Monday, November 30, 2009

Parcels sent

I had a happy day! My 2 parcels are on their way. It was fun buying the gifts but I am also glad that it is done with and I have great hopes the gifts will arrive in time.
After a little rain today the sun came out later this afternoon. It is supposed to get quite a bit colder but at least there is no snow in the forecast.
For the last few days we did not have a fire upstairs. I think that is going to change soon. Good thing we have lots of firewood of course we could always turn on the heaters. We like the fires much better.
Nothing else to tell you about so this will be a short Blog.

Good night all


funny cartoon merry christmas

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Christmas Shopping DONE

I left the house this morning at 8.15 AM and was back at 10.30 AM. I hope I bought the right gifts but only Christmas will tell.
On the way I stopped at Farmer's Market to buy some bananas and oranges. The oranges are still a bit too sour. If they come from California they should not be ripe yet. I remember going orange picking after New-year. I hope they will be as nice as they were last year.
I like doing my Christmas shopping at Walmart because both girls have one close by. If I chose an obscure shop they cannot exchange gifts.
I also bought a DVD player for the TV downstairs. We record all kinds of programs upstairs and it is colder there so now we can sit in our "cozy room" to watch those DVDs.
On the way home I stopped at Country Grocer to take pictures of the beautiful display of gingerbread houses. A lady in the bakery bakes those every year. The display is absolutely stunning. After Christmas I believe they will be donated to a rest home. Have a look at some of them:


When I got home I sorted out all the gifts. All of a sudden I realized that my DVD player was not there. Right away I knew what had happened. I had so many bags that I forgot about that one. Grrrrrrr I phoned Walmart and the player was at the service desk. Needless to say I was very happy and as soon as we had lunch I went back to get it. Early this morning the roads and the stores were nearly empty but this afternoon everything was crowded. I am sure glad I did my shopping this morning. I try to do that most of the time because I hate crowds.
Connecting the player was a real learning curve but I think I did it correctly.
Time to watch the News.
Good bye everybody

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Ants

Wanderin Willy's Blog today reminded me of something that happened one night in Indonesia.
When I wake up in the middle of the night I don't like to turn the light on because it might wake Cliff up. I don't know what made me disregard that one night. I am so glad that I did though because when I got to the bathroom our white toilet was black with tiny little ants. It absolutely freaked me out thinking that normally without the light on I would have sat down right on top of those ants. Even now I shudder thinking about it.
We also had little Salamander types called chitchats crawl along the walls. One day I was standing in the tub having a shower when one of them fell on my shoulder. It was another heart stopping moment because it was so unexpected to feel something crawling on me.
I forgot all about those incidents until I started to think about Indonesia again. After all that is now nearly 25 years ago.
We had another pretty nice day today.
Now it's dark outside and I shall go and sit by the fire.
Good night to all :-)

chickenfunny

Friday, November 27, 2009

Happy day

Finally the last load of wood has arrived. It is a truck load of tree branches up to 5" thick. They make for great fire starting once they are dry maybe next winter. Now I can concentrate on cleaning up that darn red carpet :-) There is saw dust all over the house. It came in with Cliff's clothes. We should have enough wood to last us for about 3 years. Dry wood burns so much more efficient than fresh wood. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday Cliff worked in the rain. I cannot imagine doing that. I really have to give him credit for sticking with it. He did not even complain. Great guy I have! 
Yesterday and today it was sunny but today it was cold. When we got up this morning it was only minus 2 C and there was frost on the roofs until past 11AM. It warmed up a bit later on.
I still have to do my Christmas Shopping and it has to be done no later than Monday or Tuesday because the gifts have a long way to go and time is getting short.
That's all for now. Good night to all

ChickenCartoon

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Sun again

We finally had a nice sunny day. I even went for a walk. After that I made lunch and waited for hubby to come home with another load of wood. That was the fourth load of really great fire wood. One more to go and then it will be done. All of it still has to be split, so he has his work cut out for quite a few days.

getting wood 010


I make sure he has cookies to help him through the day ;-)
I spent the rest of the day doing odds and ends in the house.

