One Never Truely Leaves

I had started this post on February 16, 2016 on my phone. It is now December and hopefully I can finish writing it...

My grandma passed away on Saturday morning (February 13). 

I knew it was going to happen soon. Let me tell you a bit of a back story first.

A couple weeks ago, my parents had gone to Edmonton at Grandma's request. She was tired and knew she wasn't going to be around much longer and wanted to see my mom before she passed. 

[this is where I had left off originally. I'm going to fast forward a bit as I don't remember where I was going with that.]

I had put off calling Grandma, as I wasn't ready to say goodbye yet. She was getting regular blood transfusions and I was scared. I finally called her from my parents house on Friday, Feb 12. It was in the afternoon (after I got off work), but she was sleeping when I called. However Mom's  cousin was there and we left a message a message with him to let Grandma know that I called and that I loved her.  It was the best that I could do. 

I worked the next day at 7am. Saturday mornings are fairly slow at the gas station until about 9:30-10:00am. So I usually spend the morning stocking and then wasting time on Facebook. I went onto Facebook at about 8:30, and had seen that one of my cousins had changed her profile picture to one of Grandma with her mom, her son and herself. As soon as I saw that picture I knew that Grandma had passed away. I then had to close my phone as there were guests coming into the store. About 15 minutes after I saw that picture, my parents showed up. They hadn't even come in the store and I knew that they were going to confirm what I had already known. 

I am glad that I was able to say goodbye to her before she left, even though it wasn't directly to her. It was almost as if she was waiting for me. 

I found out later from my mom that Grandma approved of the tattoo that I had gotten of Grandpa. 

One of Mom's other cousins, Janice, was visiting with Grandma and Janice had asked Grandma if she had seen the tattoo that I had gotten of Grandpa. Grandma didn't even know I had a tattoo. So Janice logged onto Facebook and found a picture of it. Grandma loved it. I'm very glad that Grandma approved of my memorial tattoo for Grandpa (my Uncle Doug also said that even though Grandpa didn't approve of tattoos, he would have approved of mine.) 

I already have my memorial tattoo for Grandma planned out. It is now a matter of throwing the design into the computer, printing it to match the size of Grandpa's, and then going out to Chilliwack to book my appointment to get it done. It'll be about a year before I'll have it done (that is how popular my tattoo artist is. After I had gotten Grandpa done (Oct 2015), I found he was completely booked for 2016.) I know that waiting that long will be worth it. He will make Grandma's tattoo just as great as Grandpa's.

I don't do well...

I don't do well at taking criticism. I made rabbit stew in the slow cooker with baking powder bisquits today for dinner. This was my first time ever making stew. Needless to say, I have some work to do to create a good stew. (And biscuits for that matter.)

What went wrong? The veggies were not cooked, the meat did not fall off the bones as it was supposed to, and my bisquits were semi hockey pucks. Other than that, I thought it tasted good. It was flavourful and had the right amount of spice. Did I get any recognition for even cooking dinner? No. All I got was criticism. This was wrong, this was wrong, this was wrong...

I'm sorry my 1st attempt at stew was not up to your standards. Mistakes will be made while trying to traverse in the realm of wild meats. Wild meats have to be prepared differently. I was trying to go an easier route for my first stew attempt, rather than royally screwing something up trying to make it on our extremely finicky stove that doesn't like working half the time. At this rate I don't want to attempt stew again. Either in the slow cooker or on the stove. But you know what? I will try it again. And if I get the same results again, I will find a different way to cook rabbit. Although that may be the end of my stew making, as I'm not that huge a fan of beef stew. I'll eat it, but it isn't my favourite.

As for the bisquits. That was the result of bad baking powder. That powder has now been dumped out and has been added to the grocery list. They will be made again. It is a tried and true recipe that my mom has been using for years. I just have bad luck with baking powder. That recipe will eventually be posted, as I want a permanent pin for it on Pinterest. Then I don't have to keep taking a photo of it every time I want to make them.

Gotta Stop Questioning Movies

When watching Disney movies, it is better not to question the movie. We are currently watching The Good Dinosaur.  These are the comments that have been said so far....

1 - why are the dinosaurs farming?
2 - why are they growing corn?
3 - how did they know how to build a corn silo?
4- He looks a lot like me when I was a boy (Justin referring to the little boy)
5 - why does the snake have legs?
6 - for a Long Neck, his neck sure isn't long
7 - and now we have ranch hand T-Rexes...
8 - and now they are running like horses, but they are just T-Rexes

Pinterest Win–Pineapple

So in June, it was my cousin Becky’ wedding. Now as I don’t have a lot of money, I wanted to make them something handmade and unique. As they have two houses currently, they did not need a lot of the usual items that newlyweds need. I tried to get answers on decor from her sister, but was not given any good information. So I went on Pinterest and started looking for unique craft ideas. I searched and searched to no avail. And then one day I came across this pineapple.

