Week-end... and then it is APRIL FOOLS DAY!

Only two more sleeps and Annette will be here for the whole week Yipppeee... We can do some girly stuff together and she and she and her dad can have some daughter dad days while I work four days. Anyhow it will be a fun four days ,now that chris and Carolyne are back from their vacation. She brought a ton of new jewellry and a bunch will be on display before the end of the week. She brought back lots of shell pieces,s o I am excited to see whats new! Also, more rings...and I already picked out two I like in the solid sterling silver, but alas, what to do...the gemstone rings will be here soon also, and for sure I will want one of those...and then I have a few birthdays to take care of...such spring fun!

Okay kids, I have to hit the hay. It was a busy day around Shuville today,as we cleaned and scrubbed and powerwashed...all of the decks, the exterior of the house ( most of it) and all of the outside windows! Also, Emil torched up a pile of branches and old cuttings from last year. When the wind picked up, it burned like crazy. We have one more pile to go...maybe tommorow in the am, if it isn't looking like wind.

After scrubbing the vinyl siding down, and the decks and the windows, my baby finger is wincing with arthritis pain. I forgot to take my new little pill this morning and now I can double feel it.
Have a good Sunday. I am going into town to pick up some fresh produce for when Annette comes...and maybe some fresh Halibut. Save-on had it on sale.
Oh yes, i signed up for CARP...only 19.95 for myself and my spouse...Next week I will check into the house insurance prices, and I'll let you know if they are better.

And in case I forget...Happy Birthday to John H. in Prince George...It is his April Fool's birthday tomorrow...I need a joke, I need a joke, I need a joke!


"The Creator"

Family Fotos

Here is a pic to remind us of summer....or better still, winter on the Cayman Islands....thanks to Wayne for keeping us up to date on the family...the good looking family! Hollywood is going to find you for their new Swiss Robinson Series on the Disney Channel.


And not to forget about little Spike who got his "you know whats" taken from him. He was a little hurtin man..Sonia had to borrow Duncan's old underwear to keep Spike from pickin out the stitches! Sonia and Steve's old cat will be relieved not to be Spike's "humpee" anymore....

"The Creator"

Happy Birthday Maddie

My sweet little grandaughter turned 9 today.
Happy Birthday Sweety! Nice chatting on the phone tonight and I really miss you..whaa,whaa,whaa! It won't be long before summer arrives and we'll be swimming in the fridge...oops..Kootenay Lake. Oh well, we can always have a hot-tub to warm up!


"The Creator"

Microsoft Carioca Rummy

Microsoft Carioca Rummy
If you like card games, you'll go crazy with this new version of the old Crazy rummy we used to play. The computer beat me six out of eight times. Here is a clue... The computer collects all of one suit when it has to make 2 escalas ( runs ) of four. Nifty trick.I'll try that next time!

2007 Juno Awards

2007 Juno Awards
Watch them Sunday evening starting at 6:30 for the ET Red Carpet event and 7:00 for the actual start of the Junos.. Nelly Furtado will be hosting them...Thats our own Nelly from Victoria BC! Yahooo..

CARP is Canada's Association for the Fifty-Plus.

CARP is Canada's Association for the Fifty-Plus.
Have you heard of this organization? Thanks to my cousin Ed for suggesting it! I am FINALLY getting around to reading more about it, since Teresen Gas will soon be only one of many Gas marketers that can sell natural gas. In Ontario, CARP members received a sizable discount when they opted for a specific natural gas marketer,recommended by CARP. I am hoping they make the same offer here in BC, because in a few months you will have to make an informed decision about whom you would like to buy your natural gas from. (T ERESEN WILL STILL DELIVER IT)
Like I don't have enough to figure out without this confusing thing about to happen. Expect phone callls and people knocking on your door to bribe you into buying Natural gas from them. ( A person only needs collateral of about $250,000 and $1000.00 for a Marketers licence and they can buy and sell Natural gas. ) Somehow that brings to mind a bunch of sleazy vacuum cleaner salesmen banging at your door day after day to offer you GAS.
As Average Joe Canadian, I am supposed to determine by some alien means, which marketer to buy my gas from. Do I lock in for five years? Do I buy it month to month? Just do a Google search and you will find more information than you bargained for.
So all of this brings me back to CARP. They seem to know who to to buy from ( at least back East) and they saved CARP members lots of money.
Ed says that he purchases house insurance through them and also books his trips through CARP. All this for 19.95 a year. Sounds almost too good to be true! If anyone else knows about or deals with CARP, please drop me a line or a comment and let me know what you think. In the meantime, I'll continue to scour the website ( I have been lost in it several times now) and see which other savings would be worth our membership fee. I'd love to reduce my house insurance as last year it ski-rocketed, and this year will be worse before it gets better.
Us Oldheimers have to think about saving where we can, now that retirement is on the burner for Emil, this year.

