Pre-Christmas

Today, my list included some laundry, some chicken chores, the rest of my baking, and wrapping presents. I did the laundry, I did the chicken chores, I did SOME wrapping, and I did my baking, although decorating of cookies will have to happen tomorrow.

I decided to try a new gingerbread cookie recipe and I was very pleased with how it turned out. I even dragged out my fancy big mixer!

Can you smell the cloves and ginger?

I even followed the instructions and wrapped and refridgerated the dough. (Sometimes I skip this step). Hang on, I think that's the sugar cookie dough. I made three different things today: gingerbread cookies, sugar cookies, and "Christmas crack" which is the saltine crackers with a liquid toffee poured over it and then milk chocolate chips melted on top. Are you familiar with it?

Gingerbread cookies waiting to go in the oven.

Sugar cookies in the oven. Boy, the house smelled good!

Santa heads, candy canes, ornaments, a boot... all going to be decorated later.

The tree is up and decorated. We still have a real tree. I'm not sure if we will ever go the artificial route. 

The village is a-lit, and the Santa collection sits above it. If you look closely, you will see that Godzilla has made his way to the village and is about to wreak havoc.

A display in the livingroom. I love the Santa and reindeer. It's pretty big and I pack it away carefully every year.

Symmetry in the den. The shelf came from my parents' house.

Finally, here is Scooter nestled under a pile of flannel pajamas. Nothing says winter like flannel!

Tribute to a Very Fine Feline Friend

We got Sammy from the animal shelter in a near by town. He wasn't actually at the animal shelter, he was the feature pet at the associated pet food / supply place in the same town. He was just a really cool dude. Very chill. When we bought him, at about a year old, already neutered and with all his shots, we put him in the back of the vehicle with the kids who were roughly 8 and 11 years old at the time. I warned them that he might meow all the way home and be a bit distressed to be in the vehicle. Nope, he sat down in his cage, crossed his front legs and relaxed.

He was a perfectly symmetrical brown tabby. Most tabbies are good, all around, naturally easy to get along with cats. He was an indoor / outdoor cat. He enjoyed when his humans were outside with him. He was a pretty good hunter in his younger years. He was chief inspector for all outdoor projects. He knew the best time to come around to the table, and lately, we had been pulling up a chair at the table for him! Sammy got along with other cats, in that he tolerated them, didn't fuss too much, again, was just a cool dude about things.

Several weeks ago, we realized he wasn't doing well. The vet did some tests and let us know that he was suffering from kidney disease. He started to go down hill pretty quickly and there wasn't anything we could do to reverse this. Sammy died a little while ago, we chose to not share this with our young adult kids who were in the middle of college / university exams and assignments. Once they were done with those, we let them know and we all mourned the loss of a "family member" that had been with us for about 12 years.

I know many of you are pet owners and have gone through something similar. It is what we take on as pet owners. We love our animals, we help them through their final weeks, we pay them the respect they deserve.

Rest in peace sweet boy - Samson. We will miss you.

traditional decadence

Christmas is getting closer and closer. I've never been the poster child for being ready for Christmas well ahead of time (still have gifts to buy, decorating to do, baking to accomplish, presents to wrap...), but I did manage to make some goodies this morning. I got this recipe from an old friend, Claire, years ago and since then it has come to be an expected part of our sweet treats at Christmas time. No doubt many of you make or have made something similar, but just in case you would like to take in an extra few thousand calories over the holidays, here is the recipe:

Peanut Butter Confetti Bars

-1/2 cup margarine or butter
-1 cup smooth peanut butter
-1 1/2 cups butterscotch chips
-1 1/2 cups peanut butter chips
-1 bag multi-coloured mini marshmallows

Melt and stir all ingredients except marshmallows in a double boiler until smooth. Remove from heat and let cool a little. Add 1 bag (mine was 250 g) of mini marshmallows and stir to coat them all. Pour into a 9 x 12 baking pan (I line mine with foil to make it easier to lift it out and slice up). Let it cool, cut into smallish squares.

Pan is lined with foil.

Butterscotch, peanut butter chips and butter in double boiler.

Now, the peanut butter.

Melting and getting smoother.

Wait a bit before you add the marshmallows, so you don't melt them as well.

Stir everything well so all the marshmallows are well coated.

Let it cool and harden before you try to cut it up. Decadent, sweet, and guaranteed to add about a half inch to your hips over the holidays. Enjoy!

