Thursday is obviously Potato Salad Night

Yes, I did. I made potato salad. It is my deep wish, that by making this salad that I bring on Spring just that much faster! It shall be glorious!

Not really much to report today, I am reading a lot of other peoples' blogs, and not really doing much of anything else. I am also scrounging some ideas for some really great cookies to make.

I still have not replaced my broken mixer, so until I do that, I will have to just keep notes on what my ideas are. I can only thant the Great Cookie Maker in the sky, that he saw that I got all my orders out before, my machine gave up the ghost.

Onward folks..only -20C out there tonight..bah...warm weather is coming. I just know it. One spoonful of Potato salad at a time...

Talk soon...

Winter is cold, but I will take the Sunshine!

Well I have to report that my delving into making cookies without a mixer was not successful, and there will be no pictures. Here in lies where I went wrong...I do not know what recipe I was looking at, but for the first batch of Oatmeal Lace Cookies, instead of reading 1.5 tsp. of cream, I read 1.5 cups. I thought it odd at the time, but added it anyway. What it looked like was a gloopy mess of oatmeal and/or wallpaper paste. I quickly scanned the recipe again, and quickly found my idiot error. "Curses" I screamed allowed. I could not fix this...I did try though, added a bit more flour...but no...argh!!!! So away I mixed up another batch, this time not making such a foul error. Mind you the recipe is still a bit gloppy. So glop them i did onto the baking pan. The recipe said to take them out when they had stopped bubbling...so I did. I wanted to curl them, as they are thin and pliable. Nope that really did not work either. Sometimes my friends the baking gods are against you. They taste really good though...but do not even remotely look like lace. Needless to say I was disappointed. I have not a kitchen failure in a long time. And not that I am not going to try the recipe again...but today I am not baking at all. But I am scouring for other Oatmeal Lace Cookie recipes, perhaps this one was just not the right one.

The sun is shining brightly though today, and for all the coldness which we are experiencing -22C with the windchill, I am fortunate to live in a home which has floor to ceiling windows and for the better part of the day the sun, bathes me in its glory. It fills me with inspiration in these often dark days of winter.

When checking my email today, I had a bit of shock. I thought I had deleted an email address, from a person I no longer wished to hear from and her often tasteless emails (which she sends en masse to anyone and everyone). You see we had a falling out. One that never will be recovered, as I was the brunt of one of her tasteless decisions. But that my friends is another story, one that i am sure will find itself here oneday. But, as I remarked, it is a gorgeous day, and I will not go down that road at this moment. So anyway, back to the email, there it was in all its boldness. Of course I opened it, and of course my anger returned. As one must block the email, not just delete it. So this is what i did. Problem solved. Bad taste in mouth is now removed.

I watched the Madness of King George today. If you have not seen it, I recommend it highly. It lead me to Google him and find out more of such king. Did you know he had 15 children? Did you know that he never took a mistress, and that he loved his wife dearly? Did you know that he was the longest ruling monarch until Victoria?

I had a photoshoot with my ring yesterday. I received said ring from my beloved, for Christmas. It had to go away and be properly sized, and I missed it. I have never had a ring of this grandeur before. Imagine that! In fact I do not wear much if any jewellery usually, as it makes me fidget. But when I put this ring on, (and maybe because it was properly sized) it just sits there being pretty. I am truly in awe of it..I look away from it usually...

Enjoy...and I shall be back soon...

More Snow

Schockingly there is more snow today, and there was yesterday as a matter of fact. Hmmm, I kind of remember the weatherman reporting on Friday, that we would miss the snow, and more of Southern Ontario would get snow, not here in Toronto. My question is: "When do weatherpeople lose their jobs?", what catastrophe would they not have to predict to actually not lose their jobs?...it is a wonder to me.

Since my mixer is still broken, I have been researching, cookies that i could do without it...and have found a treasure trove of them. I will execute this mission this afternoon. I am making Oatmeal Lace cookies..and a wonderful hermit recipe I found...yum.

But for now, I have packed up my camera bag, and am setting out to capture any snowbound beauties out there...do not be shocked if i somehow incorporate birds into my photography. ha ha ha...they are beautious!

It is mild out there...still snowing mind you...but mild...

talk to you soon...

