Update the blog. Here goes...
#1 - Going to see Pirates 3 today. I have already seen the third Shrek and the third Spiderman. Neither was as good as the first two. I'm really hoping that Pirates will break this pattern, but have my doubts. Maybe if I keep the expectations low, I will be pleasantly surprised. I'm also waiting for Harry Potter to come out. Yay! Trailer looks awesome. I wonder if I will get to see an "original" movie this summer. So many sequels, so many money-hungry studios execs trying to take my money using old ideas... but I guess, it works, doesn't it?
#2 - Only two weeks of class left before exams. It has been a very long semester and I am not sad to see it end. I'm sure my students are thinking the same thing.
#3 - I just can't keep up with both facebook and blogger. I can't/don't update either one very regularly but then again, I just don't really care. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but I feel like I just can't be bothered most of the time. Don't get me wrong... I have connected with a few people I haven't seen or talked to in years which is really cool but I just feel there are so many other things to do with my time. So I'm not ignoring you if I don't get back to you right away, I just don't check these things very often.
#4 - I would be very surprised if anyone still checks my blog to see if I have updated.
#5 - I have been feeling very uninspired with cooking lately. I have so many good cookbooks (collecting them is a bit of an obsession) but have just not felt the energy to do anything with them. I look to read them, but just haven't made anything from them recently. Maybe I should make a commitment to make at least one new recipe every week over the summer and see what happens.
#6 - I have a plan to de-clutter my house this summer. There is so much "junk" around here that Andrew and I do not use that it needs to be turfed or given away. And I still haven't gone through the the FOURTEEN boxes of Christmas decorations we were given last year. Just as a note, if you happen to be offered Christmas decorations, find out how much stuff you are going to get before you agree.
#7 - I am looking forward to seeing my family this summer. My aunt's family is hosting a mini-reunion this summer which should be really fun. Lots of games and good conversation.
#8- I don't know when I will update again. Sigh.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Birthday dinners and sickness
Last Sunday was my birthday. To celebrate, Andrew had reserved a fancy restaurant for Saturday night and we were to have a five course dinner with wine pairings. On Tuesday of that week, I decided to get sick again. Well, actually, I went to the farm for a week and my mother thought that a good going away present would be a fever, chills, sinus pain, headache, and chest cough. So the entire week before this dinner, I felt awful and couldn't eat anything. The most I was eating was Lipton's chicken noodle soup - the best thing to eat when you are sick. I don't know why, but it just seems like good "sick food".
By the time Saturday rolled around, I was feeling better, but still not wonderful. I didn't want to miss dinner, though, so got myself together, put on my Christmas bling (the very beautiful diamond studded heart necklace that Andrew gave me), and we went to dinner.
Dinner was awesome, but I wish I could have tasted it a bit more. Andrew and I each got five courses, unique to us. Six if you count the amuse bouche that we got first. So this is what we had...
Amuse bouche
- Pork tenderloin confit with arugula and a cherry tomato (confit just means slow cooked in duck fat - very, very tasty)
Course 1 - The first appetizer
Andrew - Clams with proscuitto and rosemary
Me - Soba noodles in dashi broth with halibut, scallops, mussels, and crab
Course 2 - Salad
Andrew - Blue cheese from Agassiz, Apple, and Frisee with a sherry vinegrette
Me - Roasted beets, walnuts, and Agassiz brie cheese on local baby greens, with maple balsamic vinegrette
Course 3 - Appetizer 2 (Which I thought was dinner)
Andrew - Duck confit with foie gras on a lentil ragout
Me - Pan roasted sable fish on a sunchoke and brown butter puree in a red wine/sundried tomato reduction
Palate cleanser - a red wine and pear granita (slush) - so tasty
Course 4 - Dinner and by this point I was already stuffed
Andrew - Roasted squab on a mascarpone polenta (and if you're wondering about squab - it's pigeon)
Me - Roasted lamb loin on roasted potatoes, hazelnuts, and prunes in a wine sauce
Course 5 - Dessert - finally
Andrew - Very fancy ice cream sandwiches with chocolate cookies, frangelico ice cream, and crushed pistachios
Me - Warm chocolate cake with vanilla bean ice cream (By this point I could only eat half of my dessert which makes me very sad, because it was soooo good)
And along with all these courses, there were wine pairings. We started with whites and then moved along to reds, and port at the end. All very nice wines and complemented the food very well.
