Mmmmm tea

What a beautiful morning! The whole family slept in until about 8 today and I was worried it would feel like we'd wasted the morning, that is, until I came downstairs and opened the blinds. The sun at 8:00 this morning looked like it does at 5:00 a.m. in the summer! That's actually my favorite time of day - 5:00 on a summer morning. I love seeing the sun just come up so perfectly. It reminds me of camp out at Pine Lake and early morning runs with my cousin Jen and getting up before everyone else just to go sit by the lake. I still prefer waking up with the sun in the summer, only Matt hates the sunlight in the morning so we keep our blinds shut through the night.
But today really has been nice even though it's only 12. I got a chance to sip some really nice tea while my baby slept in his playpen and my dog slept on my foot and I got to catch up on my reading. I'm reading Mansfield Park for, what, the 5th time? I've actually lost count. No where near as many times as I've read Pride and Prejudice, I do know that. But I really do enjoy this book. It's interesting how at times you almost find yourself cheering for the villian and you sincerely hope that he has changed and that the heroine will fall in love with him. It's Jane Austen's most extensive novel ranging over the most time and the most distance (excepting, maybe, Northanger Abbey which is infact her shortest novel). It's a harder one for me to plow through than say Persuasion or, as I mentioned before, Pride and Prejudice. That's partly due to its length and partly due to its characters. I hate Mrs. Norris. Which is good. You're supposed to hate her. I haven't actually found an interview that confirms this but I believe J. K. Rowling named Filch's cat after the character Mrs. Norris in this book. She's a real witch; just wretched and almost everything that comes out of her mouth makes you despise her. However, as much as I can appreciate how well written the character is and how precisely Jane Austen gets across the emotions you are supposed to feel towards this character, sometimes I find myself so exhasperated by her that I want to put the book down. The other character that I have issues with is Fanny, the heroine. This is for a completely different reason. With Fanny, if you have any sense of empathy for her you'll find yourself worn out with concern and anxiety. The poor girl is so timid, so frightened and introverted that for the first half of the novel anything pertaining to her invokes pity. I want so bad for her to have some glimmer of hope or some reason to really rejoice that for the first half it's actually hard to read about her. The second half picks up a bit, but it's not really until the last chapter that you can breathe a sigh of relief. (I'm not really giving away anything here. If you've ever read a Jane Austen novel, all is already given away) The most interesting thing about this book I think is that it is not so much a romantic story as it is a moral one. If it were a more romantic one your sigh of relief would come far before the last chapter and would last for more than 2 or 3 measley paragraphs. Don't get me wrong, it's still the epitomy of girliness, as is any Jane Austen novel, but that's moreso because of the era it was written in and the way life was and simply that they are written through the female perspective so guys may think that Fanny is being absolutely ridiculous while girls will tend to relate more. The only Jane Austen novel that I think most men may have a chance of enjoying is Persuasion. It has, by far, the most action (a bump on the head and a broken collar bone) and many references to the navy and the military life of the day. Having said all that I have already about Jane Austen novels being girly and men not enjoying them I have two more points to make on the subject. The first is that I know of at least one very cool and very manly guy who really actually enjoys Pride and Prejudice the movie. Bravo. I think my dad enjoyed the cinematography of it and the herd of red deer that are used as a scene transition at one spot. But most guys watching it won't giggle when they see Mr. Darcy flex his hand after handing Elizabeth into the carriage. And they won't say Mr. Darcy with an sickeningly breathy English accent for ever hence (yes, I do. I even wanted to name my dog that but only if it were pronounced "Mr. Dahcy"). My second point to be made is that Jane Austen is surprisingly ungirly. Some of her characters are. There are a number of stereotypically girly-girls who talk about dresses and hats altogether too much, however, unless it contributes to the portrayal of a specific character or the story on the whole, you won't find any ranting about finery or much ranting at all actually. She tells stories remarkably well, portrays a number of charicatures which are composed from people you would have met back in those days, and is very good at making you loathe certain people :)
Anyway, a little update on our fish - they are all still alive, surprisingly, and I think we have a couple more fish that are preggers. It's actually quite hard to tell until they are really far along, but we think.
Tonight we're having steaks for dinner and I'm excited to barbque assuming I get it done before the sun goes away and the snow comes. I'm also excited to find a good marinade for the steaks. That's something that always manages to elude me: good marinade recipes. I think my biggest problem is that I don't know what I want but I definately know what I don't want. I only have this problem with beef however. I always am confidant in whipping up an impromptu marinade for pork, chicken or even lamb. But with my beef I don't want any prettiness. I want ruggedness. I want charring flavor. I want something you would get in a steak house. sigh. I'll try and think of something.
Matt and I are games people. We love playing board games whenever we get together with his family, we have boardgames for just two people that we play by ourselves fairly regularly and we even bought a bunch of board games for our honeymoon! The only difference between our taste in these games is that I love card games and Matt does not. In my family we play cards ALOT. You doubt? Come to one of our family reunions. Hand and foot canasta is the specialty of the family, however that's not the only game we play. Lately my mom and I have been playing alot of crib (as I believe I had mentioned in a previous post) Well, I'll never be able to get Matt to enjoy canasta, but I did manage to teach him crib over the weekend and he actually enjoyed it. He didn't enjoy it so much when I skunked him, but the game that he beat me he really liked! Here's to many happy nights playing crib!
I'm now allowed to go full tilt with baking again! - assuming of course that I freeze the majority of it. My sweet tooth is waning however and though I have been craving cookies, it's definately the shortbread variety rather than the sugar or chocolate chip variety that I have been craving. The problem with shortbread is butter. Or rather, my problem with making shortbread is my lack of butter in the house. I only keep margarine in the house typically but I wouldn't dream of making shortbread with anything other than real butter. Oh, and I need to make some earl grey cookies for Matt. For our honeymoon we went to Fairmont Hot Springs and visited the town of Invermere while we were there. Invermere has a fantastic little gelato store/cafe called Gerry's Gelato. This Gerry makes all of his gelato and comes up with some fantastic recipes. Matt's favorite was the London Fog gelato. He loved the Earl Grey in it. We actually picked up a litre of it for the way home (It only made it as far as Canmore, we ate the rest of it that night in the hotel) But it just proved how much Matt adores Earl Grey in anything.
Well this beautiful day is turning very windy and my baby wants to play. I'd better say bye for now!

