Monthly Archives: February 2016

together…

29 Monday Feb 2016

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up and about fairly early for a day off…

ran some errands and picked up my hemmed jeans… my girls will be so proud:-)…

  
found a few pairs of socks and a nice white t shirt to go together with the jeans…

stopped in at DAVIDsTEA for the free cup that I heard about by email… really enjoyed the Mom’s Apple Pie flavour… and came away with this, lol…

 
it is a gorgeous shade of purple and keeps things hot or cold… also collected some tea that I had earned… 

my shoveler came after school and cleaned up all the snow… it was really cold out and he had to come in midway to warm up his hands…

  

we had supper – the red lentil curry – and he headed home on the bus, with curry, chicken and dumplings, and pistachios in his bag… 

always enjoy spending time together…

 

simmering…

28 Sunday Feb 2016

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decided this morning to make chicken and dumplings for supper…

daughter isn’t feeling well so they didn’t come for dinner…

I think what I like about this meal is that it takes a while to make, but most of the time it is simmering on the stove so you don’t have to work away for hours, but that is what makes it comfort food for me… and the smell is delicious throughout the house…

I put chicken legs and thighs in a large pot with onion, celery, carrots with salt, pepper, bay leaves and water… brought it to a boil and then turned it down to simmer for a number of hours…

then I strained it, and while the chicken cooled down, put chopped carrots, peas, corn and barley into the broth…

  
took the meat off the bone and slid it back into the pot…

left it to simmer for awhile and then made dumplings using my mom’s recipe… today I included cilantro…

simmered for another half hour and then enjoyed it…

  
scrumptious… 

was careful with my food intake earlier in the day so that I could have two helpings…

now to watch the Academy Awards…

lazy…

27 Saturday Feb 2016

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lazy day…

spent the day watching sports… some great figure skating and speed skating on… also watched a few cooking shows…

  
only actual chore I managed was to water my plants… noticed that my amazing orchid, which I bought mid-October, has finally started to drop some of its flowers…

  
it has bloomed for over four months…

decided to make the red lentil curry for supper… and to double the recipe as the can of tomatoes was twice what I needed… was putting everything together after I cooked all the lentils, only to discover that I had green curry paste not red… oops… so I made it with what I had…

  
not quite the same but still tasty… a bit more spicy than the red version, lol…

  
enjoyed it with brown basmati rice, cilantro and brussel sprouts on the side…

adapt…

26 Friday Feb 2016

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had a lovely day focused on family…

met my daughter for lunch at The MET… first time she’s been there… beautiful architecture, but also light and airy…

  
I beat her there and had a cup of tea while I waited…

we both had fresh mussels and frites… I asked that they leave the cheese off  mine… delicious… ate every single bit… 

I ordered the mixed salad for us to share but ran out of time so brought my portion back to the office and gobbled it up around four…

after work I walked to her office and we went over to the RBC Convention Centre where my grandson was meeting us with his other grandparents… then we watched his band play in the Optimist Clubs of Winnipeg International Band Festival…

  
they did a great job and the adjudicator/ conductor had fun as he shared a few ideas with them… it was amazing to watch and hear them adapt and improve with his conducting and stories… his final comment was you are a very good ensemble and if you work on each note on the page you will be amazing…

lots of adapting today as I hadn’t even heard about the band festival until lunchtime… happy to have the salad to eat before I headed out… important that I eat at appropriate times now…

reorganized my schedule and had a great time… those big girl pants, lol…

retirement…

25 Thursday Feb 2016

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lately I’ve been hearing a lot of people discussing their retirement plans…

I’m of an age where many people in my circle are considering retiring… some are cutting back their work schedules and others are pulling the plug…

in the women’s groups I meet with, there are only three of us who still work… the others are busy with life and fitting in time for travel…

some days it makes me think about not working but I then I remind myself how much I enjoy my colleagues and the work I do… I like being around people and staying home might mean turning into a hermit… 

