Signs of Spring & Cooking Q & A

I had to pick something up in the neighbourhood on Saturday evening. 

I walked to my destination and back and took these photos along the way. 

The air was nice and warm so the walk was lovely. 

Afterward I met a friend for a coffee. Of course we followed the procedures which are in place.

Crocuses are always the first signal of spring season.

I love this little outside cafe area.

This building with the bricks and bay windows has always been a favourite of mine.

The public murals on buildings (right side) is always a beautiful sight. Can you see the pussy willows?

I love the lace like effect of the branches and the brick building in background.

A beautiful sunset but I didn't have the best view of it for photo taking.

This building is a church I attended before they sold it and turned it into condos.

 

Tonight the weather was much different. It was very windy and cold. 

But I think spring is around the corner (she says hopefully).

 Joining in with Our World Tuesday 

 and

 I'm also joining in with Tuesday 4 Meme which is hosted by Annie at Cottage by the Sea and in memory of Toni Taddeo.

This week's theme is cooking.

 

1.  What is the most valuable kitchen utensil you have or one you use often and could not live without?

My most valuable kitchen utensil is probably my blender stick. I use it often but so far it is best at whipping up instant puddings and whipping cream.  I actually bought it to make blended soups but have only used it once for that purpose, lol. I also use it to whip potatoes into mashed but I prefer using a potato masher and doing it manually. 

2. Do you have any fancy gadgets like air fryers, etc in your kitchen? How are they working out for you?

I do not own an air fryer though I'd like one. My brother and his wife enjoy using theirs. I do have some appliances (juicers, food processor, Kitchen Aid mixer. George Foreman Grill and Vitamix blending machine). I  don't really use the juicers anymore because the Vitamix does it all. I love the Kitchen Aid for mixing up bread or dough for cinnamon buns or pizzas. I don't use the food processor that much except to shred cheese. I don't find it does a great job of it.  I love a George Foreman Grill but mine has seen better days. I still use it now and then. I forgot to mention the Instant Pot (IP) until someone mentioned it in the comments. I do like my IP because it softens tough meats and makes cooking beans much quicker. I also forgot to mention the rice cooker which get called into action several times a week so it has more than paid for itself.

3. Do you have any step or labor saving ideas that make cooking and meal preparation easier?

The only thing I do from time to time is advance preparation of vegetables and meats or fowl. If you chop up vegetables ahead of time and or prepare the meat a day ahead, it makes cooking much more fun. However, you still have to do the dishes. I prefer doing dishes by hand rather than loading and unloading the dishwasher.

4. What is your favorite recipe of all time? Would you share it with us?

I don't have a favourite recipe that was handed down to me. I cook mostly everything from my childhood or that we ate in my family. It is all by 'feel' rather than recipe. If I want to try a dish mom never made, I google it and try the recipe with the fewest ingredients. I'm not afraid to omit ingredients or substitute ingredients within reason (using common sense). I'm a lazy cook at heart. It needs to be easy or I won't  try it since cooking has never been my favourite thing. If I try a new recipe I will often post it on my blog so I can search for it later.

 

A Journal of Activities

 Hi friends and fellow bloggers,

Just checking in here to see how things are going with you. Since my last post I've been busy trying to get things done. I've also been getting back into reading which is one of my favourite activities.

I finished reading, The Room on Rue Amelie by Kristin Harmel.

 

It is a very touching and poignant book in so many ways. The story line involves an American woman who marries a French man and settles in Paris. Shortly thereafter the Germans occupy the city and her husband becomes involved in the resistance movement unbeknownst to her. When she finds out she wants to help too but her husband vetoes the idea. After his death she does get involved in harbouring members of the Allied forces and helps many get to safety. The rest of the story revolves around her love life and what happens to her as she is sent to concentration camp in Germany. I highly recommend the book. Now I'm reading a few others including another book by Kristen Hormel called, The Winemaker's Wife.

 

In  non-fiction books I've been enjoying a large coffee table book devoted to the late Elizabeth Taylor's jewellery collection and the stories behind the pieces. The other book I will be reading is called The New Bohemians Handbook, a book about the Bohemian style of decorating.  I will have a lot of eye candy to look at as I get ready for Christmas.

Of course this year we will not be able to get together with loved ones or invite others over for dinner. Today (Monday) the Covid 19 restrictions were extended until January and for weeks people have been encouraged to refrain from getting together with those they don't live with due to the very high Covid-19 numbers.  For me this isn't a big change because I've been doing this since last March.  The only real change is the directive to wear a mask in all common or public places.  So whenever I leave the house I must put a mask on.

