derrick and Barb, beat them home by a half hour. That is from Edmonton to Prince Rupert! How is that???
The snowstorm was hanging out in southern BC.
Enough blab for now. I better head to the shower,then off to work...It is my last day for two weeks! YIPPEEEEEE...a holiday finally, after two years of work. I'll be enjoying myself wherever I am.
Hope to visit all of you! Just joking! I plan on getting over to Lynns tomorrow to see Shayne and Denise and kidlets before they head back to Calgary.

"The Creator"

MERRY CHRISTMAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!

7:29 and Christmas is here...In fact, I noticed that Santa came and left us a present of about a half a foot of snow...mmmmm...I let Silky open her only present under the tree, a set of pink doggie boots...Too funny...It was like she was walking on another planet! Her instincts told her to bolt, once she hit the door, in order to run away from those damn little stinkers,stuck on all four paws! Around and around she ran- over to the spare lot, around the garage and back and forth,and voila...only the back two held fast. Front two were gonners in the snow!After 45 minutes of shovelling walks, I traced her steps and found each of them. This morning she could have used hip waders, because the snow was up to her butt!

Last night we played Stocking Stuffers with the kids while the phone was on "Speaker" . Thus it was a play by play of the going's on! Such fun, but nearly as much fun as it would have been if we had been altogether! Emil and I both got arm bands that not only are reflective, but they also have blinking red lights...apparently that is so we don't lose ourselves when we are night skiing with our x-country skiis! As well, we were blessed with pills that would improve Emil's performance and get me out of the ittybittytittyclub! Pretty funny! we were so pooped that we never had time to take them. I'll let you know how they go.
Emil's mom spent a few days with us..poor dear, just getting more and more frail, but still happy to give Emil a wave or happy to eat a plate of koubassa and toast and eggs for breakfast, that Emil cooked up for her. In fact she ate very well, all considered. Yesterday, Emil met Lawrence in town, so Emil's mom could spend Xmas with their family and John and Ronda.
It won't be the same without the kids...first time in all of 37 years. I worked right until four o'clock yesterday. The day was more quiet, but we had a lot of fun,opening gifts and eating. That was the nice thing about the week, Carolyne, my boss, ordered in lunch every day for the whole week for all of us. Also, we were joined by Annie who is a jack of all trades,specializing in cooking and catering, but faithfully, returns each year to help in the store at Christmas. She was a delight to work with, and I'll be sad to not have her around next week.She brought me a whole tin of baking as she knew I had done not a stitch this year. Thanks Annie. Lynn B.gifted us with a box of her famous rum balls on Saturday! Yum! The baking is pretty near done!
The big elf is still hanging out in bed, but I suspect the little grandchil elves will be up and at it momentarily, to phone and have an early morning chat with Grumps as they usually do.
Time to stuff my turkey and then return to the outdoors and shovel more of the white stuff...athere is a dump of it...plus we are taking care of Bills too, as sadly he has to go to Kelowna for emergency surgery. He'll be in our thoughts and prayers.



"The Creator"

Thanks Sue

Nice to hear from you Sue! I have your letter in my email, but it also doesn't give me your email address,so Check my comment to you where you left the original,and I'll send you an email,after you send me a quick note.... I,m pooped now, so I have to fall into bed. Yes, working in the jewellry shop is pretty darn nice, I have to admit. Sort of like working in a candy shop all day!
Talk to you soon...B.

"The Creator"

Mexican night

As you can see by the pics, we all had fun at our little Mexican party last Sunday night. I made a wonderful Mexican Seafood soup that everyone loved, by the sounds of it.

Seafood Soup Basics
One litre of veggie soup broth or fish stalk.
a variety of seafood,including prawns,a white fish,trout or salmon,and whatever other seafood you have on hand...including 2 lobster tails if they are kicking around! Otherwise,at Safeway,they have a bag of mixed seafood that includes cuttle-fish,squid and mussels and shrimp...It costs about $6.00 and does the job.I also used a half bag of scallops.
Then you will need either fresh,frozen or canned tomatoes ( abouat a quart) and 2 cooking onions, and 3 stalks of celery, a green pepper, acouple of jalopenos, two potatoes, peppercorns, clilantro and lime juice and lime rind grated. The rest of the veggies can be chopped up. Olive Oil to fry the veggies in. Salt and pepper.


I used one opf Emil's trout and a one litre tetra pack of Campbell vegetable broth. I never realized that these tetra packs offered such a variety by the time you consider the brands. Safeway had them on sale at 2 for $5.00...and certain ones were lower sodium than the others.
So I boiled up the fish with the broth and a little more water and an onion all chopped up and ten peppercorns. After simmerring for twenty minutes or so, the soup is poured through a strainer. The onion and fish bones get tossed and the liquid is reserved,separate from the deboned fish meat.
In your big soup pot,fry up the onions and celery and green peppers and jalapenos, and when soft, add the tomatoes. Simmer a bit and add the remaining soup broth from your fish. bring to a light boil and add the cubed potaotes. Add your cuttlefish and mussle mixture and let simmer for ten minutes after it comes to a boil ( turn heat down). At this point, you can chop up your white fish ( cod, halibut,bass) and add it,then add your scallops and lastly add the prawns and your cooked trout or salmon pieces that you used for the initial fish broth. Add 6 sprigs of cilantro and more ground pepper and a little salt...taste it and you will see how nice the cilantro gives flavour to the broth. Don't boil it to death, just cook until the prawns are pink or heated through if they are precooked.Your soup is nearly done. Grate the peel of a lime and throw that in,as well as the juice of a lime ,or about a !/4 cup of bought lime juice. To serve the soup, remove the long cilantro sprigs, and top the soup with chopped bits of cilantro for colour, or so that each scoop of soup has a little color on top.
So try it out when it is a cold winter day. You'll enjoy the fresh flavour, and the seafood was delicious.