So I thought to myself that this would be the perfect gift for Becky and Brett. I asked my mom to ask one of her clients for a recommendation for a good bottle of cheap sparkling wine. After getting the name of a good one, went out and bought it and then waited for pay day to come around to buy some Ferraro Rocher. Mom was nice enough to buy me two boxes that had 12 each in them. With those original 24, I mocked out the bottle of wine with the chocolates to get a rough estimate on how many packages I would need to buy. I ended up having to purchase 16 more packages (16x3=48 + 24 = 72!!). After it was all said and done, I had 6-8 chocolates left over from creating the pineapple, so my estimating was pretty spot on.

And now, here is how my pineapple manifested (and turned out better looking than the one that I had pinned originally).

Supplies

• Bottle of sparkling wine or champagne
• Approx 75 Ferraro Rocher (I suggest buying a large box first and then measuring out to get an estimate like I did)
• Green card stock
• Pencil or pen
• Hot glue gun with glue sticks (I used a low-temp gun, regular may work better)
• Clear cellophane wrap (I used the stuff that can be heat shrunk to baskets)
• elastic band

Instructions

1. Start off by opening all the packages of chocolates. I had them spread out on my work table. And plug in your glue gun. Wait for that sucka to get hot.
2. Once your gun gets hot, take a chocolate and put a trigger squeeze of glue on the bottom of it and push against the bottle. Don’t push too hard on the chocolate as it will crush it and we don’t want a deflated pineapple. Start at the bottom of the bottle and go all the way around.
3. On your secound layer, you will want to stagger the chocolates slightly so that they are sitting within the spaces of the first layer. Try to keep them as close as possible.
4. Keep repeating this process until you get just past the shoulder of the bottle. A word of warning, the chocolates like falling out of their little brown “trays” as you keep rotating the bottle in circles. Just leave them off until you are done putting all the chocolates on. Use a little bit of glue to get them to stay back in their little trays.
5. Once all the chocolates are attached, it is time to start making the leaves of the pineapple. The pin that I had found had no instructions at all, so I wasn’t too sure on how to proceed at this point. I ended up googling an image of a pineapple leaf and just free-handed all of them. This is where having the pencil will come in handy, as I kept changing the way that the leaves looked. I drew the leaves close enough that they could just be cut out as one piece and then glued to the bottle. I used about 2 or 3 pieces of cardstock to make all the leaves for my pineapple.
6. You will want to start off with bigger leaves and then work your way to smaller ones as you go up the crown. You can add a bit of curl to the leaves by running them along the edge of the table. I ended up adding the curl by running my finger nail along the center of the leaf. This way you can adjust how much curl each one has. It is easier to do this part before gluing them to the bottle.
7. Keep adding leaves until you work all the way up the stem of the bottle to finish the crown. For the top pieces, I ended up gluing a large piece of green cardstock onto the foil wrapper of the lid to cover the brown. I then added a single leaf to the very top. Once you  have finished adding the leaves, take a look at it and glue in individual leaves wherever you think it could use it.
8. Voila! You have now created a pineapple. Your final step would be to wrap it with the cellophane and secure the loose ends at the neck of the bottle with the elastic. Be careful getting the elastic over the leaves! I did end up getting a bit of help from Justin to do this part. If you use the shrink wrap cellophane, be very careful when you shrink it with the hair dryer so as to not melt the chocolate. You just want it so that it is taught against the chocolates.

Becky loved the pineapple! Turns out that pineapples are her favourite. Needless to say, the bottle of wine will never be drunk. She loves her pineapple.

Overall, I would call this a Pinterest Win!

I Don't Know Sir

From mid-May to about mid-July I keep a close eye on the weather. But not the weather in town. I keep an eye on the weather further north in Clinton, Boston Bar and Kamloops. The reason behind this is because during this time frame is when the grouse lay their eggs for the upcoming season. Now, I'm sure I've mentioned before, but grouse are not the smartest birds out there. The reason I'm mentioning this in this case is because grouse nest on the ground. And the survival of the eggs greatly depends on the weather.

Now, if the weather is sunny and hot during the aforementioned time frame the grouse season will be a good one. However, if it is rainy the survival rate of the eggs goes down.

This year I am a little worried. May was nice, hot and sunny throughout our various hunting grounds. June on the other hand, not so much. We (anyone living in the lower "rain"-land) made up a nickname for June. We called it June-uary. June was miserable. Dreary, rainy weather for much of the month. That weather has now fallen into July also.

So fingers are crossed in hopes that the eggs survived this unseasonable weather. We will only know the outcome for sure in September.

