Some things just aren't as fun.... without the kids

Hallowe'en for instance.

Tonight, Terry and I carved pumpkins and I roasted the seeds. We have done this together since the kids were very little. There have been many many Halloween weekends that we have carved as many as 10 large pumpkins in a day. But... like all good things, those days come to an end. This year, we carved one each. Mine is fairly simple, and one of my favorites. Terry's is always pretty complicated, cause he has way more patience.these are the finished pumpkins.... but here is Terry's in progress.

SEEDS

I have two different recipes that I have used for years and years. One half of the family (and Jill) prefer the Peppy hot ones, and the other half of the family enjoy the Seasoned ones. They taste more like bits and bites, where the Peppy ones are more peppery.

Peppy Pumpkin Seeds

2 cups cleaned pumpkin seeds

2 Tbsp butter or Margarine

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp chili pepper

1/2 tsp black pepper

Seasoned Pumpkin Seeds

2 cups cleaned pumpkin seeds

2 Tbsp butter or Margarine

1 tsp salt1 tsp celery Salt

1 tsp Garlic Powder
2 Tsp Worcestershire

Melt the butter an add spices. Add seeds and stir until well coated. Spread thinly on a cookie sheet and roast in 300 degrees oven for 50 minutes. Stirring every 10 minutes.

ETCHING...with Twila

Here it is .... Saturday... my favorite day of the week.!

Today I was artsie with Robin. We attended an "Etching" class with Twila Robar-DeCoste . She is a pretty amazing artist, with a very quaint home in Aylesford just seconds from exit 16. There were 4 of us as students.. One gentleman, Howard or Harold, I can't remember and another very quiet woman named Julianne (I think, ugh). The gentleman arrived with a box of supplies, while Robin and I arrived with nothing. We weren't aware of needing supplies and as it turns out, he was just a big ole keener!!! Twila provided us with all our supplies (and a cup of tea and sweets) and we had a lovely afternoon, in an amazingly adorable house. If you go to her website, you will see a lovely painting she did of her home. I would include it on my blog, but it is copyrighted, so I can't. You'll have to go visit her site to see it.

This is Robin working on her vase. It has an Iris on the front. It is pretty cool to do, and the hardest part is the cutting on the glass. But that comes with practice. That's the part that requires "talent".

Our Keener Gentleman friend did a vase at first but then he brought his own glass, his own "bluenose" pattern and he did this as his second piece.... gheesh... keener!
I did some Holly Leaves on a green square vase.... This is the acid compound you put on your glass once you cut out your design and have it on the glass in a negative form. My vase is cute, and I did two holly patterns, one on each side of the vase. The picture doesn't do it much justice. It turned out pretty sweet....

Friday Foolishness

This really is so funny, and so true. If anyone reading owns a cat, you surely have had mornings or middle of the nights like this.

Its the weekend.... I can't believe it. First off, the week flew by so fast and secondly it was the longest week of the year. Can that really be!!!! I did some new accounting training this week via telephone in the middle of my Grand Central Station office. What a nightmare, but its over, and I learned lots. I had a visit from one of the upper management to see how my records are kept etc, and that went well. I am "A" personality at work (not at home) so I wasn't too worried about that visit. She did bring me a chocolate ghost as a treat, for helping two of our other school secretaries who need constant contact to get them through little things. Its so hard for them to reach the Upper Management, so I offered to be their life line... Helps me learn too when I am walking them through things. Today, I spent 6 hours in EXCEL training which I already have extensive training in. But it was the lesser of several evils as far as PD training choices go for Secretaries. Today was Provincial Conference Day which means that every employee of the School System in this province is at some sort of Personal Development through out the province. Anyway, back to Excel.... I learned tons of little shortcuts today that I probably never paid attention to in any other course, because there were so many things I needed to learn. So today I learned Excel Validation, Worksheet formula combining and a few cool quick items. I can't wait to get to work on Monday to play around!!