I do enjoy my extra day off every few weeks and am looking toward having that opportunity every week…

so many changes to consider…

caught this lovely play of sun and shadows today…

  

enjoy…

24 Wednesday Feb 2016

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the moon last night was spectacular… every time I went past a window I would take a few minutes to admire it… decided to just enjoy it and not even try to take any pictures…

trees were lovely this morning… lots of hoarfrost… was happy to look at them every chance I had on the drive in to work…

left early and had a lovely time shopping at Polo Park… eventually picked a pair of jeans and dropped them off to be hemmed… can’t ever find any pants that don’t have to be taken up…

I mentioned it to the woman who was helping me at Cleo and she gave me a 10% off card for Stitches for the hemming…

stopped at the Peoples Jewellers store to have my wedding band cleaned and had a lovely browse through their rings… saw a pretty amethyst one… my ring is getting loose and I wonder what I will do when it is too big to stay on my finger… should I have it sized or stop wearing it… this will be a big decision…

really wanted to get a pretzel while I was in the mall, but I kept walking… was hard though…

as I left I realized that I had enjoyed my shopping time… all on my own…

those big girl pants fit better more and more often…

  

creation…

23 Tuesday Feb 2016

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seemed like I was surrounded by creation today… some days it just jumps out at me…

on my way out to the car this morning stopped to take a picture of these bunny tracks…

  
came right up the steps to the front door…

at the office took some pictures of the tulips that arrived yesterday as part of a Lung Association fundraiser…

  
one of my colleagues really wanted a shot of the black centre ..

here’s a picture of my purple ones with a colleague seen through them…

  
just love flowers… how wonderful it is to see them all around the office…

as I walked up the driveway tonight I stopped to take this picture of the squirrel tracks…  

  

and I enjoyed this creation in the afternoon… jumped off the shelf when I was picking up milk for the office…

  
oh my… unfortunate about the 270 calories for 5 chips… only ate 3… considered just having these for supper but eventually thought better of it, lol…

followers…

22 Monday Feb 2016

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how exciting… I have 254 followers… 246 are WordPress and 8 are email… pretty cool…

last week I took the plunge and moved to the next level on my site… got a domain name… a tech friend sat beside me as I clicked on the various buttons to complete the upgrade… always makes me nervous that I might not understand their questions, or choose the wrong option…

  
it was easy with someone sitting beside me, lol…

been reviewing the stats and am always awed by the number of countries that people who read the blog come from…

 in January they came from nine different countries… what a wide reach we have as bloggers…

also good to see which titles draw the most views…

  

very early in the process I decided on using single word titles… at the same time I made the decision to have at least one picture and use lower case… and ellipses…

continue to learn new things on this journey of discovery…
  

renew…

21 Sunday Feb 2016

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since November of 2014, and my diabetes diagnosis, I have lost forty pounds…

I’ve had to renew my wardrobe a few times during the process…

this morning I was shopping, looking for new pants, including jeans, and a few tops… 

apparently I am between sizes again… makes it so much harder to find things that fit, sigh… will have to look in another couple of stores… 

my daughters were both surprised about the jeans as I never wore them until three or four years ago… I only have one pair and they are getting too big to wear…

  
really happy that this jacket we picked up yesterday fit nicely…

been hard to let some pieces go but it is also getting clear that many items are way too big… continue with a box in the dining room which collects all the things that no longer make the cut…

technology…

20 Saturday Feb 2016

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had a bit of fun shopping…

went to Henry’s and picked up the eyefi mobiPRO… staff there helped link it up to the app I had already downloaded onto my iPhone… I do love technology…

  
it is very cool…

from there we went to Urban Trail where I checked out a number of Canada Goose jackets… and then I found a gorgeous purple North Face jacket…

  
it is gorgeous… fits great and works to -10 C… it weighs about the same as a cute little vest I have that fits into a tiny bag…can hardly wait to wear it;-)…

wandered around a few other shops and headed home…

since then I’ve been playing with my Nikon and iPhone…

took these pictures in the living room…

   
 
and transferred them to my iPhone in a flash… so great to have the ability to get pictures from my camera to the phone so easily…

also enjoyed the sunshine…

  
yesterday, my Facebook showed a few memories with my beloved speaking in a video… he made a number of angels using this particular one as a sample… 

I sure do miss him and loved hearing his voice…