Online Fraud Quiz | Identity Theft | Investment Scams | Credit Debit Card Scams | Fraud Prevention Canada

Online Fraud Quiz Identity Theft Investment Scams Credit Debit Card Scams Fraud Prevention Canada
Take these qquizes to see if you are up to date on different kind of scams that could entrap you!

Ronda and John's BVI Wedding on Valentine's Day

And we have a new Picassa web album off to the right ...Just click on it to view the beautiful wedding Photos that Ronda put together of their now famous wedding in the British Virgin Islands. Once the album opens up, you can select slideshow to view them in full screen size, but it is wiser to read allthe captions underneath each picture before you do the slideshow. You still don't find out why John is scratching his head!

Then keep looking through them to try to feel that tropical warmth and imagine how wonderful a wedding aboard a ship would be... Thank-you to Ronda for sharing the photos...Congratulations you two and thank-you for sharing your special day with everyone...

"The Creator"

The Secret Movie 30 Day Challenge with Andy Wibbels

The Secret Movie 30 Day Challenge with Andy Wibbels
I've mentioned "The Secret" before, and here it is again. You can actually watch it online for $4.95...a 90 minute video, or you can start off by watching the trailer ,which I recommend. So here is the deal. On March 30th ,there will be a 30 day challenge between believers of "The Secret" and non-believers..... so Andy Wibble has set it all up at the web site above. The premise is that if you follow the "Secret" you may attain whatever it is that you wish for...sort of like having your own personal Geni in a Lamp. Andy Wibble says that to achieve anything, you mostly have to work your ass off to get it...you can't just sit around rubbing your lamp. Now he has launched this challenge to see who the achievers are...the workers or the wishers...
On that note...
A gal came into the store the other day and tried on a beautiful ring and because she has read the book, "The Secret", she is going to follow the guidelines and with fate, the ring will be hers. We'll see!

SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids

Look up to the east tonight as the sky darkens and see a beautiful Saturn next to the moon. For more information and to see what they have discovered on Saturn, click the link below...
SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids

Nice evening tonight

I took Silk for a little walk after work today after I fed the fish and watered plants over at our neighbour, Bill's house.I think he is still in hospital...poor guy..just can't seem to shake all the after effects of surgery for stomach cancer. I hope he takes a turn for the better to give him some hope. All we can do is pray that his health improves.
Back to the nice day we had... it got me outside first thing this morning, as I loaded up the garbage and recycle and dumped it off in town at the Nelson Dump.
At work, I mopped all the floors and then headed out to the sidewalk to sweep off all the butts..cigarette butts... They should make an edible butt,s o the person just chews it up and swallows for that final hit of nicotine... yuch. Easy to talk about it now that I don't smoke a pack a day like I used to. Damn near caught my hair on fire one time while trying to blow-dry my hair and smoke at the same time. That alone, should have convinced me to quit.