Mrs. Vander Leek ;)

Sunny days...

What a gorgeous day! Man! It totally feels like spring!
We went and got more fish today. We needed to replace the male guppy that died and we got a few more as well but there was a different lady working there today. She gave us all grey female guppies and one male guppy with torn fins. He doesn't swim very well and probably won't last very long. She also poured the fish into the bag. Like, scoop up water and fish in a bucket, dump bucket contents into bag. So fortunately she also reminded us of their 2 week warranty on their fish :)
I got some of my seeds started! It was so pretty and so warm that I needed to do something outside. So I sat on the front step and started two of my seed packets: Love-in-a-puff and Vulcan mallow. I want my flowers to actually come up this year so I decided to start some extra early. Here's hoping they work well!
I have made a decision to be crafty this week. I have a craft table in our basement and the crafts are beginning to pile up. A few of the things I need to deal with are late. For example, my cousin's son was born in December and I still haven't finished knitting his present. I also have some other projects to get caught up on. First off I just got a hold of a bunch of burned down candles. I'm going to make a stop at Value Village tomorrow to pick up some mismatched teacups, then I'll melt down all the wax and make teacup candles! I also need to knit some more baby clothes for all of my friends who are expecting. Oh, and make more pillows.
Tonight I whipped up some strawberry shortcakes - sans strawberries. Blueberries actually. And real shortcakes, not just white cake. It was quite nice. And for dinner Matt just wanted nachos so I had a toasted Cheese and Tomato sandwich. It's actually one of my favorite sandwiches :) A little mayo, a little salt... a lot of goodness.
Oooh! And I taught Matt how to play crib! And I was trying to teach him the lingo of crib but he kept saying "Fifteen two and totes-ma-goats"
Well, hopefully tomorrow is as beautiful as today was. It just makes your whole day go well!