Yesterday, at school was WEAR PINK FOR PEACE day. And I have the best picture of our whole school in action.... it was fun and heartwarming at the same time! The whole theme of Pink day came from our neighbouring high school "Central Kings". During the first week of school, one of the male students who was knew to the school (grade 9) happen to wear a pink tee shirt to school. During the day, some of the other kids made fun of him and even did some bullying. A few of the grade 12 students didn't like this, and wanted to show their support for the grade 9 boy who happened to like wearing pink. These older boys started a movement throughout the whole school and with in three days they had enough support that they proclaimed that Friday (Sept 7th) Pink Day and almost the entire school wore Pink tee shirts or at the very least pink armbands. How proud are we of Central Kings students to send a message to the world.... we say NO to bullying and YES to peace. Oct 25 was our Peace Day at Kingston School!!!

My Fall Garden

May 2007

Planting

August 2007

Harvesting

October 2007

Garden gone

A little sad to see it go...

but I was getting a bit sick of it too, if the truth be told.

Time for a prayer.... for a friend & his son.

Meet Isaac, who is 11 years old.

His dad is Rob and Rob worked at my school for the past 4 years. Just this school year, he made the decision to move to another school to be closer to his kids. Change is hard, but being closer to home and in the same school as his two oldest kids was a pretty good call. Rob is well loved by our staff and greatly missed.

Early last week, Isaac was diagnosed with Leukemia and is currently at the IWK, starting some pretty aggressive treatments. I am so glad you made that choice to move to KCA. Once Isaac is back to school, you are only a walk away!!! My thoughts are with you every day Rob, and Isaac!

Fabo Fall day

The Jelly is made. Thanks to Debbie's recipe which I called her at least 3 times over the past week to discuss, and then didn't have it on Saturday and thank heavens, I went with my memory (which I don't usually trust). On Thursday I turned the grapes from my neighbour into juice and then on Saturday turned all of the juice to Jelly. I made two patches but one set better than the other. Weird... I used everything exactly the same and it was 30 minutes between batches!!! Oh well. Grapes... Concord..basically growing wild and organic.... very tart!!

Mashed and boiling for 10 minutes

In the cheese cloth (couldn't find the jelly bags, Debbie, so the cheese cloth was fine)

The Jelly

(well, not all of it, I have already brought two jars to Howard... the owner of the vines)


The Leaves.... they are amazing to look at, I can't tell you how much I love all the colors.

BUT.... Terry has a whole different view of them.
Even the cats seem a bit disgusted with the constant leave litter in the yard.This is after the first raking, this morning (while I was at church). Dad took great pleasure in announcing to Terry, every time a new leaf fell on his freshly raked lawn. Dad and Terry have different theories on when to rake (you know, after the last leave has fallen, or several times during the falling season, to lighten the load).

Well, that's my Sunday Blog. I am trying to blog daily, to keep up with Stephanie. So tomorrow, I will have some garden pictures.... yes, the last ones of the season.... I will give you a hint, I whole lot of **nothing** goin' on in garden.

I LOVE SATURDAYS

I think I have said that before..... but it is really true. For me, Saturdays are a gift. I usually leave my Saturdays for things I need to do. Its a morning I can sleep in, although, I don't sleep in much, but it is so nice to NOT have to get up at 6am. I can wake up at 6:30, toss and turn, think about what I should and need to do, dose off, wake up and its 7:30.

I made a list of a ton of things to do today, and I bet I will get about half done! But that's ok too. I woke up this morning and decided to clean up stuff. I mean, deep (under and behind) cleaning. My ugly laundry room had a flood yesterday due to a dry sheet getting stuck where it doesn't belong (& a blind father doing his own laundry, bless his heart). Terry mopped up what he could at noon hour yesterday but this morning I migrated down the stairs with all the laundry (remember...deep cleaning), sheets, towels, shower curtains, dish cloths, bath mats, jackets hanging on door knobs (mostly mine) etc.

My laundry room is now piled with laundry, but all the brooms, mops, dustpans, empty laundry bottles, old mops heads, plastic containers etc are all where they are suppose to be. The "temporary" junk that ends up on the floor in front of the shelving, is now shelved. The kitty litters are emptied, cleaned out and replenished (remember the flood... ok, everything was soaked including the kitty litter pans) The floors are javexed and hand dried and the freezer is piled with all my sorted dirty laundry, all lined up for its particular turn. Now that was a good job done!

