1. Advent

Today is the first day of Advent. When I was a child my brother and I as well as our friends used to go carolling on this day starting at 6AM. We would go around  an area assigned to us by our pastor. Quite often we heard not so nice comments from the people who would have liked to sleep a little longer on a Sunday morning but most people enjoyed listening to us. After we finished we would all go to the church hall for coffee and donuts. I always like this time of year even though sometimes it was really hard to get out of bed at around 5 AM.
Yesterday was a super day around here. It was sunny and not too cold. Cliff and I went again to wave our signs at the motorists.





It was amazing how many people gave us the thumbs up and honked their horns. We had a lot of fun doing it. Again I took a bunch of cookies and now Cliff and I are called “The cookie lady and her gentleman”.
Cliff went today also but I stayed home because we were going to have company and I had to prepare for that. 
As usual we had a great time with our friends.
Tonight will be an early bedtime.
Good night everybody ☺  

Not so cold

I am happy to say that the snow is melting. It rained quite a bit which helped to clear the streets. Unfortunately it will probably freeze later on tonight which makes the streets slippery and unsafe. I hope people take heed and stay home.
That’s what I did today: Stayed home
I finally backed my computer up to an external hard drive. I had not done that for some time and this morning the thought hit. I would hate to lose all my documents, pictures etc. Tomorrow I will back up Cliff’s computer.
I also read a bit and finished my latest book: “The girl with the dragon tattoo”. Now I am waiting for the second book in the trilogy “The girl who played with fire”; I am no. 17 on the waiting list and I also wait for the third book “The girl who kicked the hornet’s nest” My number for that is a distant 439. It will take awhile before that arrives. The first book was a bit long-winded with lots of names to remember.
I fried some Coho salmon for lunch. Our friend Donna vacuum packed that for us when we were in Sointula. It sure is better than just wrapping it in freezer paper for freezing. The filets tasted fresh. I don’t normally like fried salmon but I am changing my mind, it was delicious.
Tonight we had chicken soup with lots of veggies and quinoa. I use quinoa for every soup I cook lately. I really like it.
Now to go and sit by the fire and read some more.

Good night everybody ☺

Thanksgiving

I hope everybody has a great time.

Happy Thanksgiving to all !

Here yesterday and gone today

I liked my new iPod Touch but I took it back today. I could not download the type of audiobooks I wanted. The rest of the features are great and I miss them already
I now bought a “SanDisk sansa fuze+” 8 GB and already downloaded 2 books and am listening to one of them. I hope that it will give me lots of pleasure.

Yesterday we had lots of snow flurries but all told there was hardly any new snow on the ground. It was very cold today again but it was sunny and driving was OK.
When we came home I made lunch and then I plugged the MP3player in to charge it up. It sure was hard to wait about 3 hours for a full charge before I could play with it. In the meantime I downloaded the User Guide for it to familiarize myself with the features of it. There is a lot to learn, not like my other 2 players which did not have so many features. While I waited for the battery to charge fully I baked a batch of oatmeal cookies with raisins and chocolate chips.
That’s about all I did today.
Hopefully the weather will warm up soon but before that we are supposed to get another dump of snow. Not good

Good night everybody ☺

First Snow and a Toy

Friday night it started to snow and when we got up Saturday morning it looked like a winter wonderland.

Our driveway is very long and Cliff went out to shovel it when I got a phone call from our friend Tom telling us he would be over with this tractor to give us a hand. What a relief that was.
Here he is,

A friend in need is a friend indeed

After the driveway was cleared of snow we had a quick lunch and then went to support a sign rally against the proposed ECO Depot that the CVRD wants to ram down our throats.
 