Mrs. Vander Leek ;)

Dear people with cars: Pity Me!

So, our car went into the dealer today just to get some stuff fixed that is covered by our warranty. The only problem with this fact is that I now have no mode of transportation! This isn't typically an issue. Normally I do spend all day in or around our home, and rarely have further to go than to the Co-op two blocks away. However, today is different - primarily because I know I can't go anywhere! It's the knowledge of being relatively confined that all of a sudden makes me feel like I need to get out; cabin fever. Although, I was just out last night... and the night before... and the night before that too. The other unfortunate part about this story is that I just looked outside, thought how absolutely gorgeous the weather is and decided to take a walk, when I realized that I left the strolled in the trunk of the car. Gre-at. Well, maybe we'll just sit in the snow in the backyard and play out there.
So you know how I got my fish? Yah, well one of them was not smarter than the piece of foam we keep surrounding the filter tube so that they don't get sucked up. This one actually got stuck behind the foam. Brilliant eh? Now, this fish was an integral part to our tank. He was our only male guppy. And I do, so badly, want baby fish. This just means we get to go buy even more fish! (Once again, as soon as we have the car back)
Now, I'm going to talk about something very serious here... crying at movies. Not even just movies - TV shows too sometimes. In my opinion, the sadest movie in the world is Legends of the Fall, followed closely by Object of my Affection and UP (yep, the Disney). Stupid Legends of the Fall... Matt made me watch that with him Valentine's Day last year while I was pregnant. We actually had to stop the movie because I couldn't breathe because I was crying so hard. How dumb! As for UP, I can't believe how much I cried during that movie the first time I saw it. Then I warned my sister and my mother about how sad it would be and they made it through the first two sections of the movie that had made me cry... but they couldn't get past the third part! Other movies that have made me cry: Heidi, Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (where she sees her dad in the row boat), and Run, Fat Boy, Run (seriously.) As for TV shows, who didn't cry when Chandler and Monica finally got engaged? Oh, most of you? Really? Dang it... Well, how about for anyone who watches NCIS - Season 3, the Season Finale, Episode Hiatus pt 2. Yah, I cried a few times in that episode. The first time was when Gibbs has amnesia and is saying how much he misses his murdered wife and daughter. Well done Mark Harmon, Well done. The second time was when Ziva David is trying to help Gibbs remember important information and reminds him of how she shot her own brother to save Gibbs' life. Okay, REALLY well done Cote de Pablo. However, none of these are as bad as the fact that my sister and my mom teared up during the Olympics opening ceremonies whenever they saw countries which were being represented by only one athlete. :) For some reason, seeing that lone athlete carrying the flag was a cause for tears to both of them. HA.
I'm going to finish this posting with a rant about stupid kid's books. Gabe has a series of books which are intended to teach babies their first words. One book in that series is about trucks. One of the words in that book is "excavator"
Really?
We're going to teach our 10 month old babies to say the word "excavator"? Why don't we throw in a book about geography and topography and teach them to say isthmus? Or better yet, how about one on medical conditions and teach them to say Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis? Which, yes, is a real word and it's actually a type of lung disease similar to Black Lung Disease. (*cough cough* Zoolander anybody?)
I also "enjoy" those kids books where the main character does something wrong and gets away with it. That's exactly the type of moral story I want my kids hearing. I vote we go back to the old Brother's Grimm fairytales where, just so you know, Cinderella's evil step sisters actually cut of parts of their feet in an attempt to fit into the glass slipper and then they eventually got their eye's pecked out by birds - presumably the same ones that help put together Cinderella's dress in the classic Disney movie. Oh, and in the original story of the Princess and the Frog, she didn't kiss the frog, she threw him against a wall.
Well, apparently I get quite sarcastic when I'm stuck in my house :) That's okay, like the man who was turned into a newt in Monty Python and the Holy Grail... I'll get better.

