Friday Storms On The Plains

You would think that living in Saskatchewan I would be used to scenes like this.

The ones where you can barely see down the hill into a valley due to driving snow. Well today actually started off very nicely, the sun was shining, the temperature was rising, and then..... The snow came. It started at about 11 am and continued non-stop until almost 6 this evening. Add in some lovely wind and there were white out conditions on the highways. Time to stay in and curl up.

I did stay in for most of the day. Harvey and I had an appointment with our financial adviser at the bank and so ventured out before the worst of the storm hit. Got our business done in record time and headed home.

Once home I found out that Kurt was storm stayed for another day and night at his friends. Hope he manages to get on the road home tomorrow. I did tell him I want a call when he leaves and a call when he arrives home.

I have a few pictures of my knitting and corking projects to share with all of you.

This is my prototype infinity scarf.

Next time I will make it a bit wider, but I do love the way the knit drapes.

Here is my corking project.

Just a tiny bit of what I hope will be a lovely rug for the dining room. Almost done this cream coloured ball and hopefully adding another colour very soon. I have a ball of green almost the colour of the afghan this is lying on which I will use next.

I have been continuing my sub goal of organizing recipes. I managed to do another small pile of those loose papers I have copied off the net. Some I tried and loved, some just did not strike my fancy. As a friend often says "Little bites of the elephant."

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Thursday Tid Bits

Today was one of our nicer days this week. The temperature is rising even as I type this and it will be in the single digits by tomorrow morning. Perfect for a nice walk.

I started with my first goal today. I managed to go through a small stack of my loose recipes. Some did not strike my fancy and so headed into the recycle box immediately. Others got written on the index cards and put in the album.

I even tried a new recipe out. I know I was going to make a stir fry from the leftover pork, but I found a wonderful recipe to use up that leftover pork. The recipe was called Zucchini Pork Bake, but as I must have used up the last bag of grated zucchini in my freezer I subbed grated carrot. Harvey loved it!!!

This is what it looked like before baking. After baking it had a lovely golden crust, but of course as is usual for me I forgot to take a picture.

Sharing the recipe with you here..... With my subs in brackets.

Zucchini Pork Bake

2 tsp oil
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped apple (I used one whole apple with peel)
1/2 diced orange sweet pepper (this is my own addition as I needed it gone from the crisper)
2 cups grated zucchini (I used grated carrot instead)
1 cup finely chopped leftover cooked pork
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
3/4 cup flour
1/3 cup oil
4 bacon slices, cooked crisp and crumbled (I left this out)
4 large eggs (I used extra large and only used three)
1/4 tsp salt

Heat first amount of oil in frying pan. Add onion, apple, and diced pepper. Cook 5 to 10 minutes, stirring often until onion is softened. Put into a large bowl.

Add remaining ingredients. Mix well. Turn into greased 9 X 9 pan. Smooth top. Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes until golden and wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean. Cover and let stand 10 minutes. Serve.

Hope you give this a try.  We actually have enough left for another meal. Got to love it when you manage to get a meal cooked ahead.

Thought I would share one more of the ornaments we got while on our vacation. This one was picked up at Roslyn Chapel and is pewter.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Goals, Goals and More Goals

It is the time of the year when I set goals for the upcoming year. I always seem to list more than I can reasonably accomplish for some reason. This year I am breaking my goals into monthly challenges to myself...... If the monthly challenge works the goal should have become a habit and I should be able to continue with that goal for the rest of the year. At least that is what I am hoping.

My goal for the upcoming year is to try one new recipe every two weeks. I get stuck in a rut sometimes and just fall back on the tried and true favorites of my family. This is the goal I am beginning with this month.

Along with this goal a sub goal is to organize all those loose recipes just waiting to be tried into my  recipe books. After all all those loose recipes were at one time things I was going to try.

I have stacks of index cards. Just like this one.

Lots of pens.

And of course I have been collecting these as well.

You know the type of album that you can put those index cards in a pocket.

Hmmm, can you tell I have been planning this for awhile?

I will keep you all informed as to how this is going. Shouldn't be too difficult for me to start off with this...should it?

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

My Wishes For You All

May all your dreams come true.

Tomorrow I hope to share my goals for the year. I always work on them New Years Eve and fine tune them as I go through the year.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Menu Monday and A Little Bit More

Here are my menus for the upcoming week. Lots of using up items and trying to get the meat freezer cleaned out a bit. Things are getting lost in there and I am refusing to lose food to freezer burn.