Given that there isn't a need to do a lot of preparations for others this year, I have been concentrating on mailing Christmas cards both locally and abroad and finding and wrapping presents for mailing. All of that has now been done.  I just have a few presents to hand deliver to my nephew and his girlfriend. I'm waiting for one package for his present and it is supposed to be delivered in about 10 days time then we will get together in a socially distanced fashion to exchange gifts.

Before I could send my niece her Christmas parcels I had to do some sewing.  Since the sewing machine was out on the table I decided to do some much needed sewing and hemming of trousers. I've been procrastinating about it for ages but I finally completed 4 of them on Monday night.  It's so great to get this done.  I have at least 4 more to do. One of them is the red one lying on the table. I purchased it on clearance (no returns) and it is both too long and too large so it will require taking the waistband apart and redoing it all to take it in a bit. The pants is palazzo style and the material is stretchy so it requires different needles and is more finicky than I like to do. I am not a seamstress so it always takes me time to work up to the effort involved

I've also been getting a few home deliveries for things I need personally and things needed around the house.  I've been waiting a long while for some of the items and managed to get a good deal on everything. One of them is a new towel set though the hand towels haven't arrived yet. I love the blue colour. Normally I'd like blue but it is never the right shade of blue and I get tired of white or gray towels.  These towels arrived at around 5 p.m. and I washed them right away and put them out. They are very soft and larger than my usual towels.

I'm hoping to paint my bathroom soon and put up some shelving and so on. that will be for a future post whenever I get to it. On Wednesday I'm expecting a set of metal shelves on casters which I'll need to put together. I finally decided to purchase the unit after eyeing it for many months on Amazon. I'm hoping it will help me organize my kitchen a lot better and make the work flow far more efficient.

There are 4 pair of pants on the hangers.  The printed leopard is for Fall wear and the white print is palazzo summer wear, it's very nice and lightweight for those hot days.  The other two are yoga pants or athleisure wear for around the house and local errands.

It reminds me I have another purple leopard athleisure pant which I really like but it is far too big and requires significant alterations.  I think I'd like to try and make them over but they are not just straight legged design so it required more work and will have to wait until the new year.

In my effort to help the environment I never put the returnable bottles and containers in the garbage. I save them all up and take them to the recycling depot.  If I am not up to it I put them in the recycle bins or give them to the people on the streets.

I found out that one can put cans and bottles in these blue bags and return them to the recycle depot for drop off rather than wait around. The depot then deposits money into an account that you set up rather than you have to wait at the depot for them to count and give you cash.  A few weeks ago we delivered a lot of cans, juice containers and so on and I got back $20. This was after saving the containers for quite some time.

You can see the big wheelchair is still occupying space in my home. I really wish it was gone but my friends haven't fully raised the funds to purchase a new new battery and charger so the chair will be with me for awhile yet. I believe they have raised about 2/3 of the needed funds.  The woman who needs the chair, really needs the chair because she is paraplegic and has already been waiting about 8 months.  I hope they will be ready to collect it soon.

Last but not least, on Friday night I was shopping at a different grocery store than the one I usually shop at.  I ran into a friend there whom I have not seen for many months. He said he wanted to send me a gift card but since we bumped into each other he would give me cash instead.  What a nice surprise that was. I decided to buy some fresh salmon and made it for dinner on Saturday night. It was delicious.

For the remainder of this week I will continue sewing; hemming, 1 or 2 pair of pants and possibly making a few cushions inserts for the kapok filling I have.  I am hoping to sew up some muslin squares and stuff them.  These are cushion inserts only and I will have to buy or make the cushion covers later. One cannot wash kapok so if the insert covers get dirty you have to take them apart and then you get kapok fluff all over the place. For those that don't know what kapok is, it's a tree fiber that looks like cotton, feels silky to the touch and is sustainably harvested.  The other thing I want to do is wash the carpet and bring up the Christmas ornaments from storage. If time permits I hope to put together the metal shelving and organize it.

We are back to very heavy rain so I won't be going anywhere. Besides I must stay home to receive the items to be delivered.  I was able to capture these scenes on December 4th while it was still dry. These were taken around 7:20 in the morning and there was a pretty pink in the sky.

I may not be posting on line in the next week or two but as always I hope to visit some blogs.

Thank you for stopping by.  Enjoy whatever you are doing this season and keep safe.

Linking up with Our World Tuesday.

 

A Little of This and That

Here are a variety of photos from my garden. I'm reluctant to put it all to bed until the rains begin for the season of winter. We are having sunshine this week until Thursday. The rains will be here in time for Thanksgiving. It will rain for almost a week and then the sun is expected to come out again but I notice the temperatures will be quite frigid. I guess I'll need to try and get things done outside around that time.

I've been busy trying to keep up with the Fly Lady routines after participating in the Fly Lady Babysteps "course". Everything is going well, perhaps better than I expected. 