Mrs. Vander Leek ;)

Websites and Choir

Gah yesterday evening was long. I decided I needed to get my websites up for my business(es). As such, I spent 4 very long hours staring at a computer screen, trying to get some stupid banner graphics to work and typing out a butt load of information. Isn't it odd how many hours you can spend on a computer doing nothing of value (save improving your score at Bejeweled) but as soon as you start working and being productive every minute seems exponentially lengthened. After an hour of productive work on a computer your brain feels taxed and you start hitting your head against things. Perhaps it's the nature of what counts as being productive whilst on a computer. Typically you find yourself writing long paragraphs and essays, researching things that seem to be intentionally elusive or you are writing emails to people whom you would much rather not. :) Anyway, I did get my websites done - or at least for now.
I'm not allowed to bake until Sunday at the earliest, lest we get fat :) Although, the rate my dog keeps stealing my cookies and trying to eat them when we're not looking, he's doing a pretty good job of keeping us from obesity.
We barbqued tonight for the first time in a long time! I got my fix of iron! And leftovers for lunch tomorrow! YAY! Tomorrow's dinner will be pulled pork. I've only actually done that once before and I didn't really love the recipe - which may be why I've only done it once. I'll find something sweet this time though.
Matt and I had choir practice tonight! It was pretty fun actually. Not that I should be surprised, I am a choir geek. We're singing in our church choir on Easter Sunday so we have weekly practices until then.
I have very little more to say. We're watching NCIS so I am rather distracted. We'll call it a night!

Mrs. Vander Leek ;)

Fish!!

Oh the things you find you can do while holding a baby. You never realize you full potential as a human being until you have one of these little gaffers (that's right, a gaffer). For the past hour my baby has been asleep on my lap while I have been trying to make up websites for my new businesses! What's the rush you may ask? Why couldn't I wait until the baby was awake? Well, for the past month I've been fishing for pro bono contracts for my Event Planning business. I caught one yesterday. A kinda big one too. I'm going to be helping plan a Hope for Haiti soiree in April. Apparently they had another event planner who fell through due to a certain lack of competence :) Well anyway, now that I'm finally getting somewhere I need to get my website up and running and print off business cards. Fortunately I have a very kind and extremely talented (and loyal, and compassionate, and good looking) sister whom I hope I can convince to design my logo and business cards for me. I will be listed as one of the event sponsors and my logo will go up all over town on the poster. I just need a logo now :)
OOOH! We got more fish! When Gabe was about 3 months old we took him to the zoo for the first time. He slept through most of it but woke up just in time to see the fish. He adored them. Ever since he's had a thing for them and my mother-in-law has a fishtank that he likes to sit in front of whenever we're over there. He even says fish! Well, kinda. He only has 2 teeth so the "f" is hard to get out so mostly he just says "shhh" but we know what he means. Anyway, he wouldn't actually say fish unless there were some in the room. So Matt and I set up Matt's old tank and got some goldfish for him. Well, nearly all the goldfish died and I really wanted to get some guppies so we went out today and picked some up! I'm so excited! Now they can have babies and then we'll have a lot of fish!!! But really, the fishtank was for Gabe, not me. I swear.
Oh, and for anyone who was concerned, yesterday turned out okay. Matt got home really late but we had garlic mashed potatoes with out red wine and cloves pork steaks. They were actually really nice. We ended up watching NCIS until 2 a.m. though. Good show, btw. We're definately fans.
Tonight's dinner may be a bit thrown together since I don't have any meat pulled. It will probably end up being chicken. It's always chicken when I feel least creative. Or pasta I suppose. But we just had that a couple nights ago.
Oooh! I got a new sugar bowl today too! It's really cute. It kinda looks like a mushroom top actually. I got it from Homesense which means I ended up buying more than just that! You know what I've been looking for for quite some time? Metal plate covers for keeping food warm. And not the hospital grade ones with the whole in the top. The fancy restaurant ones that they always have in the movies. But I can't seem to find them anywhere! My best bet might actually be in Canmore. They have a gourmet kitchen gadget store on the main street there where I was able to find a baguette loaf pan. The problem with that store is that no one ever wants to go in with me and I could easily spend an hour in it but I always feel rushed because I don't want to keep everyone waiting.
Tonight I feel like making dessert of some sort. But not cake or cookies or anything. Something with fruit. Perhaps Bananas Foster? Or maybe Poached Pears? Or how about Baked Apples? The trouble with all of those is that Matt doesn't like warm fruit unless it's in a pie. Ah well, I'll figure something out.
K, well my arm is killing me know from typing while the baby is laying across me. I'm done.