So back to the party..
We started off with loaded up natchos,followed by the soup, and then it was a freeforall as everyone fixed their own fahitas after I prepared the chicken and peppers and onion mixture.
In additon, I made coleslaw with cilantro,thin sliced cucumbers,and thin slices of red onion, topped with a dressing of lime juice, vinegar, garlic, sugar, and salt and a dash of hot sauce.

Janice and Linda brought platters of Xmas baking incuding a fruitcake made with chocolate in it, and also a pile of beautiful truffles and biscotti that Janice and Linda made together. Yum. We were like fat little piglets after each truffle was tested!
Instead of our usual Train game, we tried our hand at Texas Hold'em. That was fun as you never know which cards will turn up. Ed was up ato tricks with his shades on and a toy revolver to keep everyone honest! JAnice and Gord and then ed were the big winners. I had only two hands that were reasonabley bidable, and the rest was just a bluff into oblivion. Out of desperation, I went "All in" and that was it! I was "All in!"
It was a fun way to spend an evening...We bought our ten bucks worth of chips and that lasted us through till 10:30 when everyone called it a night.

Sometime after that, I came down with a Sinus/Cold thing. Sinutabs and miVitality are keeping it at bay, but at night my ear begins to ache...which is what is going on right now, so I'll say good night.
If anyone was waiting for a Christmas letter, most of our news can be found right here in this blog...just check the Archives.

And if I don't get back on here...two more days of work...I would like to wish all of my dear sweet friends and relatives a very Happy Christmas. It won't be the same this year without Sonia and Steve and Annette and Kaleigh and MAddie, that is for sure. I hope we can have fun via phone and pretend we are there.
In the meantime, Emil brought his mom over for a few days prior to Christams, then she will spend Xmas day at Lawrences. She is getting more frail, but seems to enjoy all the food and especially the cakes and cookie and chocolate parts of the meal!
Feliz Navidad Everyone!

Take your turkey out soon if you want it thawed for Monday,but don't let any of the meat get warm...nor should you leave it where the cat can chew away at it. I have mine in the roaster downstairs, on the freezer. Once it thaws a bit, I will put it in cold water and just keep turning it over and adding new cold water...or maybe this year, I will try brining it. You add about 1 cup of course salt to a large pot of water that will hold the turkey and cover it all....,and let it sit for 4 or 5 hours just prior to cooking . The meat is very tender and juicy when cooked this way, but the white meat often has a pink tinge that looks uncooked when it really is cooked.Also, if you check out the recipe link above and follow the instructions for roasting the turkey, you'll see that the cooking time is cut way down, but the thickest part of the white meat should still measure 170*


"The Creator"

Blue Sky week-end

Annette's cat, Soleil makes herself at home under the Christmas tree. She has been remarkabley good,and has left it standing. She does,however,take pride in removing one tiny Santa Claus figure that is in the garlands on the rail behind the couch. Nearly every day after work, I find Santa lying on the couch blanket. It must have a little cat nip in it.
As you can see, yesterday started out with the sun shining and it continued all day,until about one o'clock,when the sun falls too far behind our mountain. We still get daylight( ha-ha) but not much sunshine. Soon it won't be visible on our side of the lake until January tenth or so. This is one small sacrifice we make for having sunshine on our beach until 8:30pm in the summer....hence the name Sunshine Bay.
Yesterday was chore day with much accomplished,including a good start to a Mexican seafood soup that I am making for our Mexican dinner tonight. I just have to add Prawns and Scallops to it and the rest of the fish. Then a spritz of lime juice and some grated peel of a lime. My afternoon will be spent chopping and grating for a dinner of Fahitas,natchos, coleslaw and of course,pre-empted by the soup.
In the meantime,enough procrastinating...back to my cards...

"The Creator"

Happy Nutrition.