I wish all my American friends a very good Thanksgiving. I hope your day was a happy one.
Good bye everyone

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

More about fishing

While we were on the ocean we saw lots of local fishermen catching fish from their fishing platforms like the one below


Fishing platform


They fished a lot at night by having a light in the middle of the platform and scooping up the fish that came to the light.
Other times they set off a charge which stunned the fish and then they could also scoop them up. Not my idea of fishing but it got results for them.

We once hooked into a great big grouper. We thought we had a keeper when that grouper showed up instead. We were so stunned that we did not even take time to run for the camera. It had the lure in it's mouth and swam from the side to the back of the catamaran. It was as long as the catamaran was wide, 13 ft. We certainly could not do anything with that big of a fish. After a little while of watching us it spit the lure out and went on it's way. It was the biggest fish I have ever seen.
We were always glad when we got our lures back.

Here is a sailfish that some of the locals caught.

Sailfish

This is a sucker fish. The flat part of the head is attached to one of the bigger fish.

Suckerfish 


Here is a another big mackerel

Mackerel


We left Canada in 1981 and came back in 1985.  Of course all my pictures were taken with a film camera and have to be scanned into the computer and since they are in little albums in a shopping bag finding the right ones is pretty hard to do.

I will call it a day now. Good night.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Catching Fish

As I mentioned in an earlier Blog we used to spend a lot of weekends in Indonesia on our Catamaran on the ocean. When we first bought our share of it nobody did any fishing. That changed as soon as Cliff was one of the owners. He fished all the time and caught loads of fish.
Here is a large Spanish Mackerel
Mackerel Cliff


While we were reeling in the fish a shark or Barracuda would get hold of the fish and only left us with the head. We could always tell if it was a shark or Barracuda who was the culprit because a Barracuda would rip off the body of a fish while a shark bite looks like the body had been severed with a cookie cutter, no ragged edges.
Darn Barracuda!!!
Cliff and head 

One day our friend had what felt like a large fish on the line. He was playing it for nearly an hour before we finally were able to see it. It turned out to be a turtle but we still had to net it because we needed our lure back since we could not buy any in our little village. They were only available in Jakarta or Singapore.
Turtle


We got our lure and let the turtle go again. When the local fellow who looked after our boat heard about that he was sorry that we did not bring it back since apparently they love to eat turtles, better than Kerbau (the local Beef) he said.
We used to give this fellow all the fish heads and lots of whole fish.

This is a Yellow fin Tuna

Yellow fin tuna

I loved to eat Yellow fin tuna and Spanish Mackerel and with catching so many we had fish several times a week. The maid and garden boy had their fill too. The maid cooked separately for herself and the garden boy and I found out why when I tried some of their food, my breath was on fire. I can eat spicy hot stuff but that was way too much.
I would really love to eat some of that fish again.

More about the fishing some other time.
Have a good night !  

Monday, November 23, 2009

A stay-at-home day

while Hubby got a load of wood. I don't know where he gets all his energy.
He came home and I had supper ready for him.
I did several loads of laundry and while doing that I thought of another "silver lining" of staying home for the winter. "NO LAUNDROMAT" I was always so happy when that chore was done. So often the washers were broken in the little towns that we went to. At home I always set the washer for a second rinse and when that is all done I give it another rinse. I hate to have any kind of soap residue on my clothes. That's probably overkill but better safe than sorry. Of course I could not do that at the Laundromats so that bothered me too.
It rained almost all day and there was no sun at all.
That's all I can think of at the moment.
Have a great evening.

image002

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Company coming!

We had a great afternoon with our friends. Lots of good conversation, food, a glass of wine (or 2) and a beer for the fellows (or 2). We try to get together on Sunday afternoons if other commitments don't interfere.