Blueberry Cobbler

Hello Everyone!
Long time, no post again. Hopefully I can eventually try to get at least one post a month. Then maybe two, followed by one a week....Yeah that is wishful thinking.

So right now, as I type this on my phone, I am sitting on the steps to our basement suite bbqing in the front entrance on our camping bbq. Downside to basement suite?  Lack of space for a real size bbq. Wish we could fit one here, as I would really enjoy being able to control the temperature on our bbq. I currently cook everything on the lowest setting and it still burns. Or maybe it just might be time for a bbq that isn't a 'hand me down'.
Anyways, that was a long segway. So what exactly am I cooking on my bbq this beautiful June evening?  Well I'm not cooking. I am actually baking. I am making a blueberry cobbler. Found the recipe on Pinterest and have been trying to make it for two nights now. Finally got around to it tonight. It is just in the final bisquit baking stage at the moment. It'll be eaten by the time I post this though, as I have to finish on my computer to post so you can have photos.

 The blueberries cooked and ready to be topped with the bisquits.

 All cooked and ready to enjoyed.

 Topped with vanilla ice cream. This is one recipe I will have to make again. It was gone the next day.

Here is a link to the original recipe. BBQ Blueberry Cobbler

It will not be in a tomb

So I have acquired my mom's canning supplies and I have started a new hobby. I have started canning. I have only done two things so far, but I definitely want to continue.

I have made some Cherry Jam and Habanero Cherry Jam. And am currently canning some plums. There will be incoming posts on both of those. Unfortunately no pictures od of the process of the jam. Next time...I'll try to remember.  I can't guarantee anything. 

On the list items to be canned in the future is plum jam, plum salsa, and maybe plum chutney. I also want to try my hand at a mango habanero salsa. After that we'll see what happens. 

So look for those posts in the future.

Foxtrot India November Alpha Lima Lima Yankee

If you didn't understand the title, it says "Finally" using the phonetic alphabet.

For some strange reason I have been trying to memorize the phonetic alphabet for about 4 years. I have never been able to though. I would get A-F then O, N, S, T, W. The other letters were a mystery to me.

Then comes this past Wednesday night shift. I decided to try it again. I was able to recite my usual letters, but still got hung up on the others. So I googled, wrote the entire alphabet out on a piece of paper, read it a couple times and then folded it up and put it in my wallet. Whenever a car pulled up and I could see their license plate, I would sound off on the letters. I did that for about an hour,  still missing the occasional letter but after a while, it finally stuck.

I can now say that I can efficiently recite the phonetic alphabet, with only minor hang ups.  Usually G. Not sure why.

Tango Alpha Tango Alpha {space} foxtrot October romeo {space} November October whiskey

What Is Your Vice?

So tonight I started binge reading one of my friends blogs. http:// www.nyafatkid.com/
I have "known" her for quite a few years as we were both on the same forum together. When the forum folded, we all traversed over to Facebook and made our own secret group together there.

While reading one of her posts, it made me think of my own little food vices and eating habits. Needless to say, working at the gas station is not the best for getting better eating habits. (As I look at food for the shift, which includes: half a small bag of Doritos, a can of Guave Rockstar, 2 pizza pops, a bottle of Nestea Green Tea, a bottle of water and a crapton of pumpkin seeds. I also have a pretzel and peanut butter chocolate bar sitting with my stash, but I haven't had any of it.)

The thing that I hate having in the pile the most is the Rockstar. This has to be one of my biggest vices at work. Yes I know energy drinks are extremely bad for you. Heck, I'm not even drinking it for the energy aspect (my brain wires are backwards and energy drinks put me to sleep and sleeping pills wake me up. I have actually found out it is hereditary on my dad's side). It just tastes good. But only the guava flavor. I used to drink the fruit punch Mountain Dew Kick Start but the flavor has changed.
One of my resolutions this year was to kick the energy drinks and all pop. The pop I have been able to do quite easily. I can't do pop anymore, since quitting. Proof there...I had decided last week that I wanted a small can of Sprite as I was wanting a drink but water just wasn't appealing. I ended up dumping about half of it down the drain as it was just too sweet and I didn't like the taste. Anyways, I have gotten down to 2 Rockstars a week. Yeah I'm still drinking them but it isn't nearly as bad as what I used to be drinking. To be honest I'm almost a little scared to cut these last 2 because the caffeine migraine that I got when I first started was brutal. It lasted a week and I was not a happy camper. 

I will eventually cut the 2 out of my diet. It may take a little time but it will happen. Hopefully sooner rather than later. This reason being that I want to start doing the 21 Day Fix. I am going to do it alone or I'm going to somehow talk Justin into doing it with me. He may be on board as I know he wouldn't mind losing his "pillow".

That is all for tonight as I have to start counting. Gotta actually work at work lol