The Gales of November

Man it was windy last night and this morning!! It was just a miserable, wet, very windy day. However, all the snow has gone (the header picture is from a little while ago) and the temperatures were actually mild (for late November). Here and there, people lost their power due to trees falling on hydro lines.

Today, I had an appointment at the orthodontist. I am now in the third week of Invisalign (clear trays that do the same thing as braces). I wish I could say it is all fine and dandy, but alas, by the end of the day, the rubbing on the inside of my bottom lip and a couple spots on the top still cause me pain. I have an arsenal of treatments that I do to try to help my mouth heal and guard it from further distress. If I could just rest it and not talk, I'd likely be much better, but it is rather hard to teach a class of kids without moving one's mouth. I told the good people at my orthodontist clinic about this and they were surprised and said nobody's ever complained about this particular discomfort before. Funny, there are plenty of people on the internet who have.

Regardless, it was time to have the "buttons" put on my teeth. I had 14 of these little square protruding things chemically attached to the outside of my teeth. They match little bump-outs on my Invisalign trays. It is all part of forcing my teeth in the directions they are supposed to go. Because they are brand new, these little buttons (evokes kind of a cute image) are sharp as hell and rough like sandpaper. So, when you pry your trays out of your mouth to eat, the action of chewing now shreds new "death by a thousand cuts" in other parts of my mouth. I've read (because you must google these things) that the act of removing and re-inserting your trays helps to smooth out these nasty protrusions over time, so they become less deadly. I can't wait.

However.... all was not lost. My drive to the orthodontist is about a half an hour through the countryside and I saw no less than THREE snowy owls!! I was so excited. I pulled over and took a picture of one on the way there. I saw another one, but did not take a picture. Then, on the way back home, I saw three of them, so I did stop for more pictures. No doubt, these were the same ones I saw both ways, but still very exciting! I wonder if they are related? They make me think of Hedwig from Harry Potter. The extreme wind had died down at this point in the afternoon, but it was still pretty breezy. Despite that, they were perched high atop hydro poles, no doubt waiting patiently to spot some unsuspecting rodent.

They didn't even seem to mind that I pulled my vehicle over, and for the one above, I got out and walked as close as I dared to take the picture. I had never seen a snowy owl before last year (I posted about it then), and now I can say I've seen a total of four!

Snow, Canadian Milk, and Teeth

How do you like that title?

We have snow. We have a whole lot of snow. Here is my porch. Yes, that's a little bistro table. No, it has not been put away. It is November the 13. There should have been time to put that little bistro table away before this all happened.

This is so very wrong.

As I am writing this post at 10:02 p.m., there is still snow falling outside. Maybe it won't stay.


O.K., so that was the "Snow" part of my title.
Sometimes when I'm drinking my one cup of heavenly coffee per day in the morning, I sit at the computer and read the semi-news feed drivel that comes up on my computer. Sometimes there are "articles" that describe "Twenty things about Canadians that Americans Don't Understand", or some such thing. Often times, one of those things is our milk. We buy our milk in bags. In those bags are three smaller bags. The bags get put into milk pitchers, specially made to hold the bags. Then we snip a corner off the bag and pour the milk out as needed. This is normal for us. Here is my milk pitcher.

Thus endeth the lesson on Canadian milk.

Teeth- I've never thought more about teeth than I have in the past two days. I have embarked on a quest that I should have done decades ago. But I'm doing it now. I am now the wearer of Invisaligns. Yes, I'm 53 years old, with "braces". I have always hated my teeth. My parents did not make a lot of money and I guess orthodontics was not part of my father's dental plan. To try to assist with my crowded teeth, my parents approved of the dentist pulling one permanent tooth when I was young (don't even know how old I was at the time) to make room for my other teeth. It didn't really work.

Life moved on, I was busy with my career, then kids came and I was busy being a mother and a professional, and even though I still hated my teeth, I didn't think it was something adults did. I saw it as an unnecessarily vain thing to do, I mean, who was I trying to impress? I was a married adult, with growing children.

Then, as retirement became a more tangible thing, I realized I still hate my teeth and my dental plan would be coming to an end fairly soon, so if I was going to do something, I'd better do it quickly. So I went to the same orthodontist that did my son's braces and asked for a consult. Yes, it could be done, and they could try and have it accomplished by my retirement date (year and a half - please do NOT tell more stories of people you know for whom it took three years to straighten their teeth - I don't want to know).