Back to our walk...Silk took me for a walk through the lot next door , along the beach and back again... Gave me a wake-up call....The lake is dropping and leaving behind its annual assortment of driftwood and junk on our beach. It will need a good clean up before the water starts to rise again.
I snapped a few pics and watched the sun set on the Purcells at the end of the lake...so beautiful- it makes me long for the summer evenings that keep us in sunshine until 9:00pm... ho-hum... I better hi-tail it to bed so I can do a few things before work tomorrow am. The Maytag man will make his last visit...seems that we now require a $94.00 part to go with the new insides of the dishwasher machine door tha came free of charge as part of the recall. I'm not sure if all the trouble is worth it, but Wayne said that Corinne's ? dishwasher did catch on fire... so I am thinking that I seriously don't want that. whats another $94. bucks!
I made two batches of cranberry scones for when Annette comes... yum... I had to sample one and a half...

And for the big news of the night...just in...Lynn will become a grandma again for the fifth time! Nadine and Dick are expecting a wee brother or sister for little G. Awwee...Congratulations all... we can't wait!












"The Creator"

Kick Ass Chili

Looks like I ordered up the photos rather out of order.. Anyhow ,you'll get the idea. Essentially, on Joyce's last big trip abroad,she brought me backa bag of "Ass-Kickin' Chili Fixin's" all you need in one little sack ( except for the beef) to make a serious batch of Ass-kicking chili.
whenever you want to economize, this is the way to do it....with dried beans. All they need is to be soaked for 8 hours ( overnight) and then rinsed clean and slo-cooked for 2-3 hours. This little bag of beans contained a mix of black beans and pinto beans.. (brown and whites that look like small pinto ponies.) You can see the photo--- the black mixture boiling away on the stove...that is ym beans. They need to be tended,because the idea is to not flood them with water, just to keep them slightly covered as they simmer. 2-3 cups of dry beans will make you a lot of chili...see the pic of my chef sized fry pan. It was full to the top at the end.
Once you put your beans on to simmer, you can go ahead and chop up a big onion and fry it up in a little olive oil, until it is soft. Toss in a few tablespoons of chopped garlic for more flavour.
Once cooked, take the onions out of the pan and reserve them while you brown the ground hamburger or chopped beef. once the beef isn't pink anymore, add the onions back into the pan and from there you can add two or three big cans of chopped tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce and a can of tomatoe paste. Then you stir it all up and add some more chopped garlic ( 2 tblspns) and that little packet of spices that came int he Kick-Ass bag!
Seriously, the spices were a mixture of chili powder, garlic powder and hotter than hell powder! I suspect it had a little of the Habenero pepper spice in it, because it definately clears up the sinuses. The directions went on to say that I could add some of the habenero pepper spice to make it mildly hot...right...It is already freaking hot! Thats ok, I added a good dash of salt,some chili sauce and some dried chipotle spice and now it is even hotter! I skipped the habenero altogether, figuring that I could unintentionally kill someone if I even added a grain of it!

So go ahead, add your chili spices, garlic spices, and perhaps some dried onion spice and if all else fails...have a packet of chili mix on hand to give it all the flavour you need! if you like it hot, then add some cayenne pepper or some hot sauce.

The bottom line is that it didn't take all that long to make,and it makes a truckload. I think I used to bother adding too much in the way of green peppers and celery and stuff that probably doesn't belong in a good chili,unless you are making a vegetarian one...and then you can add extra veggies like zuccini, squash, red peppers, egg plant ,whatever...well,not broccoli.

So there, the chili is made and ready to be frozen tomorrow morning once I have it all cooled down. Maybe I will take a bowl full to work.

Did I ever tell you about the time Morgan found a sack of kidney beans on the train in a boxcar that came from Georgia or somewhere far south of the border?
Joyce called me up and asked me if I wanted some beans, and I said sure... She said "Bring a big jar,as there is about 25 pounds of them!"
I toodled over and got my giant pickle jar filled with beans and then thought that the best thing to do would be to make a pot of chili with them. I went through the steps I outlined above...soaked the beans overnight, and in the morning, I simmered them for three hours and then tested a bean to see if it was soft.
Well, it wasn't.
It was still rock hard..so I kept cooking it for another hour , just to be certain it would be soft enough for my chili.
Upon sampling some of the beans for the second time, I was still P.O'd to find that they were no more cooked than I was.
I finally stirred them into the meat nad tomatoe mixture and set them on to simmer.
Hours later, and the beans were still what I would call" Extremely Firm!"
I called up Joyce to see if she had any idea how long they had been on the train... Morgan said it was could have been a long tiome..the train had come up from Missippi...and Joyce's beans were having the same problem....rock hard and no sign of softening up. I bet they were on that train since WW1!
We both wound up tossing out all of our beans...so never count your beans before they are cooked through!








