Say Cheese!

29. Have family pictures taken

We had a family picture taken at our big family reunion party this summer.

My dad took a bunch of pictures for us and I think this is my favourite. I'm not sure the last time we had a picture taken of the three of us together...it must have been, oh, over a year ago. Maybe one day we'll get professional pictures taken, but for now, I like this one!

One year plus update on 101 in 1001

I'm now just over year into my 101 things in 1001 days, 392 days to be exact. So, how is it going?

Well...it looks like I've got 28 completed (and 8 or 9 that I haven't blogged about), 28 in progress which leaves 45 that I haven't even started...

In the next few weeks you can expect to see some updates about things like Post Secret and Postcrossing, paring back our book collection, writing thank you notes, swimming lessons, and farmers' markets. I hope some of it is interesting!

I'm glad I gave myself this challenge. We'll see how it all pans out (if it were to end today, I'd have $140 in the bank, but I'd be sending a whopping $1480 to charity. Maybe I need to get cracking on some of these!

Anyone else still doing their 101 in 1001? AndreaClaire? Fifers (do you have a list yet)? Anyone else doing it too??

Dear Thanksgiving,

Every year you give me a chance to stop and think and reflect and be thankful. For the last few years I've had so much to be thankful for: my husband and my little girl, my family, my friends. We are blessed to live in a free society, have jobs that allow us to live the life we live, a home and city we love. The past few years I've had other things to be thankful for too: the recovered health of various family members, the safety of my family, my own health.

This year I am particularly thankful. It's been a long year. Many things have happened between last Thanksgiving and this one. There have been some ups, some downs, some scariness. When we said thanks this Thanksgiving, my list was long. Longer than usual.

Because it's all okay now. And for that I am thankful. Very thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving Canadian friends!

A week of turkey

I cooked a ten pound turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. That's a heck of a lot of turkey for two grown ups and a three year old...I'm going to try to not overdose on turkey leftovers this week. Our freezer is going to be happy!



Monday: Turkey Soup

Tuesday: Turkey Pot Pie

Wednesday: Channa Masala

Thursday: Pasta with sausage

Friday: Salmon and rice

Saturday: I'm out, so J and Alex (who are both excited already) are ordering pizza

Sunday: Slow Cooker Pulled Pork

I've linked to I'm an Organizing Junkie...who seems to have managed not to have any turkey leftovers on her menu (and yes, she's Canadian too)

Let the holiday season begin...

It's grey. And not very warm today.

But our house smells heavenly. And I've got a nice warm sweater. So it's all good.

There's a turkey in the oven. J is resting. Alex went to pick up the last minute groceries for our turkey dinner (umm....who forgot the potatoes...) And I'm gearing up to go wash the first round of dishes.

That's the only think I hate about making a turkey dinner...it's time consuming and can be hard work, but the loads and loads of dishes kill me. And then there are more loads of dishes.

Whatever. Thanksgiving is the beginning of holiday season as far as I'm concerned. That means this week Alex and I ahve been slowly planning for the next few months. We have a few free days in December, but that's it. It's only October. How does that happen? Oh well. We have sort of cheated. We purposely "booked" a few days for us. Days with no plans.

It also means it's time to start Christmas shopping. Except. Well, it appears we have already started...there is a bag in my closet with gifts for three people. And there is a gift for a fourth that is decided on, but can't be purchases until closer to Christmas. If I can keep up this organization, well, the holidays should be a blast!

I have a list that's twice as tall as I am (which, I think, accounts for my relative absence from the land of blogs) and once I've checked a bunch of things of that list, I get to really start planning. Which means making more lists: lists for gifts, lists for cards, lists for projects around the house, lists for gifts to be made...

Uh, yeah, can you tell I like the holidays?!?!

Bountiful Harvest

Yesterday J and I met up with Rebecca and went to the Kitsilano Farmer's Market. I hadn't done any meal planning yet - I wanted to see what I came home with and then I was going to build my menu around that.

We stopped and god a bunch of yummy carrots, J picked out her own cucumber and then we decided to get some plums. We were just going to get a container of the purple plums, but the woman at the booth gave us a sample of the smaller, reddish plums.

So good! They were sweet and juicy and I immediately added a basket of those to our haul. I've spent the last 24 hours trying to keep J from eating more of them! The woman told me what they were called, but I've forgotten. Does anyone know?