I checked out the Nestle site...a Canadian one, and oh my...lots of goodies on there. Go to contests and see all the Canadian contests you can enter. For safe browsing practices, after you fill in any info, go to your Internet Explorer tool bar, and select Tools and then Internet Options,then to Delete Browsing History. Once there, choose "Delete Files,and Delete history". This eliminates your browsing history and protects you somewhat,after you have filled in forms, or done on-line banking. Back to the website:

In addition to all of the contests, there are useful pages regarding healthy nutrition for adults and children, as well as a Food Tracker you can sign up for, much like the weight watchers site. Track what you eat...AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHGHGHGHGHGGHHH...as I sit and have a sample of the QUality Street candies I bought.
There must be some nutrition in them.
"The Creator"

Mailwasher Pro

Are you still receiving tons of Spam everyday? With a program, such as Mailwasher ( the free one) or Mailwasher Pro ( Demo here) installed, it automatically filters out Spam and shows you which emails are to be deleated before the rest of the emails go to your inbox. In otherwords, you are deleting them at the server level, instead of at your inbox . This program has a learning mode that allows you to "teach" it who are your friends, and those that aren't. Tonight, the makers of the program...Firetrust, sent out an informative newsletter that I thought was well worth passing along on how to make the program operate better for you, and also an option to add another feature called First Alert, which sends a report of your Spam and thus, with many current reports, it has one of the highset security measures against spam and all the problems that come with unwanted emails entering your computer. Mailwasher is free, and Mailwasher Pro which now comes with First Alert ,($37.00 US can be paid by PayPal), but it gives you peace of mind and only the emails you want, coming into your Inbox.

Read through the letter I recieved on how to better utilize Mailwasher and also a little update on Spam and Antivirus. Lots to digest,but worth your while to learn a little more about these two computing menaces.



FIRETRUST NEWSLETTER
Hi,
As you may have noticed, over the past couple of months spam has got a lot worse. So I thought it's probably a good time to send you some tips and ideas to get around the ever increasing flood of spam.
First of all, I'll cover how you can use MailWasher better to trap spam and then discuss some other steps you should take to reduce spam getting to you. Lastly I'll talk about how spam works and why we're still getting it.

Contents
Use filtering properly
Use how to use your learning filters - this really helps
Filter at the server first
Get rid of your catch-all account
Use an Anti-virus - this one is free
The current state of spam

1. Use filtering properly

Since Mailwasher works by filtering your email before it gets to your computer, you should take the time to make sure it's doing a good job of telling the difference between spam and your good email. We'll keep this simple.
Click on the 'Spam Tools' button on the front screen of Mailwasher.

Friends list:

People on your Friends List always get through and are clearly marked green. If you haven't taken the time to add your contacts to the Friends List, take 5 minutes and do it. It will make a big difference.

FirstAlert!:

This service is getting better and better all the time and it helps with training your filters to recognise spam. Turn it on.

Learning:

Training your filters to recognise spam and good email is really effective and ensures a high degree of accuracy. You don't need to do anything here as I'll come back to this in the next section.


Origin of spam:

This works by blocking spam based on its point of origin. Two very reliable, accurate and well-known services are ORDB and Spamhaus. Make sure you have these ticked as working. If you don't see them, click on 'Add' then
Name (for your benefit): ORDBDomain (to validate with): relays.ordb.org
Name (for your benefit): SpamhausDomain (to validate with): sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org
Click 'OK' each time to enter these.
These will help to catch a lot of spam.

Some points to note:

Did you know you can auto-delete most of the spam so you never see it in Mailwasher?
First of all, make sure you have all your contacts listed in your friends list - these must always get through. Then for FirstAlert! and Origin of Spam, select:
Perform the action:and select 'Automatically (without notification)'.

If you do accidentally lose good email with this, you can rescue any email in Tools>>Statistics>>Mail Log.

Another good idea is to hide your friends' emails from view. See Spam Tools>>My Friends list>>Action>>Hide the email. This has the effect of displaying only the spam in your email account. You can then quickly check, then process and download only your friends email to your email program.


How to use your learning filters - this really helps

No one else gets the same email as you, so you need to teach Mailwasher how to treat your email for you. It doesn't take much time and, once you know how to use it, it will make a huge difference to how well MailWasher recognises your spam.
On the left of your screen when using MailWasher you will see a 'Learning' column.
One day when you're checking your email with MailWasher, quickly spend a minute or two ticking either the 'Trash bin' icon for spam (marks with an X), or the 'envelope'(marks with a tick) for your good email.
It learns and adapts, and it will start to do the work for you - very quickly and accurately. So make sure you categorise your email whenever you check it. Every time you do, MailWasher's filters get more accurate.

Here's a demo you can watch to see how to do this.

http://www.firetrust.com/download/filters.htm You can skip the part 'How to set up' as Mailwasher comes with it turned on by default.

3. Filter at the server first

An effective way to filter through Mailwasher is to make sure your internet provider is filtering your email first (and doing a good job) - before it gets to you. Some providers are better than others at this, but as long as you're not losing your good email they should be filtering out 90-95% of the spam before it gets to you.
Some businesses will run their own email systems and to effectively do this, they need to filter out most of their employees' spam but, at the same time, make sure good email always gets through or is retrievable.

