Category Archives: About Me

My Son…..The Next Jamie Oliver?

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…….you decide

My son lives in the Netherlands, so whenever he posts anything on Facebook I have to check it out. Today I came across a video that he posted on YouTube. I’m not sure what he’s cooking but he does seem to have a flair for the flambé.

My entire family seems to have the cooking gene. My father loved to cook and for a short time he and my mother had their own catering business. For 17 years I taught Family Studies and demonstrated cooking techniques to my young students. When our youngest daughter expressed an interest in becoming a chef my husband supported her by cooking along side her and together they experimented with new recipes and techniques. Even after she decided that cooking was not what she wanted to pursue as a career, my husband continued to play in the kitchen and to this day he still prepares most of our meals.

Even though she decided not to cook for a living, my daughter and her husband are both foodies and they love to entertain and prepare elaborate and interesting dishes for family and friends. My oldest daughter is also very capable in the kitchen and both her and her partner have prepared some memorable meals and enjoy competing in cook-offs that J’s family hosts on a regular basis.

Our son has lived on his own for quite awhile and is basically a self-taught cook. He has shared some very tasty dishes with us when he visits and he isn’t afraid to try new and sometimes ‘dangerous’ cooking techniques, as you will see in the video. Take note of the paper towel roll behind the stove….could have been a bit of a disaster. As my husband said upon viewing the video, “That is so B…..”

Deep frying the turkey.

Deep frying the turkey.

My husband stirring the tomato sauce that we eventually canned.

My husband stirring the tomato sauce that we eventually canned.

My Irish soda bread.

My Irish soda bread.

G preparing her homemade pasta.

G preparing her homemade pasta.

A feast at my oldest daughter's and partner's home.

A feast at my oldest daughter’s and partner’s home.

A Day of Fun

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….at the school’s Fun Fair

It didn’t look good …..the forecast that is. The weather station called for rain, thunder and lightning. The parents had worked for months to make the day perfect for the kids. Now it looked like everything might have to be moved inside.

It did rain early in the morning but the sun gods were on our side and a couple of hours before the fair was to start the skies cleared and the everything went forward as planned. I promised my principal that I would go to the fair to keep her company and support the community. I actually love going to the Fun Fair. A lot of former students come back to the fair and it’s great catching up with them and seeing how much they have grown.

One of the highlights at the fair is the dunk tank. Every year our principal volunteers to sit in the tank and lets the kids try to dunk her. This year our gym teacher also volunteered. The kids love it and in grade 5 they are allowed to sit in the tank as well.

Another popular activity is the Cake Walk. Hundreds of cakes are donated. Everyone stands in line to do the cake walk. Ten participants at a time walk around the room to music and when the music stops everyone stops on a number. If your number is drawn you win a cake. For some reason my principal thinks I’m lucky and I had to play the game 14 times before I won her cake.

In the meantime M, my principal tried the Cake Walk and won on her first try. One of the kids also gave her one of the cakes that they won so in the end she let me keep the cake that I won.

The fire department and the police department come by with their trucks and cruisers and let the kids sit inside their vehicles. Just as I was taking pictures of the kids around the fire truck the department got a call and had to leave in a hurry. They quickly got the kids out of the truck and put on their fire fighting gear. It was interesting how the boots and pants are stored on the truck so that when they step into the boots the pants are ready to be pulled up efficiently.

Other activities included the bouncy castle, inflatable slides, free cotton candy and sno cones, making candy skewers and decorating pots with a tomato plant to give to Dad on Father’s day. There was face painting, wheels of fortune, fish ponds and hockey. BBQs were set up with hamburgers, hot dogs and corn being professionally grilled.

Congratulations to all the parent organizers and the hundreds of volunteers for pulling off an amazing event. Everyone present had a great time and the kids will remember and cherish these memories for the rest of their lives.

Jumping for Joy

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….and raising a little cash and awareness for the Heart and Stroke Assoc.

Today was our Jump Rope for Heart event. This is my 14th year organizing this school wide jump-a-thon. Two weeks ago we had our kick off assembly and last week the pledge envelopes went home. The day almost runs itself.