Monday

Leftover Ham warmed up. Served with potato salad and cole slaw.

Tuesday

Pork Chops in mushroom sauce, mashed potatoes, and green beans.

Wednesday

Clean out the fridge.

Thursday

Leftover Pork made into a stir fry using onions, peppers, mushrooms, carrots and celery. Served over noodles.

Friday

Tuna Casserole

Saturday

Chicken Legs with Back attached. Cooked in the oven, served with rice and peas.

Sunday

Beef Roast, roast potatoes and roast carrots.

So there are my menus for the week. I am really hoping to stick to what I have planned. Perhaps not on the night I have written them down but near enough.

I am also going to share some of the tree decorations I bought while on our vacation to the UK.

Now while browsing the gift shop at the Tower of London we came across this set of ornaments.

A collection made up of Henry the VIII and his 6 wives..... These were made out of felt and slightly (well a bit more than slightly) tacky. They looked as if children had made them and for what the cost was I would have expected a bit more care taken in their making.

Looking a bit more I found this.

 Slightly less tacky, in fact very well made and the price at about the $8.00 mark was just about right. I did have Kurt asking me what on earth Henry and his wives had to do with Christmas. My response was "They celebrated the holiday season as well." Seemed to do the trick.

I have some more ornaments I picked up at the Tower shop and will share a couple with you here. These are small miniatures of things found around the British Isles, sort of icons.

A Beefeater, not a very good picture but he is at the top of my tree. Perhaps I can get a better picture later.

Her Majesty's Mail.

One more of the set.

A call box. These are disappearing I am told....What a pity.

A lot less tacky than the felt ornaments and they really go with my red and silver tree.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

Sunday Ramblings

The end of the year and the end of the holiday season is almost upon us.

I actually started my 58th year today. Looking back at my 57th year I see both joy and sorrow. I lost a good friend, but also gained the chance to meet someone in person. I got to travel to 2 other countries, 4 if you count the fact that 3 countries make up the United Kingdom. I learned to loom knit, and even managed to finish a few projects started a long time ago.

I grew closer to Harvey and learned to live with him being around (it really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be).

All in all it was a wonderful year and I am so looking forward to the adventures that this year will bring. Both the joys and the sorrows, for after all it is the sorrows that make the joys that much sweeter.

Now I will share with all of you my birthday presents. Of course since for some odd reason my family wraps my birthday gifts in Christmas paper and place them under the tree, you all know when I unwrap them.

Harvey bought me two more angels for my collection. These from a man who says I have too many angels to begin with.

Kris and Kurt had bought me a Kobo ereader a couple of years ago for Christmas. No matter how often Kris tells me that using my credit card on line is just fine especially on a secure site, he knows I won't purchase anything.

So..... Kris gave me a gift card to purchase more books this year. This will sure come in handy as I am running out of reading material.

Kurt takes full advantage of my love of knitting and tried to find me something to use for that purpose.

So my gift from him was this knitting bowl. I am sure enjoying not chasing my yarn across the floor!!

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.

My Guys Really Do Know Me

Yesterday I talked about Christmas and mention how the men in my life really know me. Thought I would share some pictures with you all of the gifts that I got.

I love sparkly things, kind of like a raven in that respect and over the years Harvey has indulged my craving. This year my favorite jewelry store is closing and had some great deals (where am I going to send Harvey for my sparklies now???) and Harvey did some shopping. This is what he came home with for Christmas.

 A beautiful two tone gold bracelet!! Just what I wanted.

Kurt indulged my love of angels by buying me these.

These are now sitting in my curio cabinet with all the others he, Kris, others and Harvey have bought me over the years.

Kris, now, noticed the last time he was home that I was running low on things that made my house smell nice in the evening.

A whole bunch of lovey smelling candles (hmm, better dust under here as there seems to be some build up that I did not notice until now. I have already started burning a few.

At our family gathering I "stole" this basket of goodies after my gift was taken away. Hand soap, lotions, scrubbing gloves and cloths. Perfect for the winter when I need to pamper myself once in awhile.

I even opened my birthday gifts as both the boys will be gone when my birthday rolls around. They do love to see how I like what they give me. I will share those tomorrow as that is my birthday.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.