This afternoon, Grape Jelly (2 batches). My neighbour Howard has grapes growing through his trees in the back yard and brought me over a grocery bag full of concords. So, on Thursday night while chatting on the phone with Debbie, I boiled them down into juice, and today..... Grape Jelly!!!

Also, this afternoon, Cabbage Rolls. Well, the new healthier version of them. Actually, I think my Cabbage Rolls are very healthy to start with, but now we need to watch the sodium content besides the usual sugar & fat. Ugh. Well, canned tomato anything is amazingly high in sodium so we are now looking at the "no salt added" stuff. Should be kind of interesting and we will see how they turn out. Usually when I make cabbage rolls, its a good time to make a nice chicken & cabbage soup that i like to take to school for lunches, so that is on the list and I use the centers of the cabbage (cause the leaves are too small to make MAN size cabbage rolls out of).

I love this picture.....

I took it with Joan's swanky camera during our Thanksgiving Golf Walk and Talk, and I had to lean over a river bank over hang, and I tried to get the river. But the fancy camera had some sort of auto focus thing happenin' and this is what I ended up with. Pretty cool, I think. This was the same day, same camera. So simple

What an amazing fall day

Warm, sunny... the leaves are breathtaking!. Dad and I drove to Kentville yesterday for Dad's bi-annual eye appt with Dr. Scott. I think the day was THE most perfect day for a drive through the Annapolis Valley. I have never seen the leaves so vibrant and full. BUT alas, the rains are coming and the leaves will be down soon. I will cherish yesterday's drive in my mind.

Sonny is much better, and wobbles just slightly as he walks. He has graduated to being let outside again, but he doesn't wander far. I am glad of that, I wouldn't want the neighbours to talk....drunk cat walking down the road, and everyone knows where he lives.

Idiopathic Vestibular Disease

Or..... Sonny... Life # 7
On Saturday, all of a sudden, Sonny couldn't walk a straight line. He wobbled all over the place, and if he turned his head while walking, he would completely fall over, and then in a split second, he would right himself. Remember Sonny, the 18 year old, deaf cat, who likes to sleep in weird places. Under the car, in the fruit bowl on my buffet, in the bathroom sink...... Well, he got dramatically worse on Sunday, and every few minutes he would slam down onto the floor and flip back up, then walk a foot, and then falter backwards. My heart broke all weekend, and I slept terribly. He's 18, and has had a wonderful life. His vet appt was set for Monday and I contacted both kids to let them know, that finally, Sonny was going to surpass his lives!!!
Terry volunteered to take him to the vet..... I carried him all around the house this morning, and gave him a final hug and kiss and off I went to work.

I waited for the call, which I expected around 11:15. and it came. Terry said "I am bringing him home". I asked (kind of confused) "Alive?" Terry said yup!!! Apparently this ailment is very common in older cats and he will be fine in about 7 days!!! What a hoot. The doc said he is strong, and bright and will be just fine. When Jill dropped by for a visit, she knew exactly what I was talking about because her dog Chico had it, and was fine after 7 days.

I cannot tell you how happy I was to give him a hug when I got home from work. Even though I was ready to let him go, I am so glad he is sticking around for a bit longer!

I was Tagged

8 Things That Make Me, Me

Ann has tagged me for the Random 8 Meme. According to Michele, here are The Rules:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. List eight (8) random facts about yourself.
3. Tag eight people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving them a comment on their blogs.


8 Things That Make Me,Me:

1. I am the middle child…. I have one older sister whom I thank God for very often. I can’t imagine not having a sister, although I have a few friends who don’t and they are ok with it! I have a younger brother who taught me how different boys are from girls. He has taught me patience and tolerance, to accept people for who they are, and to not believe everything you hear (not sure if that’s a good trait or not).

2 I am a wife (of 26 years) to a very patience man, and mom to 2 daughters whom I love beyond belief. I have a mothering type personality, so my mothering skills are perfect to work in an elementary school with lots of kids and staff who need mothering!