Our office assistant and her husband set up their sound equipment and provided great music for the kids to jump to. Everyone gets involved from kindergarten to grade 5, teachers, assistants, student teachers and parent volunteers. ImageImageP1020202ImageP1020209ImageImageImageImage

It turned out to be a great day. It was pretty warm but there was a nice breeze and the rain held off until later in the afternoon. The donations should start rolling in next week.  As of 4:00 this afternoon about $2000. came back to school in the pledge envelopes. I have no idea how much money is being raised on-line but every year more and more families are using the on-line option to make their donations.

That’s one more thing I can cross off my to do list before the end of the school year. Tomorrow is the school Fun Fair and next Tuesday I’m taking the girls’ soccer team to the West Conference Finals. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Cheers!

Still Waiting to be Fired

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…..my pottery that is

At my pottery class tonight I trimmed the bowl that I made two weeks ago. I did the trimming on the wheel. It was fun shaving off the excess clay and making the footing for my bowl. It probably doesn’t look much different.P1020176

The new project that I worked on was a tall vase. I rolled out a slab and rolled it around the a tube and then attached a bottom and decorated it with stamps. Now it sits and waits to be fired along with all my other projects.

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My berry bowl and it’s saucer wait for their first firing and my plate and jar have been fired once and are now glazed and wait for the final firing. I’m most anxious to see how the glazed pieces will look.

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Cheers!

Planning for the Summer

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…..opening the cottage and buying tickets for flights to Europe

It all seems so surreal. We haven’t done either of the above yet. It’s almost the end of May and my focus has been on school and it continues to be my focus.

On Friday we will be hosting our Jump Rope for Heart activity and then I’ll be collecting and counting the donations and filling in the paperwork in the week to follow. Next Tuesday the girls’ soccer team will be playing at the Esther Shiner Stadium for the West Conference Finals. One more practice tomorrow morning.

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Also next week we have two more sessions for Girls on the Run and then on Sunday June 9 we head up to Vaughn Mills for the actual 5k race. On Friday, next week, we have a report card writing day which is city wide. Hopefully we won’t have the usual problems when more than 11 000 teachers try to get on the system at the same time. Two of us are the report card administrators at my school we are in charge of making sure that there are no glitches in the system at the school level. Unfortunately there are always glitches but they are usually easily fixable.

The following week I have to print all the report cards for the staff. Not a difficult task but somewhat time consuming because again every school in the board prints at the same time and everything comes through cyberspace. The following day I have my physical. That reminds me, I have to check what time my appointment is. I can’t remember if I managed a time after school or if I have to take time off.

On the 13th my Forest of Reading student book club is having their big celebration day. Plans are underway and so far we’ve prepared a book making activity and one of my colleagues has confirmed that we have an artist coming in to do a drama workshop with the students. A pizza lunch has yet to be organized and prizes have to be obtained.

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Tonight I spoke with my oldest daughter and we’ve set a potential date to open the cottage. It looks like it may be the Father’s Day weekend. I have to contact my friend D and see if she wants to go up the same weekend.

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The week following, the school will be preparing for the spring concert. I promised my friend L, who is the music teacher, that I would help her with the organization. There is also a possibility that somewhere in the middle of all of this that the girls’ soccer team could advance to the city finals but I guess I shouldn’t count my chickens before they hatch.IMGP0142

In the last week of school the grade 5 students have their farewell assembly and a special activity day. This will be the first year since I started at Rosethorn that I won’t be directly involved with these activities. That means, however, that I will probably be in charge of an activity for the school wide fun day instead.P1010535

Somewhere I have to find time to pack up a wall of library books before we leave for summer vacation. During the summer, construction workers will be coming in to remove the wall between the library and the computer lab.

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My husband has applied for his new passport and he’s been in touch with family overseas. He’s going to look into booking tickets for our flights in the next week or two and then we’ll sit down and make plans for our accommodations and planning our itinerary. We’re hoping to meet up with our son and his girlfriend when they go to Dublin for a conference. We’d like him to meet the Irish cousins and hopefully we can plan a short trip to the west coast with him.