I would like to do this again some time, but I would like to be healthy when I do. It would be an even better experience. We had wonderful food, wonderful service, and an all around fantastic evening.
Thanks to the Seasonal Experience in Langley for a great time.
By the time Saturday rolled around, I was feeling better, but still not wonderful. I didn't want to miss dinner, though, so got myself together, put on my Christmas bling (the very beautiful diamond studded heart necklace that Andrew gave me), and we went to dinner.
Dinner was awesome, but I wish I could have tasted it a bit more. Andrew and I each got five courses, unique to us. Six if you count the amuse bouche that we got first. So this is what we had...
Amuse bouche
- Pork tenderloin confit with arugula and a cherry tomato (confit just means slow cooked in duck fat - very, very tasty)
Course 1 - The first appetizer
Andrew - Clams with proscuitto and rosemary
Me - Soba noodles in dashi broth with halibut, scallops, mussels, and crab
Course 2 - Salad
Andrew - Blue cheese from Agassiz, Apple, and Frisee with a sherry vinegrette
Me - Roasted beets, walnuts, and Agassiz brie cheese on local baby greens, with maple balsamic vinegrette
Course 3 - Appetizer 2 (Which I thought was dinner)
Andrew - Duck confit with foie gras on a lentil ragout
Me - Pan roasted sable fish on a sunchoke and brown butter puree in a red wine/sundried tomato reduction
Palate cleanser - a red wine and pear granita (slush) - so tasty
Course 4 - Dinner and by this point I was already stuffed
Andrew - Roasted squab on a mascarpone polenta (and if you're wondering about squab - it's pigeon)
Me - Roasted lamb loin on roasted potatoes, hazelnuts, and prunes in a wine sauce
Course 5 - Dessert - finally
Andrew - Very fancy ice cream sandwiches with chocolate cookies, frangelico ice cream, and crushed pistachios
Me - Warm chocolate cake with vanilla bean ice cream (By this point I could only eat half of my dessert which makes me very sad, because it was soooo good)
And along with all these courses, there were wine pairings. We started with whites and then moved along to reds, and port at the end. All very nice wines and complemented the food very well.
I would like to do this again some time, but I would like to be healthy when I do. It would be an even better experience. We had wonderful food, wonderful service, and an all around fantastic evening.
Thanks to the Seasonal Experience in Langley for a great time.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
They say I have to use the new Google blog thing
So I was reading some friends' blogs and saw that Brent had a new post... well relatively new... anyway, I also saw the comment left by Rob. This prompted me to want to post something. So I went to sign in to blogspot and "they" said I had to change to a google account. I'm not really sure what that means and frankly I don't care, I just wanted to post something. So apparently I now have a google account.
About me in the last few weeks:
1. I have been sick twice in as many weeks. Kids are full of diseases and germs and with my stress levels right now my immune system is not the best so I have been catching everything. And attendance in my classes have been just decimated so I KNOW there are sick kids around sharing their nasty little germs.
2. I have gone to full time teaching since the beginning of the semester hence the profound dropoff in postings. I sometimes feel I hardly have time to think let alone keep up with this. There are so many other things I have let slip and this is at the bottom of a very long list.
