Visitors.

We had a lovely visit with some family this weekend. Aunt Elaine, the fabled quiltress, flew down on Saturday. She was planning to stay with us for a night before busing down to Sydney to visit with her daughter, son-in-law and gorgeous granddaughter for two weeks.

Little did she know, Mum planned a surprise. Cousin Erika, her boyfriend Rob and baby Frances drove down to meet her at the airport. Much screaming and hugging ensued. Then everyone came back to our place for a sleep over of sorts.

Cousin Erika and he-who-shall-now-be-known-as-Cousin-Rob (a. He's my cousin's permanent partner, and b. he's thinking about buying a sailboat. Enough said.) as well as baby Frankie slept in my parents room, my parents slept in my room, Aunt Elaine slept in Geoffrey's room, Geoffrey slept in the furnace room and I shared the couch with the dog. All in all though, a very happy evening.

Here are pictures of my cousin's baby: depending on your point of view, Frankie Moon is either my second cousin (my view) or my niece(J.Y and M.C's view). The little one and I are still ironing out the details haha.







p.s: In that last one she has a fist-full of my hair. Too precious!

16 Days and 13 Hours til Halloween!

Just saying.

To My Brother, Who Ignores My Text Messages.

Geoffrey, Geoffrey, where is your phone?
Sitting so lonely, turned off, at home.
If it could speak to you, what would it say?
"Take me to school, don't just hide me away!

The principle won't see you as his arch nemesis,

If you don't take me out while on the premises!
You won't get in trouble, you won't be harassed,
As long as you turn me off while you're in class!
Plus then your sister can call you."
The End.

Midterms.

An original poem in two lines:

We swore we were ready, that we were grown up;
So life was like 'Fine bitch!' and now we're like 'Fuck...'

Animal Eyes.

A selection from our visit to the wildlife park this weekend.

Dog Walk Park

Fish in Progress.

I've started painting again, a piece in the style of 'Superstition Mountains'. Its working title is 'Sunfish', but that may change in time. I usually go through a couple of names before finding the right fit. Just waiting on a gold paint pen to finish! And possibly some orange-y-er red, depending on how dark what's on there now dries...

Wishy-Washer Woman.

I remember reading somewhere that it's better for the environment and for your clothes if you handwash them and hang them to dry. Old-soul that I can be, I decided to give it a go. Not to mention the machines on my floor were all in use at the time...but let's just keep the self-less, environmentalist excuse! ;)

Grabbed my handy dandy MP3 and away I went!

I started by sorting my dirtys by colour and water temperature. I hadn't realized there was so much until it was all lying in piles on the floor, but I was already committed to sustainability! (plus, as I said before, the washing machines were busy)

Started with warm-water darks, and realized part-way through that I hadn't set up my drying rack...whoops! After that was sorted, I hung them up with towels underneath to catch any drippings. Used the now-cool water from warm-water darks to wash the rest of my colours. Then the rinse water from cool-water darks to wash whites. There was quite a bit of shuffeling (I used my blue bin as a second sink) but now all done!

And I have blisters on my hands from kneeding and wringing all that wet fabric. My poor paws feeling like I've just spent an afternoon hauling wet ropes while sailing.
Maybe I should wear my sailing gloves if I try this again...

Didn't get to towels, maybe later. Now I know why washer-women in books and movies always have red hands and huge, muscel-y arms! I'm bushed!

Cheese Cake Brownies.

Ingredients:

Brownie:
1 1/3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter
1 cup Fry's cocoa
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
Cheesecake Topping:

8 ounces reduced-fat cream cheese (about one cup)
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg

1.Mix together four, baking powder and salt.

2.Melt butter on stove top.

3.Add cocoa. Mix in sugar, eggs and vanilla.

4. Combine wet and dry ingredients. Pour into greased pan.

5. Mix room temperature cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth. Pour evenly on top of brownie mixture.

6. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until fork inserted comes out clean.

7. Allow to cool, then cut in squares of desired size, or use cookie cutters to make into pretty shapes. I did pumpkins for Fall.

Brownie Recipe

Cheesecake Topping Recipe

Assistant Administrator:

I was working with my mother this morning at a seminar for the family physicians of the IWK. Just administrative work: you know, handing out receipts, making sure everyone has a name tag, directing tech support and testing the food for poison. Plus I got paid.

It was pretty neat actually. The docs are all really fun, and the first presentation was 'Maternal Health in Third world Countries', very interesting. Then was 'Obesity and Pregnancy' and after that I got bored and stopped listening...stuff about new drugs and vitamin D I think.

You know you're at a maternal health seminar when a vendor is running around at eight in the morning yelling "Has anyone seen my plastic vagina!?" The poor concierge nearly fainted from embarrassment when he found out that this was the contents of the box he had helped her carry up haha.

The food was so good! I'm sure I've said this before, but I love Scanway! Pumpkin soup, vegetable strudel and creme brule! Yumm!

And mom got a set of martini glasses from Nova Scotia Crystal as a thank-you for all her work organizing it. Just beautiful!