Finding the roads in good condition we decided to drive to town to do a bit more shopping. We went to Canadian Tire and after that stopped at Future Shop where I bought my new toy, an iPod Touch. The service there was excellent. A young lady by the name of Jenelle showed us the iPod and could tell us a lot about it.
When we got home I tried the new toy out. It took awhile to be able to get to my email but I finally figured it out after finding a PDF Users Guide on the internet. Because I had been working on that until nearly 11 last night I was so wound up that I hardly had any sleep at all. It is an affliction of mine, when I have something on my mind I cannot sleep.
This morning I finally got around to transferring some audiobooks from the library to the iPod but unfortunately it did not work. According to the instructions I need iTunes 7.4 version which is one that is already 3 years old. The one that I had to download for the iPod is the latest version.
Since being able to listen to audiobooks on the iPod was the first priority for me I think I will return the iPod Touch to the store and buy some other MP3 player. I am really very disappointed.
That is my sad story for today.
Good night everybody ☺

An unsuccessful shopping trip

This afternoon Cliff and I went to town. Cliff had an appointment and I wanted to look for an iPod. He dropped me off at London Drugs where I eagerly looked for the right department. I found the iPods and could even turn one on but something was wrong with it so I was waiting for a sales person to help. One was busy with another customer but then the customer left and so did the sales person. I waited for another few minutes but nobody came so I turned around and while I walked to the entrance I met up with a clerk and told him they just lost a sale because nobody came to serve me.
Off I went to Staples not far from London Drugs. There I found all kinds of paraphernalia for an iPod but no iPod. I asked at the front desk where the iPods were and they told me “in front of isle 10.” I went there but all I could see were pictures of an iPod Touch, no iPod. Back I went to the desk and the fellow told me that the iPods were locked up but none were ready. Hmmm don’t know what he meant by that. He also said they were too easily stolen and made no move to help me further so that was the second store I left unsatisfied.
I guess the only other place around here is Future Shop. I was there a couple of weeks ago and they had them on display tied with a wire to the shelf and I could even handle them. At that time I had not made up my mind which MP3 player to get so I left.
The stores want to make sales to beef up the bottom line and then they treat their customers in above manner. I just don’t get it.
That was my beef today but the rest of the day was great. The weather held on but it sure looks and smells like snow.
Time to have a bran muffin and a cup of coffee.
Good bye everybody ☺

Preparing for possible snow

The weather forecast is not very good for our area so I decided to make sure I have all the groceries in the house that I could possibly use for awhile. I also went to the library for more books plus I have quite a few on my MP3 player to listen to. Wood for the fireplaces is close at hand and 12 gallons of drinking water in the bathtub so I think we are prepared for the first snow fall. Our bathtub is the best place to keep the water since once a gallon bottle leaked and most of the water soaked into a rug.
Tomorrow we have to go to Duncan for an appointment so I hope the weather will hold. After that we should be OK.
I played at the computer ( or is it on the computer?) for quite some time today. I found a new free program to create vision boards. I used it to tweak my header picture. It was fun but I have to learn how to use it better.
My day was very enjoyable.
Good night everybody ☺

Helping out

My daughter Sonja is the volunteer coordinator at the Kelowna Gospel Mission. They look after the homeless of Kelowna. At times I have volunteered there too when I visited with Sonja. The Mission has a free dental office for the homeless and are trying to raise funds for 2 more chairs to facilitate dental services. Pepsi Cola has a project on-line to give away $ 100 000.00 for a good cause. The public is invited to vote for the cause they think is best. Sonja asked me to vote, vote, vote, which I have been doing a lot. I was wondering if some of you would also like to help out. Each vote could mean the difference between success or defeat. Here is the website:
http://www.refresheverything.ca/expandourfreedentalclinic
I usually vote and then sign out at the bottom of the page and then I can sign in again to carry on.
Right now the Mission project is number 17, so quite far away from no. 1 but the voting goes until December 31. of this year. It would be nice to see 2 more dental chairs in the Mission dentist’s office. I am sure the homeless would appreciate it.
I have not been doing too much today but I made chicken a la king for lunch and also made a chicken soup that will last for 2 evening.
My iriver MP3 player has been giving me some grief and I tried to get it going properly which took quite some time. I still don’t know exactly what I did but it works again after a fashion. I would love to buy a touch iPod in the near future thinking that I could use it for my audio books plus I could get my email at some Wi-Fi spot if
I am travelling. What do you think Rick about using it for my audio books? I would appreciate your thoughts on that.
Now I will do a bit of reading.
Good afternoon everybody ☺

The verdict is in !