3 I love animals of all kinds and wanted to work with animals as a kid but was afraid to see any die, so I decided not to be a vet or zoo keeper. I wouldn’t even volunteer at any shelters because of that. Somehow I think that’s a character trait that has stuck with me because I can’t watch sad ending movies either (Terms of Endearment type)

4 My mom died when I was 33 and I miss her everyday still. I always imagine what she would think of things, or how she would like this event or that event. I am so sad that my kids didn’t have much time with her. She was such a hoot.

5 I have two very strange talents! I can write fluently backwards as neatly and quickly has I can write the proper way. I have always had this talent, and was surprised when I learned it was a talent and not something everyone can do. My other talent was learned… I can unsnap a bra in less than 1 sec. This was the fun thing to do when you were a young teen in the early 70’s. I was very good at it, and now that I work with a staff of over 50 women (with good senses of humor) it’s a great talent to have to lighten up a room!

6 I feel friends are the most important part of existing. I think about how lonely life would be without friends, and I say a little prayer each day, truly, for my friends. I have grown up in a military life, married into one and live in a military community. I have had so many friends leave, or I have left. Maybe this is why I treasure the ones I have now. Its really fun to include my two daughters and Terry on my list of friends because I know they won’t move away and even if they do, they will keep in touch. Blogging & Facebook (yes, I have given in to face) also allows me to keep in touch with those who I don’t see often. One of my “ah ha” moments in my life (quoting Oprah now) is when Terry retired from the military and we decided this was our home forever. I looked at my friends and knew I would grow old with these people. That was an amazing feeling. Still is actually.

7 I hate spiders but can’t bring myself to kill them, cause they are mothers too.

8 I love gardening, and do well at it, but I really am terrible with houseplants.


I am not nearly as "deep" as other people's "Me..Me's" but thats me I guess. Straight from the hip.

OK I am tagging a few, maybe not 8, and you don't need to do this you eight friends of mine, but it's kind of fun to learn more about each other..... so

Jilly Bean

Chantalilly

Josee

Stephanie

Michelle

Scott

Jackie


Debbie... if you blogged, I would tag you too!!!!

ok, done. Thanks Ann, for the fun tag. I have never had one of these tags and now I don't have to do another one. I can sit back and read those who chose to participate!!

Its been so long... I forgot my password!!

Well, its been the busiest two weeks I have had in a while.

Thanksgiving has come and gone.... I think Thanksgiving is my favorite long weekend of the year. I get it all..... I get to have my kids home from schools far away, along with their boyfriends.... I don't have to buy Xmas gifts, wrap, mail or hid them. I don't have to do much decorating, or much cooking either really. Although there was a whole bunch of eating going on.

Christmas is great too, but not as great as Thanksgiving.

So, highlights.... Stephanie and Sean, Michelle and Scott, Terry's mom Joan, Terry and I, and Grampa... sitting around... drinking coffee/tea, just visiting. Just chillin', playing with the dog and cats.

Michelle dyed Stephanie's hair Burgundy, and Joan's hair Ash brown. She plucked Stephanie's brows into happy brows and those pretty brows came into play more than once during our highly non competitive-turned competitive games of dice. Both Stephanie and Sean each won (our most non competitive players...darn). Jill.... Sean figured out a theory... if you take 300 each time, it would take you 33 turns to get to 10,000. Now he came up with this theory, but he didn't follow it because lady luck dealt him too many BIG rolls.... but Joan, who didn't quite understand the game...tested the theory quite a big, and of course LOST!!!! What a hoot.... yes, Chantal, I will teach you the game....

Dad has fully recovered from his little setback and his short hospital stay. We now all understand the importance of "water pills" and we are now looking closely at the sodium in our lives... which is sinful how much of that little "additive" is in things. Terry and I hit the grocery store last night with our glasses on (for reading teeny tiny labels) and we were shocked and amazed at how we are even alive, the amount of sodium in things. Anyway, we have turned over a new leaf and are trying to live a low sodium life. ugh.
How cute is Pika. Terry's mom Joan, has a fairly nasty cat named Missy, and therefore, she is constantly amazed at how docile and friendly my two cats are. She constantly takes their pictures, and I am glad she does. We are so use to their weird quirks, that we forget their weird! Its a good thing I have an excess of empty bowls in the house. Sonny still has his favorite bowl spot, but this weekend when Scott (his best friend) was home, he tried in vain to sleep with him, but found he couldn't get Scott's bedroom door open ;) .... so he had to sleep with Sean instead.