It was great to read Al's Blog this morning. I like his description of Bisbee very much. On our first trip South we passed through there but only stopped at the mine and the gift shop attached to it. What a shame we did not see anything else.
We travelled with another couple and were desperate to get to the good weather. We were headed to Florida. As it turned out it was the winter the area of Homestead froze up exactly at Christmas. We camped at a little waterhole called Monument Lake on the Tamiami Trail Hwy 41 in Florida. When we arrived in the area the mosquitoes almost ate us alive, it was not pleasant at all. Then the big frost came and that took care of the mosquitoes. Unfortunately it also killed a lot of the vegetation and quite a few of the orange trees. That area had not experienced a hard frost like that for a long time. It was also very humid and we were not used to that. At night it felt like we climbed into beds made with linen that came directly from the washing machine. Not a pleasant feeling. That was the only winter we spent in Florida. From then on it was Arizona or Mexico all the time.  
We met some very nice people at that camp and that made the stay very pleasant. Cliff even swam in the little lake but we had to have a look-out because it was the home of several alligators. We had seen them come up once in awhile, so caution was warranted. The people we met had a swamp buggy and took us for rides in the Everglades. Later on we visited them at their camp on the Kissimmee Lake where they had a houseboat and a bass boat. None of them were working and Cliff was able to get the motors going. We had a great time with those toys. I like remembering those days.
For tonight I'll say good bye and have a good week.

image001

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Cookies to go

Today I baked cookies because Cliff will be getting wood tomorrow if the faller was able to fall the trees today. It might not have been possible because we had some wind. We are always happy to get more wood and cookies are my contribution, lucky me.
We had some thunder and lightening yesterday and as a precaution I shut the computers off. Later on we heard on the local News that 300 houses had to be evacuated in the town of Duncan which is about 20 km from us. My heart goes out to the people. That area of Duncan  is on a flood plain so People expect a certain amount of flooding but this was much more than usual.
The water is over the banks of the Shawnigan river down the road from us too but so far no house had water inside. Our house is much higher and will not be affected. It did not rain all that much today so maybe the waters will go down quickly. .
Today we had to vote for or against the major renovation to our existing Arena plus the addition of a pool at the facility. It will be interesting to see which side could get the vote out. It would be a major tax increase for the residents.
We just got word that not all the trees were fallen today, so Cliff will wait for a few days. Now we have to eat the cookies!!! :-)
Good night everyone.

strange-situation-3

Thursday, November 19, 2009

More and more rain

 

We really had enough rain I think. I cannot remember a time when our driveway was as soggy as it is today. We could have used a bit of that last summer. At that time we were praying for rain and did not get it. On the other hand the forest really needed the rain so we should be thankful after all.
When we lived in Indonesia we had a deluge every afternoon. The rain came down as if poured from buckets. When we first moved there the road in front of our house was not paved and made of red earth and the water looked like blood flooding the whole area. The rain only lasted for about 20 minutes and then it was sunny again and about an hour later the road was dusty again. Because of that red dust all our clothes had a red tinge to it.
Our house was built on stilts because of the many earthquakes that area gets all the time. Sometimes at a dinner with our friends the house started to shake and everybody around the table, sometimes 18 of us, would stop eating and drinking and wait until all was quiet again. Sometimes the house shook pretty violently and it was scary but we were lucky all the time we were there. Nothing bad happened.
The first picture is the front of our house and the second one the back. Lots of stairs to climb.
front of house
back of house


We had a large screened-in deck which we used most of the time. When the rains came we could not see out because it came down in sheets.
One of our neighbours had a Sulawesi Ape as a "pet". It was tied up to a tree in their backyard, no fences though. Well one day this guy broke his leash and I just happened to be downstairs by our house. The Ape saw me and came charging towards me, showing his teeth. Let me tell you I never ran up a set of stairs as quickly as I did that time. I was just able to throw the screen door shut when it stood outside flashing it's teeth at me. I was just hoping it did not know that one big heave and he would be inside. He did not and I was safe.
and here he is:

Sulawesi ape

Time to say good night.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Doctor appointment

I needed a prescription renewal today. It used to be one just had to phone the doctor and he in turn would call the drug store and that was that. Today each renewal warrants a trip to the doctor. I think that is crazy because we are supposed to have a shortage of Family Physicians and here they waste their time with the likes of me :-)
On the other hand today was not a total waste of my time and his since while I was there I had my flu shot as well as my H1N1 shot. I was not going to get the H1N1 shot but my doctor figured it was a good idea to get it, so I gave in. At the time I was thinking how lucky I was not to have to wait for hours outside some clinic for the shot. I got the regular flu shot for quite a few years now. We started one year after Cliff and I got the flu while we were South in the winter. Our "Winterbuddies" who are much older than us did not come down with it. They had the flu shot for a few years already. We decided that it probably was a good idea to start with the shots.
After the doctor visit I went to the library and picked up the 2 books that had come in for me. Now I have lots to read. It is a windy evening and the fire in the fireplace is blasting away so reading is the right thing to do.
I hope everybody will have a great evening too.