3. After having watched An Inconvenient Truth for the first time and watching a documentary series called Planet Earth on CBC Newsworld (an absolutely stunning visual array of life forms on our planet, co-produced by CBC and BBC) I am feeling depressed by how much humanity has destroyed our natural world. I mean the Planet Earth documentary is beautiful and magestic but there is an underlying sadness in the narrator's voice as he talks about the wonders on the screen and the fact that in fifty years many of these creatures will be gone. I am saddened by the fact that humans have caused this destruction. We have not been good stewards of our resources and we consume and consume and consume. As a result of my reflections, I can't help but relate to the author of Ecclesiastes who says:
What does man gain from all his labor
About me in the last few weeks:
1. I have been sick twice in as many weeks. Kids are full of diseases and germs and with my stress levels right now my immune system is not the best so I have been catching everything. And attendance in my classes have been just decimated so I KNOW there are sick kids around sharing their nasty little germs.
2. I have gone to full time teaching since the beginning of the semester hence the profound dropoff in postings. I sometimes feel I hardly have time to think let alone keep up with this. There are so many other things I have let slip and this is at the bottom of a very long list.
3. After having watched An Inconvenient Truth for the first time and watching a documentary series called Planet Earth on CBC Newsworld (an absolutely stunning visual array of life forms on our planet, co-produced by CBC and BBC) I am feeling depressed by how much humanity has destroyed our natural world. I mean the Planet Earth documentary is beautiful and magestic but there is an underlying sadness in the narrator's voice as he talks about the wonders on the screen and the fact that in fifty years many of these creatures will be gone. I am saddened by the fact that humans have caused this destruction. We have not been good stewards of our resources and we consume and consume and consume. As a result of my reflections, I can't help but relate to the author of Ecclesiastes who says:
"Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."
What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?
Generations come and generations go
but the earth remains forever.
My hope is that the earth DOES remain forever, but will it remain the way I know it now? With icecaps and polar bears? Jungles and pandas? Or will it be a barren, overcrowded cesspool of pollution that is too hot for people to live near the equator and has millions of refugees displaced from their homes due to flooding and tropical storms?
Now that I have depressed any of the last few readers that have stayed with me thus far, I must tell you that I have to go to the stacks of marking I have to do before Monday when interim report marks are due.
I hope you have a happy weekend and a pleasant rest of your week. Don't let my despondent ramblings bring you down. They are merely what I have been thinking about lately when I happen to have time to think.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
I have readers!!
Today I felt a little thrill inside to see comments on my previous blog. I only put in up yesterday and today I have comments. Yay! It's nice to see not everyone has given up on me...
In other news, it's back to school tomorrow and I still do not know what I am doing with my classes for the day. 5 hours and counting before I have to go to bed so I better get to work.
In other news, it's back to school tomorrow and I still do not know what I am doing with my classes for the day. 5 hours and counting before I have to go to bed so I better get to work.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Tag... I'm it.
So I have been tagged with blogging 6 weird things about myself. Here goes... and please don't judge me.
6 Weird Things About Me:
1. I am a shark-o-phobe. I lived in a land-locked province until 2004 so this fear does not make much sense. When I was five, I was watching a TV show that showed two kids appearing to be eaten by the Jaws shark at Universal Studios. I haven't been the same since. I even had issues with Bruce in Finding Nemo. I looked up the term for someone with a fear of sharks. Interestingly enough there are two terms used, Selachophobia and Galeophobia. The term, galeophobia, is also used for a fear of cats. I love cats. Go figure. (The fact that I looked up the term on a number of different sites, just for reliability, could be considered weird thing 1a.)
2. When I eat my Smarties, I do eat the red ones last. Actually, I save both the red and blue ones for last and then even them out so I have equal numbers of each. I don't know why, but they are my two favorite colors that come in the box and I like to have the same number of each.
3. My cat has asthma so I have to give him an inhaler. I had to take the prescription to a real pharmacy and explain to the pharmacist that I am not actually a mean parent who named their child Simba. Simba is my cat. In the act of doing that, though, I become one of those pet owners. You know the ones I mean. I'm a sucker but I love my cat. See #1. At least I don't throw him birthday parties.
4. When eating a meal, I save a piece of my favorite item for the last bite. I just like to have my last bite before I finish eating to be something I really enjoy. I try to eat my least favorite items first, just to get them out of the way. This way I have good memories of the meal.