My beans are drying up outside, and that makes me happy and sad at the same time. Its the end of a fun summer of growing things, but I love harvesting my bright purple seeds to share with others and grow myself. I had pics of the beans all drying on the vine, but I am in the middle of transferring cameras and seem to have lost them. And now they are picked!!!



We had our last fire of the season on Saturday night with 10 of us around the pit. The fire was awesome and the stories were even funner. (not good english.... I know). Terry took the firebowl off its pretty stand, and sat it low on the ground because our feet were getting cold. But lowering the firebowl didn't help my freezing arms, back and butt. The fall is upon us here in the eastern provinces and we all shivered into the house around midnight and decided that was the last one of the year. My houseplants have to come in this weekend and I am bringing them all back to work. I actually miss them there, so its nice to know they will be there next week!

I keep thinking I have picked the last of my tomatoes but they just keep on ripening. We have had two frosts so far and I haven't covered them or anything and they still keep coming. I may have to bring them to work, as we are sort of getting a bit tired of them. Although they are low in sodium!!!
What would Thanksgiving be without tons of food. We had a nice turkey supper on Sunday with red potatoes, two veggies (can't remember what they were!!!) and three kinds of pie. Imagine. Joan made them, cause baby.... I don't make pie. This is my first Thanksgiving in a few years that didn't have Corey with us... because of SUNDAY SHOPPING... which I am sooooo against. He had to work until 6:30, but I was there at the door of the store to get him and bring him a nice big plate of supper and two desserts!! Pie choices were..... Pecan (my fav), Apple and Coconut Cream Pie!!! No pictures, who has time to take pictures of food!!!

So.. that was my weekend. The week has flown by with a wonderful catchup scrapbooking night with Debbie. She gave me an amazing cookbook called For the Breast of Friends which was put together by a group of friends who are supporting each other through some tough times and bouts with breast cancer. The recipes are amazing and I have tagged 8 (must tries) so far, and I am not past the first 2 sections! She also gave me a pink ribbon workout towel, for all the sweating I do, while working out. Ok, I have to work on the sweating part!. thank you Debbie, and I miss you so much, and I hate that you are enjoying your new school!!!!! But happy that you are happy. ugh!

School.... nothing exciting this week.... screaming (in anger)kids (ok, just one kid) but for 2 hours straight!!, also a tiny little sweetie who just can't behave... who fell fast asleep on the detention bench (sitting up)..., two kids with several LIVE Lice in their hair, and a 911 call today for a fall off the monkey bars. That's about it, I think.

So, I sign off, but stay tuned. I have been tagged..... I just learned. I am not sure how to work that, but I will figure it out and complete my end of the tag!!!

47 minutes..... base line

We did it. The Run for the Cure.... fun and amazing experience. The morning started off at 7 am when we left for Halifax in two separate cars because Sandra would leave from Halifax to go back to Moncton, in a completely different direction from my place. But that was ok, as we spent the entire weekend together, solving all the problems of the world, between lunch at Wheatons, The Middleton Craft Fair and three visits with dad.

Once we arrived at the commons, we were quickly through the registration line to pick up our shirts and turn in our pledge sheets. Between us, we raised $742 dollars. Thank you to everyone, again, who supported us. I signed the wall of Hope for Jill's grandmother, and Jane Bustin, both inspirations and survivors. I signed the wall for my Aunt Sherry and Lynn's daughter in Law, Judy, In memory.
It was amazing to walk through the crowds of people and teams of people who were participating. The team names (you can have a team name if you have 10 or more on a team) were amazing.

They say there were over 8000 people there, and I believe it. Sandra and I started off about 500 people from the front, and when we hit the 1 km mark, we met the last few hundred people just coming out of the start position. Which means, there was over a kilometer of people behind us, and as far as I could see ahead of us. We started off with the runners, and we walked/ran for the entire 5 k and completed the run in 47 minutes. This is our baseline for all our future marathons!

When you put women in charge... it's amazing what can happen. We will win this battle with Breast Cancer, how can we not. Look at the crowds. If this went on everywhere, how can we lose.!!!