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I know people who plan months in advance for a trip like this. I’m a little nervous that we’ve left it so late but with my husband’s health issues we can’t plan too far in advance. Even at this stage we’re still waiting for one more appointment before we can make definite plans.

In the end it will all work out. If Europe doesn’t pan out, I still have the cottage and my little paradise in the sun and I will see my son in the fall.

My Missing Husband

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….I imagined the worst

The school day had barely begun. I was in the library getting ready for my first class when AM paged me from the office. My neighbour was on the phone and had our dog, Frances, in her house. K was nowhere to be found. I had the call transferred to my office and spoke directly to N. Apparently she found Frances sitting on the front lawn and she was quite upset.

My neighbour on the north side of my house, L,  got into her car and drove around the neighbourhood looking for my husband. While I was talking to N (my neighbour on the south side of my house) L returned and hadn’t found my husband. I described K’s normal walking/running route to N and how she could get Frances into our house. I got off the phone and waited for her to call me back. I waited and waited and waited.

It seemed like forever but in reality it was only 15 minutes. My colleagues encouraged me to drive home to find out what was happening. When I got in the car and started on the short trip home (15minutes) I started to think the worst. What if he’d fallen down the rocky edge by the lake? Maybe he’d suffered a heart attack and was lying on a path less travelled. I didn’t know what to expect when I got home.

Half way home my phone rang. It was my husband. He was fine, just a little shaken up for having lost Frances. He let her off the leash while he ran along the lake and normally she runs along side him and occasionally checks out a path here and there but always pops back up and joins him.

For some reason, today Frances lost track of K and when she didn’t see him she ran home. K thought that she had passed him at some point so he turned around and ran back to where the path ended. He found some other dog walkers and they tried to help him find Frances. When he couldn’t find her he was beside himself with worry. He finally decided to run home.

As he got closer to the house he could hear her barking. He found my two neighbours outside the house and Frances was already inside. Needless to say K was very relieved. The problem was that at this moment in time I didn’t know that he was okay.

Did he call me right away to let me know he was home? No! He went back to the park to let others know that the dog was safe and sound at home. When he got back home the second time he called the school but I had already left. He told me later, very apologetically, that it had never occurred to him that I would be worried about him. Hmmmm! What can I say? I love him and I’m relieved that he’s okay.

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My Two Cents

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….on The Great Gatsby…..the movie

Last Friday, the ladies from my book club and I attended the screening of the latest version of The Great Gatsby. I have to tell you that when I read the book in high school I couldn’t relate to the novel and I didn’t like it. After reading it a second time for our book club, I did discover that I liked it a little bit more but I still couldn’t get my head around the excesses of the era. The lists of meaningless names, the extravagant lifestyle, the excessive drinking and the hordes of uninvited selfish party goers confused me and left me cold.

That said and after hearing some negative reviews I didn’t have high hopes for the movie.  In the first half hour, which highlighted the outrageous parties at Gatsby’s house and where we were introduced to the main characters, I thought my worst fears were coming to fruition. I had heard that the background music didn’t fit with the 1920s era and sure enough during the party scenes our senses were assaulted with hip hop music. I don’t know if the director did this to appeal to a younger crowd but it didn’t work for me and I like hip hop.

Not everything was bad about this movie, In fact I enjoyed most of it. Nick Carraway, played by Tobey Maguire, tells us the story through his written journal entries after he is encouraged by his doctor to write down his experiences of that fateful summer when he lived next door to Gatsby. We see how a naive young man is sucked into the lifestyle of high society, ambition and excessive alcohol consumption while remaining loyal to Gatsby and in the end being Gatsby’s only friend.

I also enjoyed the performances of Leonardo DiCaprio, who played Jay Gatsby and Carey Mulligan who played Daisy. Luhrmann’s Gatsby becomes increasingly more real as the characters become more developed in the last half of the movie. This is definitely not the Gatsby we studied in our high school English class. It is rare when I like a movie better than  the book. I gave the book a 3 out of 5.

Movie Rating: 4 out of 5

Thank you Maia

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…..I‘ve been nominated for yet another award

This is the first time I’ve seen this award. Many thanks to Maia Stefana Oprea.