I surpassed my reading goals back in August so I've slowed down in my reading habit. I just completed the 3rd book in a series by Lesley Downer. I really enjoyed the first two books and I also enjoyed the 3rd one but not quite as much. I believe there is one more in the series.

Currently, I'm reading The Minimalist Home by Joshua Becker.  I've seen the author here and there on You Tube and I'm enjoying his book so far.   It's doubtful I'll be implementing Mr. Becker's system though I agree with his philosophy of getting rid of unnecessary things so you can enjoy the things you deem necessary.  I also just like reading about different approaches to major decluttering like the Kon Mari Method, Swedish Death Cleaning, the Fly Lady and so on).

I've got a simple dinner in mind for Thanksgiving as there will only be two of us and no guests this year. Ham (I'll save the turkey dinner for Christmas and New Year's dinners), sweet potatoes, Brussels Sprouts, maybe some scalloped potatoes too, a few crunchy veggies (crudités) instead of a salad and a pie of some kind. Perhaps cherry pie just to be different.  I always make more than enough food so we can enjoy leftovers and I can make ham and pea soup once or twice. Soup is always good but especially at this time of year when the weather starts turning cool.

What about you dear reader? What is the weather like where you are? Do you celebrate Thanksgiving? If yes, what will you have for dinner and what will you remember to give thanks for in 2020? As for me I am very grateful that my family members and friends far and wide, are safe and that I am safe. I had a bit of scare last month when a friend of mine had a family member test positive for Covid in the country of Kenya. Thankfully they had very minor symptoms and are fully recovered.

Thank you for stopping by. I'm joining in a little late with Our World Tuesday.

What Have I Been Doing?

Hello friends,

I pray you are all safe and well during these tumultuous times.

In my little corner of the world I am super busy. I am catching up with many jobs and tasks that should have been done earlier but I lacked motivation and energy so other more immediate priorities took precedence. Like the seagull in the photo above, I would rather soar high away from the mundane things in life, ha ha. Now I have to roost for a bit and get caught up.
 

I can tell you I am so glad to be moving forward and getting things organized once again. In my former life I was a super organized person.  Over the past many years though I have done a lot of travelling.  Mostly to look after my dear late mom and also to undertake the missions in Kenya so it gave me less time to keep things well organized.

I hadn't really realized just how behind I was because I managed to keep everything moving along fairly well.  But now that I no longer spend so much time in care giving and I've been travelling less, it hit me that I have too much stuff and not enough space for it all. I don't want to simply organize it anymore. I want to get rid of of a lot of it.  Those of you who declutter on a regular basis would take the view that it is a never ending process to be clutter free. I still have some work to do before I get into the maintenance mode. I will be very satisfied when that time comes.

I've been doing this decluttering project for some time now and I've reached the stage of dealing with paperwork and files.  I've made a lot of progress over the past few days.  I'm excited that this task is well in hand especially since it is one of my least favourite things to do.

Some of you may be at the point in your own life where you need to get rid of things. Others of you still like your collections and sentimental items and you don't mind the extra time it takes to maintain  them.  Some people I know have far more paper than I do and others have virtually none.  We are all different.  I  just want to pare everything right down to the essence so that there is little left for someone else to have to deal with when I am no longer here. While I'm still here, I want to be able to easily access information and not have to dig here and there.

Anyway as you can imagine the week went by rather quickly with all this work.

Kenyan Missions of Hope Update:

The Kenyan Missions of Hope also occupies a good portion of my time.  On a regular basis I communicate with various Kenyans, do a lot of financial number crunching to figure out how to meet the needs and try to keep abreast of the many changes that regularly occur in Kenya in the political, economic and health areas.

The specific mission activities included:

• follow up on the application for Eunice's pension and hire someone to do the leg work (the elderly widow who has been in hospital all year).
• preliminary investigation as to whether Eunice can be moved to her home town and what will be required.  This initiative will take considerable communications with multiple levels of medical personnel and government politicos.  It will also take a lot of prayer and wisdom.
• sourcing and buying food, medicine, vitamins for Ernest (the diabetic man who broke his leg last year)
• assisting Alvin (the young university graduate who is looking for work in Kenya).
• researching work ideas to assist Alvin and others in Kenya where the unemployment rate is staggering
• preliminary investigation on land transfer issues relating to gifted property in Kenya.
• communicating with a Kenyan doctor friend about his plans to seek employment in the UK or Canada and helping him identify the English requirement examination (process and costs available in Kenya).
• considerable research and review about Kenyan political and economic developments.
• assisting with burial costs for the widow Esther who was laid to rest a week ago Saturday. You can read more about that here. Though no one from Esther's home area would step forward to help with burial plans and costs, many of them did arrive to pay their last respects when she was laid to rest. We thank God for that. I did what I could to ensure Pastor Jonah stays safe with social distancing and face masks while he undertook the organization of the funeral arrangements.