5. This weird thing is something that my husband bugs me about, however, I don't think it's weird at all. Apparently when speaking, I pronounce the word "won" incorrectly. You see, I choose to distinguish between "one" and "won" by pronouncing the latter like you would when talking about a wonton.
Eg. I have one (pronounced wun) cat but I won (pronounced juan) the contest.
This differentiation causes no end in laughter from my husband (who thinks I'm talking about a Spanish boy) but I have since discovered where this little eccentricity comes from - my mother. She pronounces won the very same way. Score one for the nurture side of the debate.
6. I enjoy lists. In fact I wrote up a list to make sure that I could come up with 6 things to put on this list. And finding lists helpful isn't inherently weird, but I wrote out the list on paper before typing it up and have done things like that before. I will also rewrite a list if I think it is in the wrong order or if it is too messy. A messy list just doesn't look right and how can it help a person organize if it, itself is not organized.
So there is my list... I don't really have anyone to tag that Andrew hasn't already tagged, so I will just end here.
6 Weird Things About Me:
1. I am a shark-o-phobe. I lived in a land-locked province until 2004 so this fear does not make much sense. When I was five, I was watching a TV show that showed two kids appearing to be eaten by the Jaws shark at Universal Studios. I haven't been the same since. I even had issues with Bruce in Finding Nemo. I looked up the term for someone with a fear of sharks. Interestingly enough there are two terms used, Selachophobia and Galeophobia. The term, galeophobia, is also used for a fear of cats. I love cats. Go figure. (The fact that I looked up the term on a number of different sites, just for reliability, could be considered weird thing 1a.)
2. When I eat my Smarties, I do eat the red ones last. Actually, I save both the red and blue ones for last and then even them out so I have equal numbers of each. I don't know why, but they are my two favorite colors that come in the box and I like to have the same number of each.
3. My cat has asthma so I have to give him an inhaler. I had to take the prescription to a real pharmacy and explain to the pharmacist that I am not actually a mean parent who named their child Simba. Simba is my cat. In the act of doing that, though, I become one of those pet owners. You know the ones I mean. I'm a sucker but I love my cat. See #1. At least I don't throw him birthday parties.
4. When eating a meal, I save a piece of my favorite item for the last bite. I just like to have my last bite before I finish eating to be something I really enjoy. I try to eat my least favorite items first, just to get them out of the way. This way I have good memories of the meal.
5. This weird thing is something that my husband bugs me about, however, I don't think it's weird at all. Apparently when speaking, I pronounce the word "won" incorrectly. You see, I choose to distinguish between "one" and "won" by pronouncing the latter like you would when talking about a wonton.
Eg. I have one (pronounced wun) cat but I won (pronounced juan) the contest.
This differentiation causes no end in laughter from my husband (who thinks I'm talking about a Spanish boy) but I have since discovered where this little eccentricity comes from - my mother. She pronounces won the very same way. Score one for the nurture side of the debate.
6. I enjoy lists. In fact I wrote up a list to make sure that I could come up with 6 things to put on this list. And finding lists helpful isn't inherently weird, but I wrote out the list on paper before typing it up and have done things like that before. I will also rewrite a list if I think it is in the wrong order or if it is too messy. A messy list just doesn't look right and how can it help a person organize if it, itself is not organized.
So there is my list... I don't really have anyone to tag that Andrew hasn't already tagged, so I will just end here.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
How to get three days off in the middle of a week
So this past week, I went to work on Monday - and that's it. Friday (tomorrow) is a day off for us. How did I manage such a feat, you ask? Well, without going into great detail, I decided to stay up all Monday night re-living my dinner. Not pleasant and really not by choice.
On top of the unpleasant reason for staying home, when you realize at 2:30am that you need to call in sick and then email teacher-on-call notes to school, it's really quite a chore. So in addition to being sick and tired (quite literally), you have to have enough brain power to write up plans for the day in between the bouts of - how should I say - "discomfort".