 royston_bloglink

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Silver Lining

When I had my shower this morning I thought of a silver lining to having to stay at home instead of being a snowbird in Arizona. That's it!!! A great, long and hot shower with all my toilet articles close at hand. Not having to go out of my abode and maybe having to wait for somebody to vacate the shower etc. or taking a shower in the 5th wheel, having to make it short so not to use too much water. We mostly boondocked, so water was in short supply. We always started out with 12 milk jugs full of water and as time went by we got more and more of those as we used up our milk. All the jugs were kept in our bathtub and had to be taken out before we could take a shower. Every time we went shopping we took all the empties and filled them up wherever we could find a tap that was not padlocked :-)
That said I still wish I was down there in the sun :-) but maybe I should quit whining there are good times here too.
Today we had quite a bit of rain but also some sun. From my living room window I can see towards the West where most of our weather comes from and at one time the sun was shining but the sky was black. I figured that anything that had to be done outside would have to be done really quickly. I no sooner thought that when the heavens opened up and a real downpour came. It did not last long and then the sun came out again.
For the first time in ages we have quite a puddle at the end of our driveway. I sure feel for the people that live in the areas that are flooded at the moment.
That's all for tonight. Have a great evening everybody

docstresscartoon

Monday, November 16, 2009

Monday, start of the week

and it is still raining. A very good time to stay home by the fire. Hmmmmmmmm why then did we go to town AGAIN ???
There were just too many good deals in the flyers this week, so we took advantage of them. Gas has dropped a few cents so we fuelled the car too also Cliff bought the parts he needed to put the old white Honda together.  Now hopefully this will be the last time for awhile that we go shopping although the library emailed the arrival of "The book of Negros" . I will get that tomorrow.
While we were getting gas I thought of a time when we were camped at Oxbow by Palo Verde, CA on the Colorado River. We were on one of our morning walks when we met an old fellow who had run out of gas. He wanted to buy the 5 gallons of gas we always have in the back of the truck. Cliff went and got it and poured it into the old guy's truck.  Well, he was "just" short of money and would "see" us later that week. It was quite some time but he eventually arrived not with money but with a bunch of toilet paper. I wonder where he got that ???? Another time we were in Mexico when a young couple stopped us by holding out a gas can and a hose. No money there either :-) but at least we did a good deed. We ran out of gas only one time in all our travels and it was great to have that jerry can in the back. It took us to the next service station. We would not have run out of gas if the roads had not been rerouted by Lenwood, CA. It was the first year after they fixed up the roads in that area.
My thoughts are going to all the snowbirds that are now in the warm weather, oh how I envy them!!!
For now I will say good night

nature

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Rain, rain and more rain

Our property is drenched and there is more on the way. I remember praying for rain awhile ago, can I please have that prayer back!!!!!!!
Disregarding the rain we walked to our friend's place and spent a pleasant afternoon. We saw 4 deer in their field waiting for the usual allotment of pears but unfortunately the pears are all gone. Now they will have to forage in the woods.
It is almost time to watch "The Amazing Race"  I don't look at that at the beginning but when there are only a few people left I enjoy the program.  
I had a very pleasant day and hope you had too.

Good night everyone!

flu_shot

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Cold outside

It was -2C this morning when we got up. I think that was the coldest morning since the summer. I guess we have to count on more of them from now on. The roofs of the houses were white and the grass frosty. The water on our balcony did not thaw out until well after 11 AM. The house is nice and warm so we are very lucky.
We went visiting this afternoon and stopped for milk and whipping cream on the way home. I always like a little cream in my coffee as well as lots of milk.
On our friend's property is a tall dead tree where bald eagles have a nest. This is the time when the adults start preparing/repairing their nest. We saw one eagle fly in with a thick stick about 5 ft. long. According to our friends they have been there for at least 14 years and had 2 babies last year. ( The eagles, not the friends :-) The eagles sometimes break up the branches with their wings but we did not see that. They use the wings like an axe. It sure was something to see. I was very sorry that I did not have my camera with me. That was the highlight of the day.

