Category Archives: technology

sky…

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

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yesterday morning I had to stop the car as I was leaving the driveway to take a picture of the beautiful sky…

  
second exciting thing was that it was light out as I was heading to work… yay…

on my way home tonight it was still light, yay again… and I was mesmerized by the sky… it had light coming from behind the clouds… made me think of the northern lights…

  
very strange looking… as I pulled into the Ultracuts parking lot I got out and took a few pictures before going in to get my hair cut…

nature is so amazing…. 

was thinking how great it was that I had to run a few errands which took a bit longer than exoected because, if I’d been earlier or later, I might not have seen this spectacular view…

handedness…

05 Tuesday Jan 2016

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had an interesting conversation about handedness…

recently someone noticed that I am left-handed, lol…

  

George and I were left-handed although both our girls are right-handed…

I watched my grandsons carefully as they began grabbing things, hoping that one might be left-handed… so wanted to be able to teach someone some of the tricks to getting through life as a leftie…

didn’t happen… and really I don’t want to make any of their lives more difficult…

did a bit of research and came across this Wikipedia definition of handedness…

  

  

some of the information also reminded me of the negative connotations regarding lefties…

we talked about how writing is more difficult as your hand goes over the written words… not so bad now, but when ink took a while to dry, the page might end up completely smudged…

most utensils are designed for right-handed people… have learned to adapt over the years and to use the right-handed items… still don’t find left-handed scissors at all comfortable… 

there are certainly more items made recently to be usable for lefties… you just have to look at each item to see if it works for you…

the one thing I’ve learned over the years is how to adapt… all the time… 

everything I have learned has involved mirroring what was being shown to me… always most difficult with sports, lol…

  

my son-in-law brought me this magnet a while ago, lol…

crystallizing…

04 Monday Jan 2016

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got a few shots of the hoarfrost on the garage door windows…

  
took these with my iPhone and then blew them up a bit…

can’t believe how beautiful they can be…

wondering how I can get more of them on the window… maybe if I warm it up and wipe it off and then let it start crystallizing again… hmmmm…

return…

02 Saturday Jan 2016

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decided that today was the day to put away all the Christmas decorations…

for the last few days I’ve taken pictures of many of the ornaments as I knew they’d be coming down soon… used one of my apps to make a nice collage…

  
got my exercise as I brought up boxes, put away ornaments, and took them back downstairs… 

always a bit sad to take everything down… and it took a good portion of the day… maybe because I took a few breaks for reading and napping, lol… did spend some of the time thinking about the fun I had with my friend when we put all the decorations up…

the living room has returned to normal… my plants are happy because they’d been relegated to a back room for the duration…

was happy to get a few pictures of the orchid… it really is amazing…

  
enjoyed seeing the sunshine again…

  
the paths continue to be used constantly… recently the bunny spent a good portion of a day sitting in the garden so I saw it a number of times… it is really big…

tomorrow is my last day before going back to work… gonna try a lentil recipe and get in a bit more reading…

excited…

01 Friday Jan 2016

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yesterday my daughter in Ottawa asked for my recipe for homemade macaroni and cheese…

it is one of her favourites and we didn’t have an opportunity to have it while they were home…

it is in a duo tang from high school home ec class that I keep on the shelf in the kitchen with my other cookbooks…

  
excited that she wanted to make it… came out very nice and they enjoyed it…

the white sauce in that recipe is my go to… I can’t even think how many times I’ve made it for various dishes… best thing I ever learned in home economics…

the most exciting thing today was getting to turn the calendar to January…

  
I purchased this calendar in August and have been waiting to get to use it… the last one I had was for 2014 and I didn’t open it until January only to discover that it had the previous November and December included… was so excited that this one would have the same thing…

  
but it didn’t… been waiting since September to get to a full size calendar…

I just love Dale Chihuly’s work… one of the most memorable moments for me was standing in Chihuly Garden and Glass at the base of the Seattle Space Needle and hearing his voice as he walked into the room we were in… to listen as he answered students’ questions and then get a picture with him… was like meeting a rock star…

funny what makes an unforgettable memory…

lobster…

31 Thursday Dec 2015

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for most of our married life we would celebrate New Year’s Eve with steak and lobster… started this tradition when we were newly married with a couple of longtime friends…

I can remember the first year, before we had kids, when we were in their yard and the old style charcoal bbq melted the snow all around it… the guys were in their shirtsleeves, it was giving off so much heat…

what great fun we had… over the years we kept up the tradition with appetizers early on, and then the steak and lobster very late in the evening, usually with at least one other couple… for much of the time the girls didn’t participate as New Year’s was our adult celebration…

when the girls were adults, they started to come for the dinner before going out with their friends, so we began eating earlier so it would fit with their plans…

the last few years before George died we would spend the remainder of the evening reading or watching tv and heading to bed after the midnight glass of bubbly…

last year I decided not to have steak and lobster on New Year’s Eve and instead had it on New Year’s Day with the family… I spent a quiet evening, watched fireworks at our community club from the dining room window… tonight I could hear the fireworks at The Forks…