So that was Tuesday. I was hoping to go back to work on Wednesday, but after being up all night on Monday, I could hardly keep my eyes open. I slept most of Tuesday and was hardly drinking water. Wednesday was now out. Trying to write TOC plans on Tuesday (for Wednesday) was almost a bigger chore than the ones I wrote in the middle of the night.
Finally, yesterday, in the afternoon, the Lab TA at our school - she's awesome - phoned to tell me to just stay home one more day and rest. I followed her advice and have now been home for three days. I finally ate some soup today. Yay! It's a small victory, but I'm so tired of texturally devoid liquids - water, powerade, stale gingerale (because you leave it too long and it goes flat).
I realize this is an odd post after such a long drought, but it's what has been happening lately. And when I'm teaching, I feel like I have no time for anything else. Just about everything I have goes into doing a good job in the different aspects of my life - at home, with my husband (my first priority), and at work. Such things leave me little time to blog. To be honest, I don't even get to read blogs as much as I would like anymore. I need to find balance and perspective.
Maybe that's why I'm home right now. My body said "You're done. Deal with it." So after six days off of school, I will go back on Monday for just two more weeks before Christmas break. Two weeks of break before the big push to the end of the semester. Which gives me one more thought... Christmas... I should be buying presents...
On top of the unpleasant reason for staying home, when you realize at 2:30am that you need to call in sick and then email teacher-on-call notes to school, it's really quite a chore. So in addition to being sick and tired (quite literally), you have to have enough brain power to write up plans for the day in between the bouts of - how should I say - "discomfort".
So that was Tuesday. I was hoping to go back to work on Wednesday, but after being up all night on Monday, I could hardly keep my eyes open. I slept most of Tuesday and was hardly drinking water. Wednesday was now out. Trying to write TOC plans on Tuesday (for Wednesday) was almost a bigger chore than the ones I wrote in the middle of the night.
Finally, yesterday, in the afternoon, the Lab TA at our school - she's awesome - phoned to tell me to just stay home one more day and rest. I followed her advice and have now been home for three days. I finally ate some soup today. Yay! It's a small victory, but I'm so tired of texturally devoid liquids - water, powerade, stale gingerale (because you leave it too long and it goes flat).
I realize this is an odd post after such a long drought, but it's what has been happening lately. And when I'm teaching, I feel like I have no time for anything else. Just about everything I have goes into doing a good job in the different aspects of my life - at home, with my husband (my first priority), and at work. Such things leave me little time to blog. To be honest, I don't even get to read blogs as much as I would like anymore. I need to find balance and perspective.
Maybe that's why I'm home right now. My body said "You're done. Deal with it." So after six days off of school, I will go back on Monday for just two more weeks before Christmas break. Two weeks of break before the big push to the end of the semester. Which gives me one more thought... Christmas... I should be buying presents...
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Still a bad blogger
Well, at least no one is hassling me about my lack of posting. However, maybe this just means people have given up on me. . . Anyway, I haven't even really been reading any blogs lately. I feel like all of my time is being taken up by school work and the gigantic pile of marking that I always seem to have. It's this neverending pile of student work that I have to go through. And there is always more of it. Fun, fun.
In the remaining time that I have, I have been teaching first year confirmation at the church (over for now - starts up again in January), co-leading a youth girl's bible study, and trying to see my husband as much as possible. We are getting away next weekend and going to Leavenworth, WA. Since we are so close to the border, getting away to the States is actually quite easy. The irony is that this is the first time since moving down here that we are doing that. Leavenworth seems like it will be a fun place to visit - it's a small Bavarian village in the Cascade mountains with lots of neat little shops. I think we will have fun.
In the remaining time that I have, I have been teaching first year confirmation at the church (over for now - starts up again in January), co-leading a youth girl's bible study, and trying to see my husband as much as possible. We are getting away next weekend and going to Leavenworth, WA. Since we are so close to the border, getting away to the States is actually quite easy. The irony is that this is the first time since moving down here that we are doing that. Leavenworth seems like it will be a fun place to visit - it's a small Bavarian village in the Cascade mountains with lots of neat little shops. I think we will have fun.
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