Good night everyone

Finish_Started

Friday, November 13, 2009

Red carpet

I will never buy a red carpet again. It looks so nice in our rec. room after it has been vacuumed but........ about 10 minutes later it needs vacuuming again :-( You can see every little fluff on it. Since we have the fire going in the fireplace insert all day long, it gets lots of "stuff" while we tend to the fire. Here is a picture that I took a little while after vacuuming and you can see what I mean!


already spoiled by little bits of wood. I guess there are worse things in life but at the moment that is my pet peeve.
On the brighter side we had another great weather day even though the weatherman predicted rain. Glad he was wrong. I even went to the garden and got the rest of the beets some lettuce and  most of the leeks. I pruned the one and only rose bush we have in the garden too.
Now comes the time when I have to think about buying Christmas presents. I am glad when the parcels are sent off. 
It looks like the H1N1 influenza has peaked at least that was mentioned on the News tonight. I hope they are right. I still have not made up my mind if I will get the shot or not.  
I picked up 3 books at the library yesterday so I better start reading and get them back for other people to enjoy.
Good night everyone

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Another Shopping Day

I cannot believe we went shopping again today. I don't like shopping but sometimes it has to be done. It took us more than 2 hours to go to Farmer's Market, Canadian Tire, Wal-Mart  and Superstore. Not too bad for timing.
Luckily the weather was nice and the roads were dry.
This morning I went the other direction to Mill Bay with a friend to go to the library and afterwards we had a great cup of coffee in Shawnigan Lake, my second cup for the day, which is very unusual.

square mast


This is the mast configuration of the catamaran we had on the ocean in Indonesia. As you can see the mast is square and the rings that haul up the main sail are round. That made for all kinds of situations that were not conductive to smooth sailing. On the other hand sometimes it was the operator that was at fault. One time we did not tie the proper knot and off came the sail and someone had to climb the 52 ft mast. Not me, by golly! We hired a young boy at the wharf and for 1000 Rupiah (about 1 US$) he was up that mast so quick (barefoot) it made our heads spin. It was amazing. We also saw some of the boys climb up coconut palms barefoot as if they were walking along a board walk.

Mast climber


The next picture is early in the morning sailing I should say motoring up the Malili river out to the ocean. We had to take a certain course because the river is very shallow with several sand banks. On both shores were beacons that we had to head for. Sometimes the sand banks shifted and we would get stuck. Not a good thing in a river that is home to crocodiles. We only saw one once.
One time we got stuck and Cliff actually had to go into the river and drag the catamaran along until it floated again. I kept a sharp eye out for visitors :-) It felt like he was Humphrey Bogart in the movie "The African Queen".

down the river

We always had a good time.
Good night to all. Sleep well!

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Sunny Day today

Even though it was Remembrance Day today I had a hair dressing appointment at 9.30 this morning. The roads were not busy at all and there war hardly a person in the 2 stores I went to before my appointment.
I slept in a little bit because I was awake quite a long time during the night. The smell of coffee woke me up. Yummy yummy. A few years ago I had given up coffee for over 2 years but when we had guests for a few days I started to join in with the coffee crowd and go hooked again. Now I have my one mug of coffee every morning. One mug = 2 cups and I swear I can sometimes see the spoon stand upright in the mug it's so strong.
After making and eating Lunch I downloaded and installed the latest updates on Cliff's computer and did a defrag on my computer. It was probably not really necessary but lately it happens quite often that I get a message "This program is not responding" and then the computer freezes up and  I have to go to task manager and end the program in there. Everything I had been working on is gone. It happens with all kinds of different programs. The defrag might not help anything but at least I did something :-) I will have to look further into this.
Tonight is the "Battle of Britain" on TV, uninterrupted by commercials. We have seen that years ago in a Drive-in Theatre. What I remember most of it were the mosquitoes and other bugs that were hanging around on a hot night and we had to keep the windows rolled up so we would not be bitten to death. This in turn fogged up the windows because there were 4 of us, hubby and I and our 2 girls, sleeping in the back of the car. I don't remember too much of the movie.
Time to lay down the pen and say good night.

best_cartoon

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Soup's ON !!