Of concern is that people in the villages do not tend to wear masks.  I see that some at least tried to keep social distance.

On Monday July 6, 2020, the President of Kenya lifted movement restrictions (effective Tuesday, July 7th) that have been in place in Nairobi, Mombasa and and Mandera.  These restrictions were put in place to try and contain the spread of the Coronavirus. However curfew restrictions are extended for another 30 days as are public gatherings.  Masks must be worn in public and social distancing maintained.  Schools will gradually be opened as of September, bars remain closed and churches can meet for no more than one hour with a maximum of 100 people in attendance with appropriate social distancing measures.  Domestic flights will resume July 15th and international flights as of August 1st.  As of Monday, July 6, Kenya has recorded 8,067 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 164 associated deaths.

Covid 19 Update in Canada
 
Most provinces and territories in Canada are returning to business since the Covid 19 pandemic was announced.  Today. July 6, 2020, Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's Chief Medical Officer issued the following statement 

There have been 105,536 cases of COVID-19 in Canada, including 8,684 deaths. 66% of people have now recovered. Labs across Canada have tested over 2,940,000 people for COVID-19 to date. Over the past week, an average of 39,000 people were tested daily, with 1% testing positive.

I live in the province of British Columbia (BC) on Canada's west coast.

• There have been 31 new cases across B.C. since Friday.
• 6 people died from COVID-19 between Friday and Monday (all at long-term care homes).
• There have been 2,978 positive cases in B.C. since the pandemic started.
• There are 166 active cases of COVID-19 in the province.
• 16 people are being treated in hospitals, including 4 in ICU.
• 183 British Columbians have died because of COVID-19 as of July 6.
• Benefits have been extended for low-income seniors and those on disability and income assistance.
• Over the weekend, Providence Health Care announced three new deaths at one of the hospitals.

One emerging issue is that there are American tourists who have been founding touring in Canada despite being told that the country and the province of BC is not open for tourists. In BC, Americans have been given the courtesy of travelling home through the province up to Alaska. However some of them have been found off the beaten paths in areas that are clearly not on the way to Alaska. This has been going on in several Canadian provinces and sadly due to lack of compliance some Americans have now been fined.  If you have any American friends who want to travel to Canada please let them know that it is not advisable at this time.

In reading goals I finished reading  The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See. It was quite enjoyable and I learned something I did not know before about the Korean Island of Jeju where women were fishers and divers and the men stayed at home.  The novel is based on actual events and was very interesting as it is set in wartime when the Koreans had to contend first with the Japanese then with the American soldiers.  I am still reading The Power of Praise and Worship by Terry Law, Book of Signs by Dr. David Jeremiah and have started a new book called The Miracle of the Scarlett Thread by Dr. Richard Booker.  


I started watching a Netflix series called "Dead to Me" which is rather quirky kind of story about a woman named Jen whose husband dies in a hit and run and she wants to solve the crime.  I also picked up where I left off in watching Season 3 of "The Crown", a series about the British Royal Family through the decades.  Soon I hope to  begin watching Season 2 of a series called "Hanna";part thriller and coming of age drama about a young girl raised in the deep forest by her father who trained her to be a perfect assasin.  She is dispatched to Europe and pursued by an intelligence operative.

 

 I've been longing for a cat companion. I told one of my blogging friends that it has been difficult to find a cat to adopt. I just read in the news today that shelters are struggling to keep up with adoption requests and a single puppy can get up to 200 requests to adopt, similarily with other pet friends.  I submitted two adoption applications last week. I was told by one agency that I am on a back up list (they don't give you any idea who is ahead of you on the list.  I think most adoptions go through so that one probably isn't going to work out). I had another agency call and want to schedule an interview.  I've responded and am now waiting to hear back. Apparently this province often gets adoptable pets from USA and Mexico but with the borders restricted this has created a lack of adoptable pets. More news on this front as time goes by.

Last but not least, I am still taking early morning photos off the balcony. I cannot believe that it starts getting bright (like the light you get at twilight) anywhere from 4:45 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. I'm not sure how long this will last as summer solstice usually means the days get shorter by a few minutes each day.

That concludes another post for now. It is quite long as I am not posting very frequently these days. That might change in future but for now I want to focus on getting things organized however long it may take. Once the weather turns hot, if it ever does, I will not want to be dealing with decluttering.

Take care until I see you again. 

Joining in with Our World Tuesday

 

Neon Lights in the Night

 

 

I love the way this neon vintage light looks against the night sky.

They also have a beautiful painted mural on the side of the building where the seated patio is located.

Enjoy your week ahead. 

Stay safe and thank you for visiting.

Linking up with Our World Tuesday