Like I said in my previous entry, I started the “Cincinati Skyline Chili” We ate it the day after served over spaghetti with lots of cheddar cheese and soft assiago  added. It sure was different from our normal chili but both of us liked it. So the recipe is a keeper. Today we had a meeting at our place this morning so not much time to cook. I had frozen lots of the chili because using 2 pounds ground beef made a large amount. I quickly defrosted one of the frozen tubs and we had it over potatoes, also with lots of cheese. That tasted even better than over spaghetti, so it’s a double keeper   
We had another sunny day yesterday but needed the fire going inside. In the morning a friend and I went shopping in Mill Bay and had a coffee afterwards at a little coffee shop in  Shawnigan Lake. That was a disappointment because they had changed to a different coffee type. They used to make each coffee separately but now ours came from a large thermos sitting in the back. It was not very good and we will have to find a new haunt for our coffee breaks. In the afternoon I baked 2 kinds of cookies and one pan of bran muffins for our meeting this morning. That took care of the afternoon.
Right now I see it is raining and the rest of the day will be very lazy for me.

Good bye everybody ☺

Trial and Error

I have just spent a few hours fooling around with a trial Blog. Rick got me going on that with today’s post. First I opened a YouTube account which took me ages to do (I’m not too bright at times) I had to find a video but unfortunately I did not have one to post so I used my webcam to make one. It turned out way too long because I did not figure out how to turn it off in time. Grrrrrrrrr (Did I tell you I’m not too bright at times????)
I added it to my trial Blog anyhow, and now I have a Blog with an embedded video. All things considered I did not do too badly.
We had a bit of sunshine today after yesterday’s rainy day. I did not take advantage of it though since I stayed indoors all day.
A few days ago Pidge mentioned “Skyline Chili” and it sounded real interesting to me so I googled a recipe and prepared  the meat part today. Tomorrow I shall finish it and see if we like it. I know Cliff will be surprised when I serve it over spaghetti because until now we only know chili made with beans. In our younger years I used to try out all kinds of new recipes. It was hit or miss but mostly hits.
We are enjoying the last of this years flowers but not for much longer.

I never thought it would open up when it was still in the garden but as soon as I brought it in the house it started to bloom.
Time to do something constructive.
Good night everybody ☺

Visit over

We had a great time together. As usual it was way too short.
I always like it when one of my girls is visiting. We go shopping together and I finally get some clothes that are not years out of date This time it was only a top and I really like it. Tomorrow I will wear it when we have company in the afternoon.
We were also able to get the Christmas gifts for our grandchildren. It is so much better when the Mom is with me since I have no idea what young ladies and gents like these days. (other than cars and such.) The kids live too far away from us to find  out easily.
We left very early this morning to take Sonja to the airport just in case there was a delay on the Malahat but the traffic was very light and we got there too early. We are still from the old school when 5 minutes before the time was the right time. We got home before the flight even left Victoria and I was able to track it all the way to Kelowna. We hope Nicki will come for a visit some time too. (ya hear, Nicki!!!)
Before Sonja came I bought some Moosetracks ice-cream but we did not eat very much of it so now we have to finish it ourselves. What a calamity
I better go and suffer through some of it!
Hope everybody has a great time ☺

A beautiful day

The weather yesterday was beautiful. Sunny all day long.
Last Monday was Sonja’s (our daughter) birthday and on Tuesday we picked her up at the airport. It was so great to see her. Yesterday we went shopping for her birthday gift. We stopped at the Shoe Warehouse first and both tried on several pair of shoes for me and boots for Sonja. Neither of us bought any. Sonja could not make up her mind and I could not find anything that I could not live without. Off we went to Mark’s Work Warehouse. The first pair I tried on had the “It’ factor and I bought. On the way home Sonja thought about the boots she did not buy and after a bit of back and forth we stopped back there and bought those for her.
When we got home I made a birthday dinner. We had invited Sonja’s girlfriend.
The day before Sonja came I made our family’s favourite cake, a “Prinzregententorte”. It takes at least 2 hours of constant work to build that. 7 cake layers with chocolate butter cream in-between. Each layer is individually baked; cleaning, buttering and flouring the pan between baking. It is a sweet-lover’s dream.
 

Sonja will be here until Saturday morning when we will have to be at the airport by 8 AM, no later.
I hope everybody will have a great day ☺