At Firetrust we have available a very popular free open-source anti-spam solution for businesses who run their own email server. If you're interested in the technical details, it plugs into Microsoft Exchange, Sendmail and Qmail or runs as a gateway. It runs on Windows, Linux or Solaris. Information and download here :
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mailwasher/

4. Get rid of your catch-all account

We've had a number of people writing to us this last month saying they get around 2,000-3,000 emails a day. And you thought you had it bad!
Anyway, after speaking to these people it turns out, they own their own domain name, e.g. @company.com.
Now spammers have little regard to who they send their spam to, so they will try any address at the domain name you own.
So, instead of just getting email to their own named email address, they were getting email sent to anyone at the domain name they owned. Eg. If they had an email address bob@company.com they were also receiving email addressed to mary@company.com, simon@company.com, mark@company.com, house@company.com, car@company.com, boat@company.com, anything@company.com, xhfrngy@company.com ... (you get the picture) ...
Once we told them to call their internet provider and to change their email account from a 'catch-all' account to only getting email addressed to their email address, they experienced a huge reduction in spam.
This was only for people who get email to their own domain name, so don't annoy your internet provider if you don't have one.

5. Use an Anti-virus - this one is free

If you didn't know it already, the majority of spam is sent by people who have viruses on their computers. Not only do people not know they have a virus on their computer, they don't know they are sending spam.
This is how it happens. A person doesn't have antivirus installed and gets a virus. The virus is the type which turns the computer into a zombie, that is, the virus allows the spammer to control the computer and use it to send out spam.

Of course it is very difficult to track and stop spam from these computers as one spammer may control around 50,000 computers to send out their spam.

So, INSTALL ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE ON YOUR COMPUTER! And tell your friends to do too, and they can tell their friends etc.

If your current antivirus subscription has run out, then it's not working for you any more. Either pay for another year or download AVG antivirus which is completely free to use and works very well. Get it here - http://www.grisoft.com/doc/products-avg-anti-virus-free-edition/lng/us/tpl/t pl01

6. The current state of spam

A few years ago, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates predicted that spam would be eradiacated by 2006 but if anything, it's getting worse. As you've probably realised, fighting spam is a bit of an arms race. We block something, they get around it and so on....

The main problem of spam is that it's an economic problem. If it wasn't profitable to send spam, it would almost certainly stop.

So what can we all do to stop the flood of junk email?
The answer is simple :DON'T EVER EVER BUY ANYTHING ADVERTISED IN A SPAM EMAIL!

Of course you should never buy something featured in a spam email, no matter how good it looks. Even if you don't get defrauded out of your money, you're encouraging the spammer to keep sending his junk messages.
This latest spam outbreak is proving harder and harder to block. Either it uses lots of unrelated words together or is composed of an image, with random noise to avoid detection. We are busy working on solutions to better detect this type of spam and we'll be rolling out a new product in the near future.


Until then, make sure you follow the guidelines I've laid down for you.
Thank you to all of you who send us your comments and suggestions. We enjoy hearing from you - please keep in touch.

And feel free to forward this newsletter on to your friends and family.
Have a great day!Nick Bolton and the team at Firetrust

www.firetrust.com



"The Creator"

Go Fetch...

If you are visiting Vancouver and have your pet in mind...this is the spot for you...Go Fetch it!



"The Creator"

Nudder night

Well, here is a funny website called headlines if you want to check it out for a good laugh... Thanks Chris...made my night! Note that if you are using Explorer, you have to Okay Popups to open underlined links. That is located on your Google toolbar .

Ooh...I received many Christmas cards today. Thank-you to all and to all of those you took time to send them out. You may have to wait a while before you recieve mine...something about a mail delay in Harroponia...nothing till after the week-end!

Jami also sent me a link to a website showing off her paintings. Check them out and give her a vote of ten on each one of them. This link brings you to her home page of paintings at Artfaceoff. She is doing wonderfully well in her art career in Portland Oregon, by the looks of her very terrific paintings! You can see by the photos of the city that many bridges cross the Willamette River, hence all the bridge references in Jami's delightful paintings.

Ok, I have just finished trying to scare off the coyotes, by shaking my pop-can with pennies in it. It makes a ton of noise, but all my shaking in the world didn't seem to faze them one bit. They are howling their heads off somewhere very much too close by...like under the Willow tree or on the beach...calling to my little doggy and big kitty cat..."Come for dinner-Come for dinner -Come be my dinner!"

Either that, or, "Send down the females, so we can mate all night long!"

Silky can hear them long before me, and both tonight and (last night at one in the morning), she let out a series of alarming barks. Glad Emil was home or I'd have been afraid, for sure. Last thing I need is 3 or 4 yotes staking out my pets. Maybe I'll go check out that Trappers site a little more closely:-)
Ok, time to hit the hay...I hear something beeping....could be Emil's phone about to expire! Nope, it is mine!
"The Creator"

Here are my Grand Sweeties and Spike

Sonia sent me these pics yesterday of the kids and the new puppy...all are so cute..makes me want to be there, and it makes me sad not to be spending Xmas with them this year. The good news tho, is that I had to get my doo-doo together and send their parcels away.

I did that at Grey hound today. No line ups, no hassle. On the other hand, I did have to mail things for Carolyne at the post office this afternoon. I was #ten in line. Three clerks were on, andt hen one packed it up and left. A few minutes later a fellow replaced her, bringing it back to three posties again and the line began to once again speed up. However by 3:35, the line up was over twenty long and going right out to the door and around to the other part of the post office. My reccomendation is to try for earlier rather than later. At nine this am, there were three people waiting for Shoppers to open,and all had arm loads of parcels to be mailed away...all except one guy...he had a shopping buggy full of small parcels...probably drugs going to the USA. That is a fast growing business in Nelson. all in all, I was glad to be using Grey Hound today.