"The Creator"

Sue's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Before I get to the cookies, I thought I'd let you know that the deer came along last night and had crocus salad for a midnight snack...Nary a crocus out there today except for some later ones popping out of the ground. Bah humbug to the deer...and I gave them a half bad squash recently, but they will be cut off from here on in! Bah! Bah!

Back to the cookies:

Sue's Chocolate Chip Cookies Bake at 350* 12 minutes

1 1/3 cup margarine

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsps. vanilla

3 cups flour

1 tsp soda...mix the salt and soda into the first cup of flour

1 tsp salt

1 cup chopped nuts

1 cup more or less of chocolate chips

about 1 1/3 cup of old fashioned oatmeal ( not quick oats)

1 cup chopped nuts such as pecans, macadamias or walnuts.

Cream margarine and sugars together using your beaters. Add the eggs one at a time and keep beating, Add the vanilla, keep beating, then add the first cup of flour with the salt and soda mixed into it. Add the other two cups of flour, one at a time and keep beating. You'll have a thick dough...time to shake off the beaters and grab a wooden spoon to incorporate the rolled oats and chocolate chips and chopped nuts. mix it all up well so it is evenly distributed with chips and nuts.

Take up a big spoonful and pat into a small hambuger shaped patty and place on a Pammed cookie sheet or onto Parchement paper lined cookie sheets. I baked them on my baking stones and they still could have used a little Pam as they were a little sticky to lift.

Leave space between cookies and bake in preheated oven at 350* for 12 to 15 minutes depending on how hot your oven is.

Then just eat a whole bunch.

They freeze well too.

Okay.... I hope that sends everyone right into the kitchen to make a batch. They are very quick. Also they taste great with the addition of 2 tsp fine ground instant coffee and a half tsp of cinnamon for a Java cookie. Also, one could add Fry's cocoa to make a chocolate chocolate chip cookie. Yum.

"The Creator"

1st All Day Spring Day

Would you look at that! Sun shone all day and the flowers were warm enough to open up. The sun even brought the honey bees out!

I mostly did indoor chores, noting that it is the time of the year to take a look up into the corners of your rooms...seems like the spiders and nite critters have been busy leaving webs from one side of the wall to the other.I started vacuuming on the floor, but progressed up to ceiling level in most rooms. I say most rooms, because here I am in the computer room and what do I see... another cobweb in the corner... I missed that one!

Seems like I worked my butt off all day inside while Emil worked outside in the sunshine...something is wrong with that picture! I did get out to the recycle at the Marina...,but it was close to five by then.

Anyhow, the house is far cleaner,and so is the suite and I even baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies and ate three as they came out of the oven. That is when I love them the best. ( I thought I had the recipe on my sidebar, but I don't see it...I'll have to write it up tomorrow night)

The rest of te cookies can go into the freezer until Annette comes.I talked to her on the phone tonight and she is getting excited about coming home for Easter. We are already planning the big "Nosica, Nosica" game... It should be fun!

I worked Saturday for Patricia and it was pretty dead in the store for most of the day while it poured tsunomi rains all day. Niki worked with me in the afternoon so we found a few "make work " projects to keep us busy. One more week and Chris and Carolyne will return and the store will once again bubble with people stopping in to chat with Chris.

Mostly, I will be awaiting the arrival of new jewellery. We will start to gear up for graduation, in the next few months.

So not much else is new. Emil leaves for Vancouver for a week, and when he returns Annette will arrive a few days later. We hope to get all the decks powerwashed before she comes...Today was the first day of 2007 that we had sunshine out on our back deck! Emil BBQ'd hamburgers,so it felt a little like summer , until about 7:00. I had to switch the heat back on,

in the house!

okey dokey...bedtime here...

Good night and have a happy week.

"The Creator"