Would you eat this?
Okay, so I'm not the "safest" person when it comes to food safety...I try my best, but apparently I have some of my Dad's bad habits when it comes to food preparation!
Anyways, tonight I marinated some chicken drumsticks for the BBQ. BEW cooked them and when he brought them back in, I told him they were not fully cooked yet but he insisted that they were. So this caused a bit of tension for us, but at the end, we came up with a good solution...he would eat his so called "cooked" chicken, and I would cook the ones I was eating for longer.
Take a look at this picture and tell me your thoughts...please note, this picture was taken AFTER BEW cooked it for an additional 5 minutes more once I said it wasn't cooked enough!
Things I've come to appreciate in life...
Recently there have been some things in my life I've come to appreciate. Here is a quick list of some of those things...
1. A nice cut of steak.
BEW and I went for a nice supper at the Moose Factory this past Friday for our "date" night and we each ended up ordering Bison
strip loin. Not being a good judge of what a "good" meat is, I ordered the
strip loin (I only for sure know that T-Bones and Prime Rib steaks are good, the rest,
meh, not too sure). Anyways, my steak came out as I requested (medium rare), however it was tougher than rubber!
Fortunately BEW's piece was less tough, so I'm glad he was able to enjoy his meal.
Tonight we served AAA Top
Sirloin steaks to our friends (sorry for friends and family were not invited...no worries, soon enough we'll have you over too) and boy was I glad that the meat was quite tender and not at all chewy or tough to swallow.
Lesson: Don't be cheap and opt for the cheap meats. Always spend the money when it comes to meat.
2. My neighbourhood's
garbage men.
BEW and I recently finally got around to cleaning and sorting out my garage. I threw away a lot of crap and got rid of a lot of the carpeting that was in my garage from the previous owner (it was a scrap of carpet used for covering the cement floor in order for it to be more comfortable if you had to go out and get something from the garage in bare feet). Anyways, we had quite a bit of carpet we wanted the
garbage men to take, but KEY didn't seem to think they would take a big rolled up piece away, but rather, would leave it for us to take to an
Eco station or the dump. But on her advice, she said we could try to cut up the carpet into little squares (2'x3' or so) and see if they'd take the smaller pieces as it would likely be easier for them to lift. Sure enough, they took it ALL. In total, we had probably 4 boxes full of garbage as well as a garbage can full of regular garbage and about 4 rolls of carpeting for them to take. Kudos and many thanks to them as if they didn't haul it away, who knows how long this garbage would be sitting in my garage!
Side note: Kudos to the recycling guys as well. We had about 3 bags of recycled stuff to be hauled and those bags magically disappeared as well! Can you tell I'm thoroughly impressed? Would it be inappropriate to buy these hard working individuals a Christmas gift this year? What a thankless job they have...
3. Air conditioning in vehicles.
BEW's very basic vehicle does not have A/C. I'm usually quite warm by nature, therefore with plus 20+degree weather, usually it makes me quite uncomfortable. To sit in his vehicle is torture, so unless it's cooler outside (late evening) or it's been raining, I usually prefer to use my vehicle for this reason alone!
4. Friends and family. This weekend alone, I've entertained (with
BEW's help of course) twice. It's nice to sit back and relax and catch up with friends and family who are normally very busy as well. It's these down times that are precious to me and I really enjoy them. It was also nice for
BEW on day 2 of entertaining as he had friends play the
Wii with him (I don't typically enjoy playing the
Wii too often).
What are some things you appreciate in your life?
Long time, well no blog!
Hello to the few of you who still visit this blog! There has been little to no posts in over a year simply due to my lack of technological skill and memory (I couldn't remember my password)!
It's been well over a year and so much has changed in this Vanilla life of mine...just to recap...
1. I am engaged now and am set (well, with the exception of some of the finer details yet to be ironed out) to be married this September 6!
2. I have vacationed to
Puerto Vallerta this past February...it was quite nice to get out of the cold weather here, although the ocean was still too cold to actually swim in, though
BW still decided he was tough enough to brave the cooler waters!
3. I turned the big 3-0 and with the help of friends, my family decided to throw me a surprise birthday party (and indeed I was surprised and not at all suspicious, which means, especially for my family, they kept the secret well)!
4. I have been promoted from a regular Account Manager to a "Senior" Account Manager. What does this mean? Well, my portfolio remained the same (no additions or
subtractions from it) but I did get a salary increase. Does this mean I have always been doing the job of a Senior but being paid as an Account Manager? Whatever...call me what you want as long as I get paid for what I'm doing!
Believe it or not, this quickie blog probably summarizes all that has happened in this Vanilla life of mine. Thanks for being part of it all :)
Vanilla...
PS. I honestly will TRY to keep up with this blog now. After reading some of your blogs today, you have given me a new desire to start up with it again!
Updates, updates, updates
Okay, okay...thanks to all my dedicated blog readers that have suffered a long silence on this site until now! I guess you're all wondering why the blog now? Just wanted to update you all on what's been going on in my life...and NO, I'm NOT engaged!
1. My office has now successfully relocated to our new site...it was a tough and tedious move, but we did it! Come by and visit me sometime, though I have to say, the view from my window isn't the greatest (I face into the neighbour's dumpster), but I guess the positive part is that there are no homeless people seeking shelter in there!