Not long after we got home, I got a message from Kelsey who had been up in Kelowna over the weeks - she had a bunch of fruit and vegetables for me, could I please come pick them up? We returned home with two boxes of home canned stuff, apples, more carrots, more cucumbers, potatoes, onions, tomatoes and green beans. I had dumps dinner in the slow cooked before we left yesterday morning, but we did add a side of fresh green beans to our dinner. I am pretty sure the beans, tomatoes and cucumbers all come out of my parents' garden. They also send some canned pears, peaches, tomatoes with basil and peach marmalade.

I was soooooooooo glad I didn't plan anything and even more happy that I hadn't gone grocery shopping. I have to pick up a bit of protein and a few staples on the way home tonight, but we're actually pretty much set for the week with all the goodies yesterday brought. I love fall.




This week's menu (I am so happy to once again have a functioning slow cooker, can you tell?)

Monday: Quesadillas with carrot sticks and cucumbers

Tuesday: Slow-Cooked Tex-Mex Chicken and Beans

Wednesday: Beef Stew

Thursday: Leftover Stew

Friday: Calzones with homemade tomato sauce [I'm on a Martha Stewart kick this week, hey? The calzones are premade and already in the freezer]

Saturday: Turkey dinner - early because I have a whole day to make dinner

Sunday: Leftovers or soup or something light because we're going for Thanksgiving brunch with Alex's family

Happy Thanksgiving week! I've linked to Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie where I'm sure you'll find that not all the menus are Martha Stewart-heavy!

WooWoo WooWoo

Last night as I was doing my last bit of puttering before bed, struggling to keep my eyes open, I had the TV on. I wasn't watching it, but I was vaguely aware that there was some police drama playing out on the screen. All of a sudden there was a whole lot of siren noise. I walked out of the kitchen and sure enough, it was time for eighty-seven million police cars to go racing off to some crime scene. Whatever. I almost turned the TV off, but I didn't.

I resumed puttering.

And I noticed more sirens. And thought our (non-existent) surround sound was working pretty well since it sounded like the sirens were in our living room.

And then I heard the emergency vehicle horn honk. Five or six times.

Ummmmm....

So, I pulled up the blinds, stepped onto the deck and was greeted by a plume of smoke and fire bells coming from the building next door and four fire trucks, all with lights blazing and sirens screaming, parked on the street.

It didn't look good. As in, I was worried the other building in our complex was going to catch fire. Which would likely mean we'd have to evacuate as well.

About then I realized that the noise was right outside J's window and I'd never be able to hear her because the sirens were so loud. Sure enough, she was wide awake and whispering, "Mommy, what's that noise? I'm scared." She wouldn't leave her room, so we opened her blinds and she got to see the firetrucks. She was so excited (we're in an emergency vehicle worshipping faze). Thankfully the fire was much smaller than it appeared - just a dumpster - but it took two hours to get it all cleaned up and the lights and sirens turned off so I could get my kid to bed.

I pretty much collapsed into bed

J was so excited that she got up at 5:45 to tell Alex all about it...

It's been a long day...I'm hoping the WooWoos stay away tonight!

And since it's the last day of September and I'm not sure where the month went, but I do know that I feel like I haven't managed to get a lot done at work, at home, on the blog or in life in general, here's to a productive October!

Let's start at the very beginning

of the week, that is...I think I'm back...we'll see. I thought I'd start with getting our kitchen back in order (okay, truthfully, the kitchen wasn't really ever out of order, but I certainly wasn't using it...much)



We have a busy week ahead of us, but I think I'll be able to swing meals heathly meals without too much stress (meals I made ages ago and froze are coming in handy!).

Monday: Macaroni and Cheese

Tuesday: Tacos (freezer food!)

Wednesday Shrimp Linguine - OH YUM. It's one of my 50 recipes for the 101 challenge, but I haven't blogged about it yet (I'm a bit behind...I did cook in August, really...)

Thursday: Quesadillas

Friday: Channa Masala (more freezer food)

Saturday: Salmon and Green Rice (from the Rebar Cookbook)

Sunday: Mom's Meatloaf

I'm linking this post to I'm an Organizing Junkie.

Slow down...

I seem to have slowed down...completely...

I will be back eventually (and I'm fine. Really. No more scary headaches. The all-clear is still an all-clear)

Maybe I'll be back this weekend...maybe not...like I said when I popped in to say hello at the beginning of the month, I have a list...It's grown a little bit. I also have a list for this weekend - it's long. It might allow for some blogging time. It should allow me to cross at least one more thing off the 101 in 1001 list...I sure like lists.

Okay. Since it's Friday and I also have a list at work, I should get back to crossing things off that list so that I can have fun crossing things off the other two lists this weekend...

Happy Friday!

China - Cows

Postcard from Yanjuan from China.

Description: Nanshan grazing land