"The Creator"

Ginger-Bread House Deluxe...

I'd like to be the owner of this wonderful creation, but alas, it tis not me. Sounds liek Correna spent the week-end building this great feat of architecture! Way to go, C. , and the added touch of the little skaters and the Dicken's folks skooting around, makes it one sweet Christmas scene. The roofing material is quite interesting...New Mexico adobe tiles? Just joking! I commend you for being so brave as to tackle a gingerbread house.

I have unfond memories of making more and more Royal Icing to add yet another layer of stick-um to the joints every time a wall would quietly start to peel away from the rest of the house. It was the first time I recall buying merengue powder to mix up , instead of using egg whites. A little 250 gram carton of powder didn't go too far when the house was about 2400 sq. feet...(make that inches!) It was pretty tall, like Correnas, but had a quirky roof that belonged on a troll house. We bought out the candy section at the Warfield store and plastered on about twenty pounds of everything from licorice to jube-jubes. In the end, I could hardly lift the damn thing....and no-one could even break off a candy, cause the royal icing with all of the merengue powder in it, has solidified into white stone. To top it off, the royal icing apparently found its way onto everything I ever touched. It solidified all over my little Warfield kitchen and was a Royal mess to clean up.

Poor Sonia and Annette, sometime after New Years day, eventually gave up trying to chew off the candy and the whole thing had to hit the ditch. Besides, neither of them like giungerbread too much)

Congrats to C. for building and sharing her masterpiece and good luck to all who undertake the building of such a fun Christmas project. ( Warning: Have plenty of icing sugar on hand and lots of hot water to wipe off the goo as it cementifies!)

"The Creator"

Back to the party at Anne's

Emil and Anne

I had this all written out once, but apparently it didn't post to my blog, so here we go again. I just wanted to mention how smart Anne is to make those nice shrimp cocktails to have before dinner. The shrimp are interspersed with lemon wedges and the bottom of the glass holds a quarter cup or so of shredded lettuce topped with a dollop of seafood sauce. She has done them in wine goblets before, for an equally nice touch. That little appetizer suffices for a salad and she goes right on to the main course which was all prepared ahead of time...
Mashed Potatoes topped cheddar cheese, and baked in an 8x8 Pyrex cake pan. Asparagus precooked and waiting to be served...in another pyrex dish in the oven. Then she had the most colourful dish... baked stuffed tomatoes. I don't know what was in the stuffing, but it was light and fluffy and didn't taste too strongly of any flavour.
For another vegetable dish, Dick made these vegetable sticks, comprised of zuccini, red and orange peppers, and carrots...all cut to about four and a half inches long, then made into little bundles that were then wrapped in a slice or two of bacon! These were baked on a cookie sheet until the veggies were cooked through and the bacon was crisp on top. What a neat idea. ( she may have marinated them in some olive oil ahead of time) She made about two bundles per person. Her main entree was roasted pork with applesauce ,and then gravy to top off everything. I nearly forgot the cheese scones...now those were very good...about the size of a baking powder biscuit, so everyone ate at least two of them!

She wound up the dinner with a beautiful cheese cake topped with a raspberry topping and whipped cream... Yum. We all filled our bellies with goodness and wine and had to come home to go to beddy byes.
So I thought I'd pass on those dinner ideas, now that Christmas parties are happening every week.


We are planning to have Gord and Janice and Ed and Linda over, next Sunday...for some Mexican food. I think I'll do a soup, fahitas, natchos, and coleslaw, and Janice is bringing a trifle for desert. It won't be too complicated, that is for sure.

have a great one...



"The Creator"

Dinner at Anne and Dick's

Lynn and Ursela

Must of been a good joke by Emil!
Emil and Anne with Barry and Ursela in the kitchen

And our Hostesses with the mostest! Anne and Dick
Note that delicious appetizer... I'll tell you how its done, tonight!

"The Creator"

New Pics !

Thanks Lynn and Nadine for these very sweet "New Farah-Doo!" pics of little Miss QT and Marilyn Monroe before her Christmas party, and who is that gal with the dark hair?? She has recently lost many pounds, so you may not recognize her... Way to go girl!

Now if I could only zip up my trap and go see an exorcist to get the hungry demon out of my belly. I commend anyone who can stick to a diet and an "exorcise " plan.

"The Creator"

Welcome to Colour

So...how do you like the colour...lots of it...very typical of me...load up on the paint and let her go!
It has a name W 2.o .
Mainly ,it will be the format of the future...loads of colour, no square boxes and lots of 3-D. I'm still working on that part of it. To me, it seems like they are taking up a cartoon style of web page to keep people interested and to make it fun and lively. That will be me... fun and colourful!

It was a good Saturday today. I finished all of my wrapping! TA-DA! ( Looks like a demolition zone upstairs!)
I packed up two huge boxes to send to the kids and now, it is just a matter of topping them off with as many styrofoam chips as possible! In fact, if anyone needs styrofoam chips, just let me know. Maybe I should be thinking about making a bean-bag chair. That wouldn't be too hard, especially if I make it out of an orange garbage bag! HMMMMmmmm....