My teeth got scanned with some sort of advanced technology, the order was placed, and I waited for someone in, I want to say Costa Rica (??) make my Invisalign trays. I went on Monday to pick up my first two. I was shown how to put them in and was told all the ins and outs of having these things in my mouth. (If you are unfamiliar, they are clear plastic "trays" that mold over your teeth, top and bottom. Mine will be changed every week to a new tray which gradually shifts your teeth into a straighter position). In two weeks, I go back to the orthodontist to get these little "buttons" glued to some of my teeth which put added pressure on certain teeth to help guide things along even more.

Here's the thing. I'm a big baby about certain things medical and painful. But other things, I can handle. Mouth stuff doesn't really bother me all that much. I'm o.k. with needles, I drag myself into work under all kinds of less than perfect situations of pain or ill health. I really thought I would be totally fine with this - hey I'm paying someone to do this! I CHOSE to have my teeth forcibly moved around in my head. But here's the reality: this is no fun at all! I so want to rip these things off my teeth and run over them with my car. They are tight and make me feel claustrophobic, and I'm pretty sure I could have drowned in my own saliva the first 24 hours. That was day one. I truly didn't think I would be able to sleep with them in. Two Tylenol Night time for Pain tablets helped. Then two days of teaching, which essentially is talking all day long, and the edges of the trays have now worn away much of the soft tissue in my mouth that they come in contact with. That's also not a great sensation. I have googled things like" how long did it take to get used to your invisaligns" and "when do you start to get used to invisaligns". The results lead me to believe that I have a few more days until things calm down and it stops being the ONLY thing I think about. Ahhh, but then I switch to new trays and get to do it all over again. Did I mention I'm paying someone to do this to me?

You must keep your invisaligns in for about 22 hours a day in order to get the full benefit and results. If you eat, or drink anything other than water, you pry these things out of your mouth (I go to the back corner of the staffroom and turn my back so people don't have to watch me do this - it's not pretty), then you are supposed to brush your teeth before you put them back in when you're done. I tend to do a secret pick and floss with one of those floss things with a handle (again, people really don't want to witness that).

Can I just say that the happiest time of my day is when those things are off my teeth? Oh, but then when I try to chew my food, it is now like I am using someone else's teeth to do it. They don't feel right. They may not feel right for another year and a half.

I also feel like I might now refer to this as the "Invisalign diet" because you really have to decide if it is worth the hassle to mindlessly snack on something. I'm seriously wondering if I drink my red wine through a straw, maybe I won't have to take the trays out.

The thing that really hit home for me, was when I realized that an eight year old girl in my class also has invisaligns right now. I told her we could be Invisalign sisters. (I did ask her, "So how long did you have them before you got used to them?" Her answer was "two weeks"). Oh well, once I'm done all the bellyaching and they stop being a form of torture, I will be so pleased to gradually see my teeth become something I don't want to hide behind my hand when I laugh, or close my mouth on when I smile for a camera.

sleep, elusive sleep

I remember sleeping past noon when I was young, reckless, unencumbered, and full of hormones.

Now, I can't remember the last time I've had a decent night sleep. I suppose the reasons are many, too many thoughts in my head, a husband who snores (although he has graciously agreed upon occasion to take up residence in the now-empty 19-year old's bed), lack of hormones, silly cat that thinks he has to wake me up because he would like to eat and be let out at 3:00 a.m....

I suspect I'm not the only one out there with sleep issues. I know more regular, purposeful exercise would help (I do try, but not enough), I don't drink any more than one caffeinated drink per day, I have tried melatonin, even took Tylenol nighttime for pain (wasn't it any specific pain)…

I really think it's being 53 and those oh so powerful hormones, or decline of those oh so powerful hormones, is messing with me.

I am now opening the floodgates of comments - proceed.

Do you Smell Bacon?

"Do you smell bacon?"  That's what my principal said when she stuck her head in my class this morning to say hello to my kids.

I'm really not a huge Hallowe'en person, but the kids like it when their teachers dress up, so yes, I was bacon. Who doesn't love bacon?? Very Canadian of me.

Here is my driving to work picture:

It was that dark when I started off this morning.   This is not to be confused with a previous year's driving to work picture:

I've changed food groups.

Just so you know, it rained ALL DAY LONG.   Yes, Hallowe'en combined with two indoor recesses, and no scheduled gym time. It was delightful.