2. After many years of sleeping in my little bed, I have decided I am now a big girl and so I upgraded myself to a queen sized bed! Actually, to be more accurate, I upgraded my existing non-matching, pieced together bedroom to a full bedroom set! It's made of birch and is in a deep espresso color, with silver (of course) accents! The set is fully loaded with 2 night tables, a 5 (or was it 6?) drawer dresser, a 6 drawer piece with a mirror attached to it and of course the bed frame itself! Oh yeah, to top it all off, I also purchased an awesome mattress/boxspring set to match the new furnishings (pocket coils, just like the "bowling ball" commercials as seen on TV! All will be delivered this Saturday (YAY)!!
3. Work is hectic, crazy busy, but I will power through it. Today is only Tuesday, but I'm booking appointments into next week already!
4. Ladies group continues to be going well...I'm soo thankful for all the ladies in that group. They've been a true blessing in my life!
Hmmm, that's about it...see, nothing changes with Vanilla!!! Oh yeah, amongst all this craziness I turned a year older...yay (not really).
Part 2 Postponed!
Hey folks...though I promised to blog about my afternoon at Norwood, I don't have time this evening as I still have yet to pack for the retreat!
Hopefully I'll have time and energy on Sunday when we get back...
United Way Financial Day of Caring
So I volunteered for the United Way Financial Day of Caring today. In total nine banks, totalling roughly 230 people volunteered at 29 agencies, working in various capacities from painting to sorting out clothes that are donated...I was lucky enough to be placed at Norwood Elementary to spend one on one time with some kids there.
The day started out with a nice breakfast buffet at the Telus World of Science. You would wonder why the United Way would spend their hard earned fundraised monies on such an occassion...seems like such a waste of funds right? Well, it turns out that this morning's breakie was paid for in collaboration between the banks...as a thank-you for the volunteers. Plus each financial institution had specialized shirts made (also donated by a branding/marketing company). So as I arrived, I was greeted with a welcome package along with a blue T-shirt (each shirt was colored to coordinate with your bank's colors)...so needless to say there was a sea of blue when I walked in (ATB Financial had a light blue shirt, RBC and BMO also had different shades of blue, whereas my shirt was more of a royal blue)...still, it was neat to see each FI identified by their bank's color.
After breakie, we had a group pic taken (in total, there was roughly 40 volunteers from CCS) which I'm sure each volunteer will get a copy of eventually...and then we were off to the races!
When I arrived at Norwood, there were also reps there from the other FI's. In total there were 9 of us at that school. How the program works is that the coordinator (Leigh) would round up children who normally wouldn't have a "mentor" and we would be working with them for the morning (we would be assigned a different child for the afternoon). The United Way funds Norwood quite extensively, as they were one of the first schools to start this mentorship program. I think roughly 50 schools in Edmonton now are part of this program.
We were told to encourage to read at least 1 book with the kid during our 1.5 hour session. My first gal, Cathy, was a bit older than the rest of the students Leigh brought in (Cathy is in Grade 5). Anyways, we filled in "Getting to Know You" worksheets and chit chatted a bit before deciding what we wanted to do (options included reading, playing games on the computer, playing board games, crafts, playing with Legos, etc.). In our "Getting to Know You" worksheet, one of the questions was "what is your worst subject in school?". I asked Cathy and apparently she doesn't get very excited over math...I told her art was always a dreaded subject for me...and you know what? I think to kinda "test" and "spite" me, guess what she chose to do as our activity?!? Yup...crafts.
The crafts that were set up included an option to fold a sailor's hat (which seemed sooo elementary to me, but then again, Norwood caters to kindergarten to grade 6) or to make a picture holder (the type with the mini clips where you stick pictures in). She opted to make the holder (thankfully, as I had skimmed the instructions and I don't think I would've been able to decipher them...many of the other volunteers failed at making the hat).
While making our separate holders we managed to chit chat. Cathy told me she lived close to the school (about 5 blocks away) and that most of the time she had to take her brother to school with her (he's in grade 2). She also told me that she had a stepsister who was 21 (who was "old" like me...geez...thanks)!
She told me it was tough to make friends as she was always moving around from school to school. She has been at Norwood now for 2 years, so she said it was kinda tough to make new friends. Leigh, the coordinator of this project, told us that Norwood is highly transient, with 80% of the students turning over in a year. She said this was due to the lower income families having to move due to circumstances. How sad is that??
Anyways, as I'm not gifted in art, it took me pretty much an hour to make my photo holder...in the same time it took Cathy to make 2! After we were finished, we read a book together, alternating pages being read out loud.
When it was time to go, I reminded her to take her crafts...she was a bit shy, but she said she wanted to give me one of the holders that she made for me! That was sooo cute and unexpected for me, as we seemed to get along quite well. So in return, I gave her my holder, which she thought was "totally cool". So I will be displaying my holder proudly at work on my desk tomorrow :)
So that was my morning's experience...it was highly enjoyable for me...however the afternoon brought a completely different situation for me...
Stay tuned for Part 2...to be posted tomorrow (I promise)!
Thank-you, thank-you, THANK-YOU! :)
Recently it appears I've been the lucky recipient of many acts of kindness, and for that I say a big THANK-YOU to you all! Whether it's been breakfast, supper, lip gloss, hand soap, bubble tea, going for a walk, enjoying a nice chat, or a ride here and there, all of it has been greatly appreciated (you all know who you are ;P ) I'm a very lucky girl blessed by fantastic friends and family...
Oh yeah...and thanks for reading my blog, though it doesn't get updated often (some of you have probably fallen off your seats, seeing another posting from me...I tell you, it's all about the SHOCK value)!
Have a great week everyone!