Emil made it back from his Vancouver trip ...sounds like it all went well and lucky him, he actually landed in Castlegar! I had visions of a phone call, saying he was back in Kelowna. The fog was most of the way down the mountain across the lake from us, all day. I guess the morning plane never landed, but his flight did. He said it was packed.

We went out for a nice hot-tub tonight...little snowflakess cascading down out of the heavens...right to the inside of my housecoat. Not pleasant when I put it on, after the tub. Oh well, I suppose I should be getting geared up for the Polar Bear dip!

Anne has invited us for dinner tomorrow night...nice of her. It will be Lynn and Rick, and Barry and Ursela, again. Should be a fun night. I'll try to get a few peops in for dinner next Sunday...Janice and Gord and Linda and Ed. Linda and Ed have hosted so many dinners that I feel definately overdue.
So really, there is only two weeks left till Christmas. Where has the time gone to?
Best I get my butt in gear to send out cards. I am boycotting the Xmas letter....mainly because I write most everything in the bloggy,s o what else would be news?

I suppose I could make stuff up...hmmmm... ...How we spent our Lottery winnings...how the trek to over the Great Wall of China was...how I adopted two infants...forget that one..no-one would ever believe it!

I am tired of hearing about the weird sister-in-law of the cousin, or Matilde's high colonic, or the Mixatarian lifestyle you've switched to.
I am bored with all the groups you've chosen to lead, and I hate that you've lost ten pounds when I have been gaining. I can't bear to read one more letter that starts off.." Well, another year has come and gone..."
I can't believe that some people think I can actually read that mini letter that has been shrunk from an 8 1/2" x 11" paper down to a note the size of the palm of my hand.
I do, however, love pics of the kidlets, s o keep those coming, but spare me the details of your mother's gall bladder operation. There should be a law about speaking about surgeries in a Christmas letter... Say, did I tell you I had my annual check-up with my proctologist? OMG. I think I have heard it all...and probably sent it all, myself. So lets be firends and share a personal note or your signature at least...and who it is to.

Sometimes that annoys me..

Love Bob Sleigh

and that is it..oh yes, and sometimes they put the date with that... then spend 51 cents plus tax to mail it to me.
Maybe I am turning into the Christmas Grinch. So we'll all try to shape up.
Speaking of Grinch... What do you do with the Christmas letters? Hang them for everyone to read? Keep them in a near-by drawer? Toss them in the garbage? Pile them up somewhere?
I think I will print off some Xmas labels for my return address stickers...what photo to use?????





"The Creator"

When it Stinks

Ok, I admit it...the bottom of my slipper was covered in a blob of brown. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that one has stepped in sh*t...probably doggy-doo-doo, and worse yet, it probably belonged to my own dog!
It was dried on, now that it had been sitting all day on the mat by the front door. Did I mention that the brown doggy doo-doo was on the sole of my NEW sheepskin booty slippers?
Still, one sniff from three feet away,and I knew it wasn't mud. It was pooooooo-poo! Poo-poo doesn't come off all that easy, once it has dried. I first tried with toilet paper. That was almost hopeless, then I was looking for an old toothbrush. That, turned my stomach.
I had to run the whole sole of the slipper under hot water and hope for the best,as I intermittently wiped the poop off, with a wad of T.P.
Disgusted by it all, I continued to discover little bits of the organic stuff ground into the kitchen floor, and in the door matt. Ugh.
Moral of the story..... If you take the dog outside while it is still dark, wear boots and watch what you are stepping in.
Poo!
Bedtime now as I am yawning crazily and Silk is whining to go out...to poop.



"The Creator"

X-Country Skiing

Seven of the Badminton team met at Connie's last night and donned our cross country skis for a moonlit ski through Kokanee-Creek Provincial Park. Although, Sharon's hubby, Bud , is not on the badminton team, he was the lead of our "Conga-Train" for the night...and a good leader he was. Ouar first hurdle was to chicken -walk up the foot bridge that crosses Kokanee Creek. I kept praying that I wouildn't start skiing in reverse and slide back to the beginning. With one last grunt, I made it up what seemed to be a stair, onto the deck of the bridge. It went better than I expected, and launching off the other end down a winding sloped continuation of the bridge, proved to be almost as tricky. I nearly skiied right over-top of poor Sue, as I couldn't figure out how one puts on the brakes when your ski route is only about three feet wide with railings and support posts on either side. I guess they have it all wheel-chair accessible for the summer visitors,and those viewing the red kokanee ,as they go up the creek to spawn.
Bud kept the train of gals on track, by being the trail breaker in many cases, and he led us up and down the roads that join the campsites together, until we emerged fromt he forest and into the day park area. The lake spread out before us with a beautiful night vista showing up all the lights reflecting alongside the lakeshore, and for an added touch , the full moon popped out of the clouds.
We all wished we had thought of bringing a camera along for that one shot of a lifetime.. silohuettes of 7 skiers in a line, white snow glistening up front, lake shimmering in the back and a full moon surrounded by aring of puffy clouds.