I spent this afternoon making the soup stock from the 2 stewing hens I bought yesterday. I used 4 cups of it and made a chicken soup with lots of veggies, potatoes and some noodles. It tastes great. I am freezing the rest in portions for later use.
That done it will be the last time for stewing hens. Nothing wrong with the end result BUT I kept thinking that probably those poor hens spent their whole life in a cage pumping out eggs and ingesting lots of hormones and what  knows else. I am sure that the frying chicken I buy gets doses of that too but they don't live as long and probably don't get as much of the nasty stuff. Anyway, it will make me feel better about chicken soup after this lot of stock is used up This is just my opinion and I am sticking to it :-)
It was another day of rain and dry spells. I had a chance to go shopping again but I am all "shopped out". I enjoy cooking so it was a good afternoon.
I read on the 50plus forum that Susan Boyle will be on "Dancing with the Stars" tonight. I think I will record that program tonight and watch it sans commercials later. I really liked her singing.
I just downloaded and installed 7 updates for my Windows Vista. It needed a restart and I am glad I saved this Blog first. I'd hate to have to write it again.

That's all folks, have a great evening

19960717

Monday, November 9, 2009

2 kinds of beans

Today our home grown beans were finally dry enough to be shelled. We grow Appaloosa beans that are strictly used for dry beans and Blue Lake beans that are great when fresh but we usually have lots that get away on us and when they are too big they get stringy and are not good for cooking. Shelling beans is a tedious job but we now have 2 pounds of Appaloosa beans and 1 pound of Blue Lake beans. They will taste great in bean soup this winter.
We got up pretty late this morning and instead of going shopping early we waited until after lunch. Even the laundry did not all get done. We needed milk badly because we started to have a cup of hot chocolate in the afternoon so we combined all our shopping and afterwards visit our ailing friend again. He seems to be quite a bit better. We got home just in time to watch the News on TV. 
Now comes a bit of computer time for both of us. I don't know what we would do if we only had one computer!!! I am sure a lot of you can understand that. So many times I turn to the Internet and Google to learn about things and facts I hear about. My first computer was a laptop with 2 GB hard drive and 32 Mb RAM and it cost $ 2450.00.  I have more GB than that on a flash drive now and I own 5 of them :-). How times change !!! 
We have not graduated to a cell phone yet. So far I really don't see the need for one. I will probably change my mind on that if we ever fly South again. I like the idea of the "Tracfone" that Wandering Willy talks about in his Blog. I would like to find something similar that works in Canada. I am sure it is out there, but I have not really looked into it . I also wonder if WW can phone to Canada with the phone he has???
Time to quit writing.
Good night everyone.

att11

Sunday, November 8, 2009

A walk down Memory Lane

I mentioned yesterday that I would scan some photos from our time in Indonesia and here are a few of them now. In an earlier Blog I posted some pictures of Lake Matano. Here now are some of the locally built catamaran  we were part owner of on the ocean. The  "Amat Berani" (The courageous one) was moored in the Malili River which was a drive of about an hour from where we lived.
Malili, Indonesia
The catamaran was 52 ft. long and 13 ft. wide and had a mast of 52 ft.
Raft, old
After awhile it started to need lots of repairs and the group decided to bring it to Soroako where we lived and do a refurbishing job. That was a big undertaking because it was built totally of wood and quite rotten in spots. It needed repairs  to one of the pontoons. The rotten spot was cut out and a new piece made by a local tradesman and the whole thing was put together with dowels. We all helped as much as we could, particularly in the painting of it.
workplace on raft
It took quite a large crane to hoist it on the low bed truck.
hoisting the raft
but it was done and then the long drive to Malili river started.
on the road to Malili
This was the only road and the procession took up most of it.
We were very happy when it was finally at the mooring place
time to get it in the water
and with lots of help it was lowered to the water.
 Finally back in the water 

We tried to sail on most weekends either with our friends or alone. We left Soroake around 6 in the morning on Saturdays and came back late on Sundays. When we could not go we still had the raft on Lake Matano. That was a lot of fun too but it was only in the afternoons.
For now I will bid you good night.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

