Butterflies and Nieces

Madelynn and Dylan, 2013

My niece, Madelynn, is turning 3 in February. During the Christmas break, I was finally able to set aside some time and make a painting for her bedroom. I based it off of a pattern I saw here, and modified it to fit my purposes. She is a big fan of butterflies, so I decided to incorporate a few into the painting.

 

I am quite pleased with the results!

2014 Starts in a Blur

Has anyone been wondering what happened to me? Three weeks, and not a peep! That's not like me.

All I can say is, work happened to me.

I started working for a new team, effective January 1st. And for the last three weeks, I have worked. And worked, and worked. There's a pretty big learning curve, not to mention a backlog of work that needed to be dealt with. There have not been enough hours in the regular work week to get it all done.

This weekend I was introduced to the wonderful world of being on-call. Having never worked at a job that required it before, my general impression is that being on call must really suck.

I can now tell you first-hand-- being on call sucks. Nothing like a phone call from the field at 4:05am on Sunday morning to start your day right.

I complain, but hey-- it's not all bad. I'm learning new things, I'm being challenged-- and I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. It was time for a change for me, and this is exactly what I was hoping for.

In the meantime, here are a few things that have kept me going.

Is there anything more delightful than elephants on a shirt?

Elephant shirt!

The news that Tom and I are apparently the face of Sirocco Golf Club on their event planning brochure. Check it out! That's us-- and that's our cake.

Sirocco Golf Club.

Breaking Bad. Tom and I burned through this TV series in December. During Christmas break, we were watching 2-5 episodes a day. The last time I was so sad to see a series end was Battlestar Galactica back in 2009. And let's face it-- Breaking Bad came to an infinitely more satisfying conclusion than Battlestar did. So long, Walt and Jessie!

Watching bad TV with friends. In this photo, they are watching Steven Seagal: Lawman. The show is terrible. It makes me die a little inside.  But my favourite part of this shot is that Nico (the orange cat featured below) has parked himself on Steve's lap. Steve is pretty much allergic to everything-- cats included. It's like these cats know, and hone in on him. Heh heh heh.

2014 has taken off in a blur. Happy New Year!

Good 'Ol Fashioned Crab Bake

My mother-in-law, Barb, celebrated a milestone birthday this year, but her birthday plans were derailed by circumstances beyond her control. Usually we hit up Red Lobster for her annual birthday dinner, but this year we decided to bring the Red Lobster to her.

First, we stocked up on supplies at Sunterra. I love that place. It has some of the highest quality, seafood in the city. We picked up lobster tails, king crab legs, shrimp, chorizo sausage, potatoes and broccoli. We based our meal plan off a restaurant in Seattle called the Crab Pot.

After stuffing our lobster tails with butter, garlic and cajun seasoning, we baked them in the oven.

Lobster tails.

Then we steamed some broccoli, boiled some potatoes, and chopped the sausage into bite sized pieces.

Prepared fixin's.

Next came the crab legs. Oh... The giant, giant crab legs. We had to break them down into more manageable pieces so we could fit them in the pot.

King crab legs.

Then we piled everything into the biggest pot I have ever seen and cooked it all up. Here is Ashley and I tag-teaming the world's largest pot.

The crab bake pot.

 But more importantly, here is what the results looked like:

Crab mix.

Dinner.

Oh, but it doesn't end there. We washed it all down with some Fentiman's Curiosity Cola. And that was before we hit dessert! And let me just add, I love Fentiman's. The Ginger Beer is my favourite, but the cola's are tasty as well.

Fentiman's Curiosity Cola.

For dessert, we tried out some chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream. I used my new stand mixer for the first time! It's so pretty! And purple and girly! Let the number of exclamation marks express my happiness!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kitchen Aid stand-mixer.

I've never made peanut butter buttercream before, but I'm now convinced that my buttercream recipe is infallible and can pretty much be modified for any flavour. I topped them off with some chopped homemade peanut butter cups that Ashley made. Let me just type that again. Homemade. Peanut butter. Cups. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.

Chocolate peanut butter buttercream cupcakes.

I don't think it was exactly the birthday my mother-in-law envisioned, but it really turned out for the best.

Happy Birthday, Barb!