Mrs. Vander Leek ;)

Tuesday is the new Monday.

Well I had a really good day yesterday. Today is still up for grabs. It's not like today has been horrible, it's just that some stupid things have happened that make me wish I could have a do-over. For one, my dog is being ridiculous. First off, I found him sitting on a chair in our dining room eating out of a bowl on our table. After I let him know that was bad and that he wasn't allowed to do that I turned around to go back into the kitchen and the dog ran downstairs - and that action was almost instantly followed by a "crash". He knocked over a TV tray in the basement that I had eaten my breakfast on. So he spilled my water and tea that were still sitting on it as well as knocked over the sugar bowl on it, which broke, and spilled glass and sugar all over our couch. Good thing we were thinking of getting a new loveseat, eh? Oh, and then I went to marinate our meat for dinner. I had just picked it up at the store yesterday and was so excited to cook up these steaks... and then I found out that I had gotten pork steaks and not beef. Great, eh? They were sitting right next to the beef so I just assumed. You know what they say about assumptions... they suck. That little blip on today's radar is minor - I mean, I have the pork steaks marinading with red wine and red wine vinegar. I even threw in some cloves and am going to cook them up with some apples. The sucky part is I was really craving red meat. Maybe my iron levels are low because I've been craving red meat for some time now. When I was pregnant and anemic from not eating protein for 7 months I ended up eating 2 and a half rare steaks in one sitting. Prior to my pregnancy I liked my steaks well-done. Not anymore :)
Gabe's cuteness is helping to compensate for the suckiness of my day at least. My sister mentioned how her daughter, whom is 8 days older than Gabe, was pointing to pictures and objects when Heather said the name for them. I hadn't tried that with Gabe yet so I pulled out some flash cards that I had got for him previously. Some of the words were stupid (Umpire for U? Really?) but when we got to the D for Dog one I said "Where's the puppy?" and he pointed right at the picture while saying "Ooooh!" I love my little boy :) So cute!
There's a chocolate rabbit coming onto a jar of peanut butter on my TV right now. Weird.
Can I talk about food portions? Rather, MAY I talk about them? Did you know that the proper portion size for meat is 3 ounces? Does that not suck? When I think steak, I think at least 8 ounces. Have you ever had a real filet mignon? The big fat ones? (Not the things wrapped with bacon at M&Ms)
Okay, I really need red meat apparently.

Did I tell you I had made Earl Grey french toast the other day? It was over the weekend for dinner. I had some bacon to use up so we had breakfast for dinner and I wanted to try and get some more flavor in my french toast. I infused the milk with some of our new Cream Earl Grey tea. I strained the leaves out and then proceeded to make french toast the normal way. (I used to be so careful about measurements with my french toast... now? HA) It actually worked quite well. I make my french toast really dry since I don't like when they're too eggy, but even then I could still taste the tea in it. It was nice.
Tonight I suppose I will be heading out to pick up a new sugar bowl, which is a chore I really don't mind since it will involve going to HomeSense (aw shucks, eh?) And I need to figure out what potatoes Matt will appreciate with our Red Wine Pork Steaks. Since he doesn't typically like potatoes unless they are raw and eaten like apples (yah, I know) it's actually harder for me to decide than you might suppose.
And might I take this opportunity to observe that Rice Krispie Squares are so much yummier the second day :)
I actually forgot I had some of those up stairs! Maybe today won't turn out so bad after all...