More of the same

I know what I am thankful for: A dry house, 3 squares and a nice warm bed. On days like these I think about the homeless people and shudder to think about sleeping outside.
We had posted our old decommissioned freezer on Cowichan freecycle and it was picked up today. I am glad somebody will get some use out of it instead of it ending up in the landfill. Some day it will go there I am sure but not just yet.  We had it standing outside under the balcony and this damp weather does not do it any good.
I went through all my photos from Indonesia this afternoon. There is a whole shopping bag full, all mixed up. I will scan a few in the next few days and add them to my Blog some day.
Tomorrow I will get a bag of 2 stewing hens that are advertised this week in one of the stores. I like to use those to make some chicken broth that I will freeze and use as base for soup when the time comes. They are not very good as far as the meat goes but the broth is great, I believe better than the store-bought kind.
Our friends seem to have come down with the flu, so there will be no get-together tomorrow. Too bad because we always have a good time.
We like to go shopping early on a Sunday. The stores are pretty empty then and we won't have to wait at the check-out, so that's what will happen tomorrow morning.
Now I will say good bye to all

433

Friday, November 6, 2009

Rain, Sun, Rain and so on

That was today's theme. Of course I stayed in the house except to go to the mail box twice, once for the local papers that come out on Fridays and the next time for the mail. Too bad there was only advertising in the box. Mind you it was for wine tasting and a massage. Hmmmm that sounds pretty good.
Cliff started his stove in the garage/workshop to work in there in reasonable comfort and also worked in the back property  when it was not raining. It seems the water is rising in the ponds on either side of our property, so we keep an eye on that.
It sure is getting dark early now. Time to bring out the candles. I really like candle light.
I have a pet peeve.. Lots of people don't like advertisement flyers in the local paper and take them out and leave them in the newspaper  box with the rest of the papers. They also throw stuff they don't like from their mail boxes into these newspaper boxes. I wonder why they think that somebody else is supposed to clean up their garbage????????? Makes me irritable.
I spent quite a bit of time at the computer and also did some house cleaning which is not my favourite thing but it has to be done. At times like this I wish I was back in Indonesia where I did not do the housework myself :-). On the other hand it would not be a good place to be with all the unrest in that part of the world.
I hope everybody has a nice weekend.
Good night

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Thursday, November 5, 2009

A drive to Chemainus

It rained cats and dogs when we drove to Chemainus today at least on some stretches. There are a few spots on the road where our Honda likes to water plane but we made it OK. On the way home we did a bit of shopping and later on visited our friend again. He likes the company. He is really getting bored because he is normally a very industrious person.
I made a big pot of pea soup for lunch enough for 3 meals. I always like to have meals in the freezer for days when I am too busy to cook. 
Sitting at the computer I sometimes forget time and place so I have to use a timer. Sometimes though I go from room to room and cannot hear it so that I am still getting into trouble like forgetting to put wood on the fire or forgetting to shut off the burner on the stove ending up with burnt offerings. Now I added a string to my timer and have it with me all the time :-)
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I hope you like my new "necklace"
Rick's Blog today made my mouth water for the new Windows 7. Particularly the "Snap" feature. I could use that so often. A few minutes ago I made some birthday cards and used several windows at a time. Sure would have been nice to easily open 2 of them side by side. I can do it now but it takes more time. One day!!!
Time to watch TV for awhile.

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Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Steak lunch

I am so pleased with our George Foreman grill. It is only the small one but I have been using it quite a bit. There is only hubby and I, so it is big enough. The steaks tuned out to perfection which was a surprise because my cooking skills as far as steak is concerned have not been sterling. Normally they are either over- or undercooked.
Grilling the steaks reminded me of a time in Indonesia when we only got low grade meat at our "toko", the expat store at our little village. Buying meat at the local market was out of the question, even the best cuts were tough as anything. One of our friends decided we should order meat from the States so we all signed up and bought filet steak. From then on everybody grilled filet steak at our Sunday sailings on the ocean and lake. We soon got tired of that too and just wanted to have a good old hamburger. We ended up grinding the steak to make ground beef and then had our hamburgers. It sure sounds like sacrilege to me now.
Getting back to the book I have from the library about windows 7 I saw that the library has 6 copies and only 2 people are ordering one, so I decided to keep it for awhile and poke around in it. I must say that reading it and also reading Rick's Blog it looks better and better all the time. I wish I was in the market for a new computer but mine is only a little over a year old, so a new one is out for now.  I am really surprised that there is not more demand for the book.
We had a great run of nice weather but that is supposed to stop tomorrow. The forecast is wrong quite often, so I hope it is wrong for tomorrow too.
For tonight I bid you all adieu.