  

I roasted a Cornish hen with mashed potatoes and cauliflower, with a carrot and raisin salad… a lovely remembrance… for years having a Cornish hen was a special treat for the two of us… a tasty reminder of my beloved…

  
the lobster is thawing in preparation for tomorrow’s dinner… 

  
everyone in the family loves it now… not sure why we ever fed it to the little boys, lol…

likely I will be asleep at midnight…

light…

30 Wednesday Dec 2015

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was rather proud of myself tonight… instead of tossing some overripe grape tomatoes I made sauce for whole wheat pasta… not that long ago I would have thrown them out and certainly wouldn’t have eaten whole wheat pasta, lol…

  
made it up as I went along with the tomatoes, herbs, garlic, and some leftover mozzarella cheese… very tasty…

while it was cooking, I looked out into the backyard and saw the solar lights glowing under the snow… so cute… 

was a bit surprised because the sun wasn’t out very much today… took the boys to the zoo this afternoon and there wasn’t any sun shining the entire time we were there… saw lots of wolves and bears and spotted a new heavy horse…

  
even put its head over the fence so I could get a good shot…

earlier my son-in-law had fixed one of the timers for a light in the living room… somehow we had pushed a button and the light just stayed on, so I’d been turning it on and off manually…

  
happily it is now working perfectly…

the other light in the corner, along with the silver trees, comes on and turns off exactly on schedule…

  
just love it when things work as they’re supposed to…

wish I could figure out how to put the light on the fish tank on a timer, lol..

frustration…

29 Tuesday Dec 2015

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trying to decide if I am just untrainable or whether Shadow is testing me…

  
these don’t look that difficult to work…

unfortunately they are proving very uncooperative for me… frustrating…

I had been back to Birchwood Toyota and someone walked me through the process and advised me how they should work… was told that I could use either one to open the doors… this was after the front door would not open at all the day after I brought her home…

twice today I started the car remotely, and then could not open the doors… only way I could get in was to turn it off, at which point the door locks worked perfectly…

sigh… I called and spoke with the guy at the dealership and he will check with the installers and give me a call back, likely tomorrow…

might have something to do with the valet key which my kids use… 

hoping the problem gets solved soon… starting to feel like a remote starter wasn’t such a great investment…

  

Christmas…

25 Friday Dec 2015

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woke at five, then climbed back into bed to finally get up around seven…

  
my son-in-law worked the overnight shift and got home about 7:15 so we had tea and waited for the rest of the family to wake up… he’d seen the beautiful full moon on his way home and heard that it won’t fall on Christmas again until 2034 and that it hadn’t happened since 1977…

  
so I had to go out into the middle of their street to see it and get a few photos before it vanished… didn’t have my tripod so was pleased that this one came out…

then I took a few photos of their house in the early morning light…

  
everyone got up, with a bit of coaxing, and we opened gifts… we all did very well…

   
lots of technology this year with tablets and wired headphones for the little people…


and a wireless headset for the oldest, who was visibly pleased… which, for a teenager, is pretty spectacular… well done mom and dad…

  
my stash included some cool technology for meal prep and a few purple items, lol…

we sat down to freshly made waffles and covered them with fresh fruit and a bit of whipping cream…

  
by the time we finished making them no one was left at the table, so this is a picture of what I had, lol… it was delicious…

rests were had, games were played, books were read, naps were taken…

dinner was a lovely roasted chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, brussel sprouts, raw carrots and French fries made in the new fryer that only used a few tablespoons of oil…

quiet time with a bit of colouring after dinner…

  
home now and planning to head to bed… full day…

hoping that you were able to find some special moments in your day…

 

giggles…

22 Tuesday Dec 2015

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up early and walked over to the “A” for breakfast…

here are the kids as they waited for their breakfast…

  
and how they passed the time… made me giggle…

  
cute eh…

I walked home… and my daughter took this shot of me…  

  

was lovely out and I enjoyed the walk… the giggle was that I forgot to put my Fitbit on in the morning, so none of the steps were recorded… 
  
been looking at this tree down the street for the better part of a week because the snow on it was very pretty…

we spent a few hours at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights where we had some fun in the XOXO exhibit…

  
here my daughter is making a love letter memento to give to her husband… hard work to produce it, lol…

  
I got to hug the Embrace which said ahhhh when it was hugged:-)…

  
while she was waiting for me she spotted these very pretty cream and sugar containers, but by the time we got back there, someone had purchased them…

lots of fun and giggles…