Mrs. Vander Leek ;)

A good Monday

I had forgotten how much I love having blueberries in my pancakes! I wanted to make something different for breakfast yesterday outside of our normal egg/pancake/french toast rotation so I threw some frozen blueberries in and wow. I think I just love blueberries. Which is odd, since I hated them until high school. Anyway, blueberries, good. No blueberries, bad.
This Monday morning is actually going quite nicely. I'd been exhausted all last week thanks to Gabe being sick but this morning at about 7 when the alarm went off, all I wanted to do was jump out of bed and get the day started! I made breakfast, cleaned up a bit, and then ran out to pick up some pants for Gabe that I bought off Kijiji. On my way home I stopped for groceries (Co-op has 10% off Monday Madness... Madness is definately the right word to describe it) and now I'm kicking back until Matt and Gabe wake up from their morning nap. This afternoon I'm going to start my seeds for my flower garden and I might even run out and get some more seeds for a veggie garden. Oooh, and I have to bake today; we're almost all out of banana bread and through sheer determination we finished off Matt's birthday cake.
Do you ever watch Cesar Milan? You know, The Dog Whisperer? I think that guy is fantastic, I really do. I do, however, wonder what he would say about a Sheltie on that show. I grew up with Shelties in our home ever since I was born. And Old Shelties. Not age-wise really, but there's a line of Shelties that date way back that have their original mannerisms, tempermant and a certain regality. My mom's first Sheltie was a descendant of Halstor's Peter Pumpkin - a champion sire who in turn sired 160 more champions. Our dog's name was Shep and he wasn't really a dog. Not in the sense that you would normally think of. Shep didn't play fetch. He thought it was stupid that you would throw away something that you want bad enough that you'll make him go get it. He typically obeyed ever command and seemed to know what you were thinking. If you looked at him a certain way he'd respond. Now, that Old Sheltie manner is hard to find but certain qualities are passed along in all Shelties. So, do you work with them and train them differently than a lab? Certainly differently than a Bichon? Cash, our Sheltie/Australian Shepherd cross, is a smart little dog. So smart in fact that we have to tie him up because no cage, baby gate or fence can contain him. But he still has some of that Sheltie in him that if I glare at him because he's barking, he'll stop barking and lay down. My mom was saying to me yesterday that when she took Shep in for training the instructor was delighted with him and gave my mom special instructions for walking him. Her special instructions were simply to go. Just walk. Look like you know where you are going and that dog will walk with you. Really, I think everyone should own a Sheltie.
Wow, I branched out to dog's today? Well, I guess every house needs a dog, and ergo a housewife, who needs a house to in fact be a housewife, in turn necessitates a dog. Right?
Well, for my baking today I'm torn between making cookies and baking another cake. The only reason I'm thinking "cake" is simply because I want to get better at it. I want to be able to whip up a cake in no time flat that looks spectacular enough to bring to my in-law's house when they are having company. Layer cakes will be my first battle. To win I will need to master icing, structure, steadiness of hand and eventually the coveted crepe cake! Want to see a fantastic cake? http://www.marthastewart.com/photogallery/chocolate-cake-recipes#slide_3
It's called the Darkest Chocolate Crepe Cake. Pretty sweet eh?
I'm going to make it, but first I must find hazelnuts.
Well, my battery is running out, my husband woke up and I need to go wake my baby.
I hope your Monday goes well too!

Mrs. Vander Leek ;)