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Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Baking day

We ran out of bread and I had to bake again. When I started the flour mill it only worked for a minute and then quit. Remember...last time  I had tried to grind flax seed together with the wheat. I thought I had the problem rectified but not so. I ended up starting the mill about 10 times, it stopped, I dug out more caked together flax seed meal and started it again. In the meantime I had wheat kernels rolling around the floor. It was a pretty mess but I finally got it straightened out. The bread turned out great. I have baked bread for nearly 50 years, so I should know how to do it I guess.
After it was all done I was free to go shopping and to go to the library.
I had ordered the book "Teach yourself Microsoft  Windows 7 visually" by Paul McFedries and it finally came. Actually I am the first person to receive this book since it is brand spanking new. It looks interesting and now I can hardly wait until I need a new computer that has this OS. I am sure there are people that really need the book since they already have  Windows 7, so I will take it back and I will order it again when I really need it. (Hopefully soon :-)
It was another nice day and the road was dry. So far I have no complaints about the weather even when it rains. We need it!
I wish you all a good night.
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Monday, November 2, 2009

Rain and Sun today

We had a mixed bag today but on the whole it turned out OK. As usual we started the upstairs fireplace but could have left it unlit since it still was pretty warm in the house. Shortly after the downstairs insert took over and the house was cozy and warm all day.
I found a squash today that had started to have a bad spot so I decided to use it in a stir-fry. It turned out very tasty. Now I am trying to figure out what I will cook tomorrow. I find that is the hardest thing about cooking, making up my mind what it will be.
I am following Wandering Willy's Blog. He is taking the same route we used to take the last few trips we went South. The last time we stayed overnight in Jackpot I won $ 174.-- at one of the casinos. That was a lot of fun. We don't normally visit Casinos except for their great buffets. We allow ourselves $ 10.-- each and when that is gone, we're gone too. So far one of us has always been lucky.
We have extra medical insurance for 40 days but I cannot see going to Arizona just for that length of time. It takes us 5 days there and 5 days back that only leaves 30 days for fun and then we would have to return. Bah Humbug!!
Since nothing exciting happened today I shall say:
That's all folks !!! Good night.

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Sunday, November 1, 2009

Nice weather again

We have been very lucky with the weather. Lots of sunshine today again. Must have been because our "sunshine" Sonja had a birthday :-) Too bad she lives so far away and we would have to brave the Coquihalla Highway to visit her. This way a phone call had to do the trick.
Talk about trick... Just the same as happened several years in a row, no little tricksters came to visit yesterday. I am only glad that I only bought a small bag of little chocolate bars since I am the one who has to eat them all !! No problem though and they were all gone before the night was out.
I was very busy yesterday doing what I love to do: READ. I had another good book and could not tear myself away.
This afternoon we had company and as usual had a good time. I baked an apple cake this morning and when I measured the flour I had to remember the time we lived in Indonesia. Most of the expats bought their flour in 1 kg cans that were brought over from USA and cost about $ 12.-- per can. I on the other hand baked all our bread and you can imagine how much a loaf would have cost so I bought my flour in the local market which only cost a fraction of the canned stuff. The problem was that it sometimes contained weevils that had to be sifted out.  We had a really fine sieve that the maid used to sift out those little critters when I brought the flour home.. Then when I came to bake I re-sifted it and am sure I got them all. The bread was great. Most people did not want to buy that flour because of the weevils and thought I was crazy for doing that. On the other hand they bought bread that was baked locally!!!! I don't think the bakers sifted anything, do you ?  So where did the critters go ????????????
We are having a great big moon today and I better go and howl at it :-)
Good night everyone.

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