Review

Okay so here is my review of the Black Swan, in one word...DISTURBING...not a psychological thriller! Not that my opinion counts, but I will be left scarred from this movie. I will never be able to look at a hangnail the same, nail snippers, nor a nail file. Nor will I be able to look at a lovely ballerina, and not think that she is psychotic in some way. Poor ballerinas, they have had such a bad wrap. And this movie does them no good will. Bulemia, is rampant with our star, as is her affliction of scratching herself raw, something that we are led to believe has been there forever with this wisp of a girl. And whose mother actually at one point puts socks on her hands while she sleeping. Her mother is a Stage Mom. Guilting her daughter into thinking that she is the reason she was a failed ballerina. Oh yes, the mother sits in a room all day and paints pictures of her face smiling(I am sure there is some reason for this demented behaviour, but i am sorry, I do not know why??!!), and keeps in contact with someone at the Ballet Academy named Suzie (who we never see). I know, I know it is all about the control over her daughter..and the whole Psychological thrill of the whole thing..but it is just not that great of a movie. I did admire how Natalie Portman, did indeed look like an anorexic ballerina though, truly I did. And I did get the blaring juxtaposition of how Nina (Natalie) was always dressed as the pure virgin, and everyone else was usually dressed in black. The girl on girl action, in my minds eye is why the film is getting the attention. Even if your male date is bored with the movie, I am sure he will like these little interludes. I must say I have to link this movie in with Brokeback Mountain. And ask why the critical hype? I do not get it! I am a well read person, university educated, a mom, have lead an interesting and somewhat travelled life. Why do I not grasp, these hyped up movies? That is what disturbs me the most. When the end did finally come to this disturbing movie, I looked at my daughters and sort of guffawed. They too were in a quandry as to why the hype, and as I looked at the faces of the people in the theatre, they too were shaking their heads and smiling. I felt comforted in this. I knew that they too, did not get the hype. Oh we all understood the story, we did. But Oscarworthy, or even hypeworthy, left our whole theatre audience that evening just shaking our heads. Although, when she does turn into the Black Swan, it is a pretty cool affect.

Are these ballerinas that I caught in the park last summer neurotic, they seemed to be having a nice time...Natalie Portman, never seems to be having a nice time...ever...

And I prefer to remember my White Swans like this:

Much nicer...

Black Swan Night

Tonight I am going with my two daughters to see Black Swan. I hope it lives up to its hype. Movies are expensive, and I hate to think that I wasted my money. The last movie that I went to that had so much hype like this, was Brokeback Mountain. I remember specifically going with my "date" (now my husband, and best friend), and as the movie ended, saying to him"I am sorry". ha ha ha. It has been a great joke between us since, and we have never been to a movie since. Although he did say, it was time to break the curse and go see "the kings speech", so we shall see if we do go.

So wish me luck with this one, and I shall have a full report of it next time that I blog.

Photography is my passion. Birds seem to be my passion too (apparently)..I love capturing their motion, their character and their boldness...enjoy...

Day after the "would be" storm

Is it just me, or is it the day after a huge storm, the sun is glorious and forgiving? The fear that was imposed on the Toronto community was huge. Schools, and workplaces close before a single flake hit the ground. They predicted 30cm, we received maybe 10-15cm, depending on where you lived in the city. I made a point of watching the news last night to see what our weatherman would say...he was subdued to say the least. We all know in our hearts, if we were that "wrong" about our jobs, we would either be put on notice, or out and out fired. This link, to a hilarious bit by CBC, pretty much sums up, what Toronto is like, when a storm has come, or is predicted. We can be, and are ridiculous...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCS06rbL5hI

I managed to kill my mixer again. This is the 2nd one in a year. My business has picked up, and I think it is time to invest in a heavy duty mixer. A Kitchenaid, or something along those lines...alas i am on the hunt for a good deal...

So far this is a sampling of what i have done. I also have completed these:

I am happy with my work so far, and will be even more excited to use the boxes, that I have made from recycled books...

Oh Valentine's how I do love thee...

The Boxes

So, I come from a family of recyclers.  Saving bread ties, saving pop tops, to creating things from nothing.  We sew, we cook, we create.  Now I never caught on to the sewing thing, but I can honestly say within my immediate family, we all know how to cook.  I think what inspired us the most was my Mom's ability to make something out of nothing.  And from there we all just tagged along.  You really do not know how great a cook is, until you visit other peoples homes.  Or at least that is how I felt when I was growing up. 

So for my recycling project, and my huge outcry from my last blog.  I decided to make boxes.  Now this is not an original idea, as my Aunt VeeVee, has been making them forever.  Mostly for handmade jewellery, etc.  But nevertheless, with my pages and pages of salvaged books.  I sent her an email, asking her how she made them.  And before long there was an answer in my email, telling me how she made them, and before long I was caught up in the fury of making them.  One better than the other...it was magnificent.  With these boxes I plan to use them as cookie boxes for Valentines Day...let me know what you think?!