THE RULES ARE:

1. Display the award logo on your blog.

2. Link back to the person who nominated you.

3. State 7 things about yourself

4. Nominate 15 other bloggers for this award and link to them.

5. Notify those bloggers of the nomination and the award requirements.

7 Things about myself :

1. I used to be a make-up artist and colour analyst.

2. I was held up at the age of 16 when I worked in my parent’s milk store.

3. I met my husband at university when he came up to visit his best friend who just happened to be my neighbour.

4. I’ve taught at 8 different schools as a full time teacher and at numerous more when I supply taught for three years.

5. My favourite late night snack is cereal with milk or yogurt.

6. I’m an expert on fixing and maintaining oil lamps.

7. I like most foods but I don’t like tripe.

15 Blogs I’m Nominating for the Shine-on Award.

1. Five and Spice

2. Hiking Photography

3. Canadian Art Junkie

4. Jeanne’s Blog…..a nola girl at heart

5. Rarasaur

6. Art Expectations

7. Cast Light

8. My Art Blog

9. Taking a Deep Breath

10. My Guilty Pleasures

11. Living it up in Canada

12. Mama’s Gotta Bake

13. Nade in the Kitchen

14. Claygrl’s Maniacal Musings

15. Simple Sustenance

I hope you check out some or all of these nominations. Thanks again Maia. Love your artwork!

Birds of Prey and Our First Farmers’ Market of the Season

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…..a very spontaneous day

My husband and I rarely plan our weekends in advance. This morning when we woke up we decided to get an early start for our daily walk/run to the park. It was sunny but quite cool this  morning so we layered up and put on cotton gloves. When we got about half a kilometre from the house we realized that we forgot to bring the poop bags so my husband headed back to the house and I tried to continue the walk with Frances. She would have none of it. She kept pulling back on the leash so I finally gave in and started walking back until we met up with K.

When we finally got to the rugby pitch there were people on the field, setting up for a game so we decided not to do our run and changed our route. Frances is great off leash when we run around the pitch because she just runs back and forth between the two of us. When we’re on the path she’s better on the leash which makes it more difficult for running so we both walked today.

Just before the pitch we came across this beautiful flowering tree in the middle of this very green patch of land. I loved the contrast of the mauve blossoms with the bright spring greens.ImageImage

The route was a little longer and different from the one we normally take when we head out to the point. Today we had an unexpected surprise because a Spring Bird Festival was taking place along the route. There were dozens of bird watchers and numerous displays under canopies. One of the displays featured raptor birds prominently perched on the arms of their handlers. They were absolutely beautiful.

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Once we were far away from the Bird Festival  we let Frances off the leash so that she could go for a swim in the lake. After retrieving her tennis ball out of the lake several times she ran  and ran and ran. She must have checked out every last little path along the route and went back into the water at different points for more swims.

On the way home our noses were assaulted by a very bad odour coming from Frances. We realized that somewhere on the walk she must have rolled in something disgusting. Once we got to the house K took her immediately to the backyard while I went inside and prepared buckets of warm water with doggy shampoo. She let us rub her down with the sudsy water and then stood perfectly still while we rinsed her with warm clear water. She was cooperative but you could tell she wasn’t happy.ImageOur walk covered 6k.

Today was also the first day for the Junction Farmers’ Market. We were debating whether to ride our bikes or drive the car. After our walk K made us a wonderful breakfast of bacon and eggs and by the time we finished eating we didn’t have a lot of time left before the market was scheduled to close. Consequently we drove but we parked a fair distance from the market and we managed to add another kilometre to our walking distance.

The market was small but the vendors were very friendly and we picked up some fresh baby greens, honey, radishes and more plants for the garden. We’ve already lost one tomato plant. It was dug up and destroyed. We’re thinking it was a racoon. We’re replacing it with a zebra tomato plant and we’ve bought a couple of Jerusalem artichoke plants. A couple of vendors suggested spraying the plants with pepper. We’ll have to give it a try.

Later in the afternoon I went to Curry’s Art Store to buy a Gelli plate to try a new type of mono printing. I had checked out two different art stores when we were in the Junction this morning but neither store had heard of them. I’m looking forward to trying this technique and sharing my results with you.

Cheers!