Culture — Page 15 — You are in My World Now

Family gatherings and weather issues?

February 26, 2011 by Tricia

Last weekend we drove to Brantford to get together with my husbands family. We were belatedly celebrating my mother in laws birthday.

My husbands father went all out. He had us meet in a local restaurant and he had three flower baskets set up on the table and had asked the restaurant to give us a special menu for our early afternoon meal. I think he might have thought it was my mother in laws 75th birthday … but uh … if he did he was a year early.

It’s really strange, all of my husbands siblings have their teaching degrees? That’s his two sisters, his brother and even one of his brother in laws that all have teaching degrees. At one point my husband seriously considered becoming a teacher and I think he still catches him self considering it but I think it’s just because there are so many people in his family that are teachers. Actually even a couple of his aunts are teachers.

Anyway I guess the reason that I brought up the fact that I was sitting with a bunch of teachers was because just before our family get together there had been a huge storm in Southern Ontario, one that had been bad enough to cause several school boards to shut down schools. Even Toronto shut down schools and I happened to mention that we didn’t really get as much snow as expected on that particular storm day and that a lot of people were complaining that the schools shouldn’t have been shut down and well .. my brother in law exploded that I was wrong and it saved the city money and kept the roads free to be cleared … but uh … he’s from St. Catherines where they got three times more snow than we did on that day so yeah, it made more sense for them to shut down their schools, but not for us in Toronto. I just gritted my teeth and let it go.

Anyway .. the family gathering was a success overall. Just that one incident. I’ll remember not to talk about teaching issues or school closures – even due to weather or non weather issues – with that particular brother in law!

talking with the neighbors

February 26, 2011 by Tricia

I was outside earlier this morning with my dog and I ran into one of my neighbors. She was also out with her dog. I hadn’t seen her for a while so we stood and talked while our dogs played.

She works in the hospital where I work. Well … I’m on medical leave, but I still do work there, although you wouldn’t know it lately would you?

I always see either her or her husband out walking their dog. It’s a beautiful brindle American terrier and he just seems to love our Labrador Retriever.

I hadn’t talked with her for a while, maybe since Autumn even though I see her pass by my house regularly. I guess I hadn’t taken a close look at her either because when I did stop to talk with her this morning I noticed that she’d really lost weight. I don’t know what she’s doing, maybe she found diet supplements that work or she really stepped up the walking or something, but whatever she’s up to it’s working! She looks great.

Maybe I should have said something, but I didn’t want to make her self conscious about her looks or anything. I was just really impressed. I mean, you don’t see people really shaping up in the middle of winter – not in the middle of a bad Canadian winter anyway. Not usually. Good for her!

Do you ever notice that about your neighbors or co-workers .. that they’ve suddenly started to lose weight or get into better shape?

It’s taking me longer to set up the new laptop than it should

February 25, 2011 by Tricia

I’ve had my new laptop for almost two weeks now and can you believe that I’m still working on installing software and moving files over from my other two computers? In fact, I’ve barely installed anything on the new laptop other than the barebones that I need to do my work.

I don’t know why I’m being so slow in getting this new computer set up. Usually I just get busy transferring files and installing software and adjusting things until I”m happy with the settings on a new computer, but this time I’m just not doing that.

Maybe it’s because this computer is Windows 7 it’s a little different than what I”m used to? I don’t really think that’s the cause … I mean, Windows 7 is different that Windows XP, but not all that different and well, I’ve been working with computers since back in the old 286 days. I’ve worked with everything from Dos to having to put in 5.25″ Floppy drives to run Word Perfect. Uh Huh … It’s not the new system … it’s me. I’m just in a funk I guess.

I’ve been very stressed lately so I’m sure that’s contributing. We also bought an iPod and a Flip camcorder around the same time as the new laptop so I’m trying to teach myself how to use all three things at once. That’s probably adding to my stress. LOL I’ve found that when I get too stress with all the computer stuff I just turn on my old laptop and work with that one for a while, or I pack everything up and head for bed, put on my tretinoin cream and try to get some sleep and hope that everything will look fresh in the morning.

Have you ever taken longer than you though you would to set up a new computer?

Having fun making bread at home with our new bread machine

February 25, 2011 by Tricia

If you’ve been reading my posts over the last few months then you already know that I’ve sort of been on a cooking spree. I’ve always enjoyed cooking and baking, but over the last few years, other than making dinners, I kind of stopped being creative, however, for some reason, over the last few months I started getting my cooking groove bake and we’ve had lots of delicious treats to eat.

In December I made several types of cookies and special sweet breads. I also made two pumpkin cheesecakes. Yum!

I had been planning on making cinnamon buns and cinnamon swirl bread but we had a surplus of baked goods in the house given that there’s only two of us in the house to eat the food that I make so I had to lay off for a while.

Anyway … this past weekend, Chris and I were in Costco and we happened to be walking down a row that had kitchen appliances. Guess what I bought … yep … a bread maker. I truly enjoy making bread from scratch, but I’ve always been interested in trying out a bread maker. Well .. I guess the price was right so we bought it and by that evening we had our first loaf of white bread.

The first loaf of bread turned out great. It was delicious, but since I’d tried the rapid white cycle i.e bread in less than an hour and a half it was a little more yeasty than I like so I was determined that the next loaf that I made would be for a full cycle with a normal amount of yeast. So … the next day I found a recipe online for a tasty sounding Flax Sunflower Bread that I just had to try. I got to work putting the ingredients together in the machine and then set it to a normal cycle so it took about three and a half hours but oh … it turned out great.

The second loaf of bread was tasty! Actually we still have a little bit left,. As I said there’s only two of us in the house so trying to eat two loaves of bread in as week is a lot and I”m sure we ate more than we normally would because there’s nothing like eating bread when it’s still warm and fresh after it’s taken out of the oven (or bread maker). Oh and that Flax Sunflower bread … I think it’s going to be a healthy bread to keep on hand too … maybe too healthy if one were to eat too much if you know what /I mean ie think colon cleanse hint hint!

This weekend we’ll go out shopping for some rye flours special bread flours (I was using all purpose flour) so any breads I make going forward should be even better and of course with a wider selection of flours on hand I can experiment a little bit more. I’m sure I”ll eventually get around to making that cinnamon swirl bread that I’d intended to make back in December … I mean it started this whole thing. LOL

Do any of you have a bread maker? Do you use it regularly? What kind do you have? The one we bought is a Breadman bk1060 and so far it’s been working well.

My husband might be giving guitar lessons soon

February 16, 2011 by Tricia

My husband is a musician … well I guess you could say he’s a part time musician as he doesn’t play music for a living although he would if he could.

He’s been playing guitar since he was nine years old and along the way he learned how to play 13 other instruments. He’s quite accomplished.

Now he’d like to at least start teaching others how to play guitar and possibly other instruments. I guess he’d do this from home. We’re just starting to look into how to set this up as a part time business. I mean we could advertise online or send out direct mail marketing or just start out small by posting some flyers on the bulletin boards at the hospital where my husband works.

Of course we’ll have to see if there are enough people interested in taking lessons and if the times that they want lessons fit with my husbands schedule etc. Hopefully everything works out. It would be a great way to make a little extra money, plus my husband just loves playing guitar so it will get him playing regularly again.