Little M Turns Big 3

 

On February 8th, my little niece, Madelynn turned THREE years old! She really liked blowing out candles, so she blew them out, and had them re-lit, three times. And then we re-lit them one more time so Dylan could blow them out too.

Forget the toys, clothes or craft supplies-- the best birthday present of the year was a Dora the Explorer umbrella. Madelynn was tickled pink by her umbrella. I'm sure it won't make it until the spring before it is horribly, horribly broken.

Madelynn made sure to protect grandpa from the rain-- repeatedly. It rained a lot in the house.

In fact, it rains so much that Auntie Lisa had to break out Dylan's Spiderman umbrella in order to keep dry as well.

Happy Birthday, Madelynn!

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!

Scarfaholic

On Thursday I was Boxing Day shopping in the Core when I ran into a friend, C (who I suspect might not be super-enthused about being named on a blog). Anyway, C is known to be a talented and industrious knitter. Upon running into her, I immediately commented on her beautiful scarf.

"C, did you knit that!? I love it! It's beautiful."

To which she replied, "Do you want it?"

"What? Oh no, that's okay." 

"No, seriously. I like it, but I don't love it. So if you love it you can have it.

"I can't take your scarf from you in the mall!"

"Sure you can!"

And she unwound it from her neck and gave it to me.

Heh heh heh, and I DO love it.

And if there's any question about whether I'll be toasty warm for the rest of the winter, I can assure you, I will not be. Because I also upped my scarf collection one more this Christmas from my mom, with this beauty!

What I really need now, is one of these scarf organizers... Because my collection is getting out of control.

Photo Credit

Happy holidays, everyone!

Observations and Insights: Italy

As I sorted through our photos, I found a few favourites that didn't make it into my previous blog posts. I thought I would share those photos here, along with a few observations and insights that surprised me during our two weeks in Italy. Photos and text will not necessarily be related.

A snail hiding out in Pompeii.

Italians smoke. A lot. At first it seemed like an unfounded observation, but I've done a bit of Googling on statistics, and apparently in 2011, a survey stated that 17% of Canadians smoked. In Italy, 32% of the male population smokes, and 19% of the female population smokes. I felt like I was constantly walking through clouds of smoke! Didn't they get the memo? Smoking is bad for you!

A cat basking in the sun in Vernazza (Cinque Terre).

Stray or semi-stray cats and dogs were a common sight when we were travelling. We spotted dozens of cats lounging in the sun when we visited Cinque Terre, and saw multiple stray dogs begging for food of visitors in Pompeii. There were even signs within Pompeii warning visitors not to interact with the strays. It made me a bit sad-- especially when it was raining and they were slinking around soaken wet.

Sun setting over the Vatican.

Our rental Volvo.

Many people warned us that Italians are aggressive drivers, and they were correct. However, while North Americans (in general) tend to rely on the rules of the road to keep them safe, Italians seem to rely more on defensive driving. Italian drivers don't follow the rules of the road as stringently, but they are infinitely more aware of what is going on around them. For the most part, Italians seemed to be more courteous and even more forgiving on the road than we are used to.

Mosaic of Poseidon.

I remember being impressed by the intensely and lavishly decorated ancient buildings when we visited in China last year-- and Italy was no different. The paintings, carvings, mosaics and sculptures that define ancient Rome and Italy are truly awe-inspiring.

A collapsed arch in Ostia Antica.

The ingenuity and industriousness of ancient Rome is equally impressive. The structures that they created thousands of years ago are still standing today-- albeit, not totally intact...

Thank you for following, everyone! That's a wrap on Italy.

Grazie!

All Good Things Must Come to an End

For the past three years, I've had the opportunity to work with a team of top-notch individuals. Those individuals are people who I have learned with, grown with, and had fun with. I can't say it was all rainbows and unicorns-- we had our ups and downs, and frustrations. But the relationships and rapport our team built was truly exceptional, and probably unmatched in our company. Last month, through no choice of our own (i.e. layoffs and staff re-deployment), we found our team rather abruptly disbanded. We said good-bye to a lot of good people, both on and off our team.

Our team had one last (unofficial) event today-- a great way to call it wrap.

To my team: Thanks for a great run. I'm better off having worked with you.

But let's face it, you can't get rid of me. I'll be seeing you around!