So no-one had a camera, but the visual will live on ,in the memory bank. It was pristine!
Everone shut of their headlamps and followed one another int he bright moonlite, all along the beach for a kilometer or so, without a sound, except for the odd honking of a Canada Goose, camped out on the lake somewhere.
We doubled back and forth several times to give me the work-out of my life, ( besides the shovelling episode of the night before) and when someone suggested we begin to head back, I was gung -ho. By then, Sue and I were both pretty pooped. I am sure we had put on over five kilometers in six inch deep snow, at that point. We wwere still near the visitor centre, and had to ski back tot he bridge..this time ,making our way up the winding ramp ( another heave to launch myself onto the deck of the bridge) .
I was greatfull to be back at the start,as by then, my shoulder was giving me a bit of pain.

Afterwards, the girls, and Bud ( he has the backhoe service out on the North-shore) all congregated at Sue's place to celebrate Connie's 54th birthday. Mare had brought a lovely double layer chocolate cake, and everyone else pitched in with munchies, making it into a regular badminton party. Mare was up to her usual non-stop story telling, which provided us with many laughs. She also brought along a box of Pepper and Olive Oil-Triscuits. Something new and delicious to look for at your favourite supermarket, cause they are not at the page I have linked you to!
At ten o'clock, I called it a night and so did everyone else. I was glad to get home and fall into bed.

Look at me tonight...still doodle-farting around on the puter and it is heading towards midnight.
I chatted with Sonia andAnnette tonight and caught up on all of the news. Sonia's cough is a little better, and Annette seems to be doing great at her new job, and everyone is getting ready for Xmas. Me too. I hung up this very nifty strip above the patio doors, put out by velcro, to hang my cards on. Works like a damn and comes from Canadian tire. Might not be enough card hanger-upper velcros, but we'll deal with that later. I only have three cards at the moment to hang!
Good night... I am falling off my perch. I spent a good amount of my evening looking up hot spots to vacation in, come January.

"The Creator"

More of the white stuff

I'm dropping over from all the shovelling I ddi tonight. I couldn't believe that we got all that much snow. I am off to beddy byes before I fall off my perch. The badminton gals want to go moonlight night skiing tomorrw night. i hope my legs are more rested by then. It is Connie's birthday so we might have a little cake after the skiing...I'll keep you posted.

"The Creator"

Squirrel Foils the House Animals

Nutsy, the Squirrel was having fun with Soleil and Silky, on Sunday. In fact,the cat ran right into the patio door glass, whilst trying to catch the squirrel! Emil had a great laugh watching the antics between outdoor life and indoor life...too funny. I think this little guy, cute as he may be, is turning into a little pest!

"The Creator"

Met home

Take a peak at the new Metroplitan Home Magazine website...nice stuff there!


"The Creator"

Good Week-end come and gone...

I don't know how the week-end comes and goes so fast...Of course,with only two days off,one has to pack it all into the 48 hours that you have at your discretion. My week-end was planned when I got the word that my Candle order had arrived from Partylight...all six boxes of it. Whew! Talk about heavy...I loaded it all up into the car on Friday,shortly after it arrived at Emil's office. Good thing the seats fold down in our new little rig..the boxes all fit in like magic!
Emil had dropped over to Finley's for a wine with Gord and Janice before they headed over for curling. I opted to not have a drink,as everyone knows that Counter-Attack has begun, and to drink and drive would just be foolish.
We made it home without incident, but our friends, Gord and Jan got stopped after curling and unfortunately it was brought to their attention that their car insurance had expired. Yep, easy to do, but not a wise idea. Out of the car they had to get,and a tow truck was called,so there they were...left standing at the end of the orange bridge around ten o'clock at night with no vehicle to drive and a carload of groceries, and some thiry kilometers between them and their home!
Then there comes the shell-out...75 bucks for the tow-truck and a whopping five hundred plus for the fine for driving with no insurance coverage! Whoooo-doggies! Not a pleasant piece of news just before Xmas.
On that note, everyone go mark their calendar when their car insurance expires and better yet, get in there a few days or even a week ahead of the expirey. They easily pro-rate it, so you have the option of renewing early.

Saturday morning, Emil helped me to sort this ginormous order of Partylite. Good thing, or I would have been still sorting! Once that was complete, we both went for a X-country ski...down along the beach. Drinkwater had been out ski-dooing, so it was a good track to follow way down to the big dock near the ferry. Emil went that far, but I never. My toes were beginning to cramp up, but other than that, I did ok.
Sounds like some of the badminton gals are going to go to Kokanee park one of the nights this week to x-country ski. I might go with them, if I have the energy. Certainly sounds like fun!
Linda called Friday night to invite us over for dinner with Jan and Gord. Nice treat for us. They have recently painted all of the kitchen and living -room in a warm sunny butter colour. definately was a huge improvement over the stark original whitish colour that was there from when they bought.
Oh yes, Friday night after coming home from town,and unloading all the Partylite boxes, Emil and I headed for the hot-tub. Now that was an awesome soak...the moon was burning a hole in the clouds,and we were drenched in moonshine...all good!

Janice brought cranberry everything to have with the chicken that Linda had prepared. She created a tasty cranberry salsa...lots of chopped cranberries,two whole big oranges coarsley chopped and then a jalapeno pepper finely chopped, and a few tablespoons of cilantro chopped up. Everyone inhaled it with chips, as it was flavourful and delicious.Janice also did orange flavoured cranberry sauce for the chicken. Made us all wake up to dynamic new tastes!
Dinner was yummy and then we settled down for a rousing game of Mexican Train, where Ed won! He was pretty lucky,if I do say so myself.
Darn, I am falling asleep and falling off my perch. I will call it a night pretty quick here.
I spent today delivering the candles and it pretty much consumed the day. Joyce was sweet enough to come along with me to Castlegar, where we met Lynn at Joey's Only and we all ordered something fishy for our lunch. Us cousins had a good blab and lots of hugs and then went on our way. At Canadian Tire, I picked up bird seed, since the little Nuthead Squirrel has been cleaning out the birdfeeder every day. Joyce also gave me suet. I'll have to make a point of hanging it up one of the maples. All the bird species love it. Today we had a huge eagle land up in the Cottenwood trees. It appeared to be an immature eagle, but definately not immmature in size. It stood nearly 3 feet tall from what I could figure.
I built an easy pot of soup after I returned home...Hot Italian sausage and black bean soup. THis is quite easy...just toss a few cans of tomatoes into a large pot and then add some chicken broth or a little water to stretch it out a bit. To this, add a can or two of black beans or mixed beans or one of each, that has been rinsed in cold water. as the soup cooks, you can flavour it up with a dash of Italian spice, extra garlic ,or whatever you have on hand. I fried up a chopped cooking onion with a few stalks of celery,also chopped. When all was sauteed, I dumped it into the pot of soup! Did I mention that one should have the hot Italian sausages ( Johnsonville's are tasty) frying up. I sliced each one into little slices and comntiued to fry until they were cooked through. I added water to the fry-pan to keep them from burning.
So now you have your pot of soup. To it ,add the fried sausage pieces and then add the fried onion.Also I added some frozen spinach that I had in the freezer...Fresh would be better ( Just don't cook the spinach long once it is in the soup)! I couldn't decide on a set flavour for spices, but opted to add a sprinkle of Italian seasoning, some garlic seasoning and pepper and a little salt. I had a bowl of soup, a salad and some squash that Lynn kindly gave me. All was good and now I am a happy camper who has to plunge into bed before I do a faceplant onto the floor. Good night all... HAppy eating!
It was a delicious way to end the day. Pardon my typing. Seems my fingers are all stiff...



"The Creator"

TGIF

December 1st and voila...It is Friday...Yahoo. I think today is the day the Christmas shoppers will descend upon us. Just to make it clear...Kolmels has beautiful jewellry at prices that are probably better than the competitors that is advertising 70% off.
I did a little tour of Marks last night and can safely say that I am happy to not be working there anymore, tho they still have some great looking clothes and accessories . The store doesn't look as jammed up as it was last year, making it a little more shoppable.I met up with Anna and we had dinner over at Quiznos on her supper break. She still works at Marks a couple of days a week. It was fun to have a few laughs and learn all the juice on the changes that have taken place.
Okay...looks like it is check the hot-tub time and then jump in the shower time.
Just a reminder that it is Light up the Hospital Day and any donation can help purchase something special for a hospital in your vicinty. You can choose which hospital or long care facility gets the proceeds. Tune in to KBS to get the goods or drop by Chako-Mika Mall today.
Have a great week-end and hopefully everyone has begun to thaw out. We still received more snow fromt he heavens last night. I don't think Frosty will be able to stand up today,unless I brush him off. He was only half standing last night...


"The Creator"

Congratulations ROJO!

And Congratulations to the happy newly engaged couple...a couple of tricksters, cause they didn't tell let us in on the big secret! In any case, it looks like it was a fun occasion for the two of you...unless you brought along the family! Can't wait to see you both at Christmas! Once again, Congrats to the two of you and may this be the beginning of something even bigger! WOW! Love ya both!

"The Creator"

Another one of our Christmas Cuties

Eva sent me a nice letter with pics of the little dance star, in her recital costume. I can see that she is growing up ! Thanks Eva for the update. Too bad everyone didn't live a little closer so we could see our little grandsweeties more often and get to know them better.







"The Creator"

And We all got Snowed in...

Here are a few shots from around the province in places that don't normally get snow!
The top one came from Ronda in Vernon...a little brighter there, but clearly a large dump of the white stuff. Sonia sent the rest of the pics from their snow drenched part of Victoria. The sunset seemed to make the snow look perfect! Sounded like kids were home doing schoolwork and making crafts for a big craft fair coming up. Annette was the chauffeur with her four wheel drive Tracker...but even she stayed home on Monday when the snow was at its worst.
I am hunkered down in my new sheepskin lined slippers... They are the cozy ones that I had once before, until I wore them out completely.
This afternoon, the shoppers ventured out,after the wind stopped blowing. We began to see a little upsurge in Xmas shoppers. I think tomorrow will be the day that people get their payday and get into the mood!

Good night all... I still have fifty things I want to do, but the old beddie weddie is calling me...



"The Creator"