Picture update!

Combine some pretty wicked tendonitis in my arms and a sick Lenny to take care of, I haven't blogged much at all this week! Nevertheless I have been taking a bunch of photos as things have been going along.

Here's a picture of a meal I made once Lenny's tummy was feeling normal again. Flank steak with spinach, pine nuts, and panko rolled in with some delicious sweet potato fries on the side.


Next up is a picture of me at the Victoria Park lighting party. Lenny hadn't been out of the house at all this week, so a Friday night trip to Williams followed by a 10 minute walk through the newly lit park was a great outing. The park is so beautiful and the hot coffee helped soooo much.

Now onto Saturday's adventures. We drove up to an area of London we're not too familiar with to see a Santa Claus parade and came across Ungers. It's a really nice little market that looks like it's been around for a loooong time. They also house the "London Icecream Company" which I've heard of but never tried. Something to keep in mind the next time I'm missing the now defunct Angelo's market.

Our trip was to see the Santa Claus Parade as Lenny has never been to one!?!?!?! I was really excited to run into one of my work colleagues, Sasha, and his family outside of Ungers. The parade was way more fun with excited kids around.

Here's Lenny with an antique ambulance! Cue ghostbusters music!

Lenny also wanted his picture taken infront of the choo choo train. This event was way to cute.

Next up we have a tractor - which I'd like to point out - has a bear plastered to the grill. Is this a normal thing? I've never noticed it before but almost all of the trucks had teddy bears strapped to the grill... a little disturbing but also mildly hilarious at the same time :)

This picture is a John Deere float for Lenny's stepdad, Mark. Mark, you would've loved the high participation of John Deere products in this parade.

This was my favourite. Although I despise LTC, they do have an Awesome BEAR-themed Christmas/Holiday bus this year :)

The Mustangs Marching Band! I didn't see any of my friends performing (guess they don't all do every parade) but it was still fun to see them do all their choreographed aweseomeness.

And what you've all been waiting for, Ho Ho!

Lenny's first picture with a Santa Claus Parade Santa.

All in all the parade was a great experience and was the perfect length of time given the temperature.

Next up is a picture of where we parked, Sweeney's Barbershop. I laughed out loud. If you're not sure why, google "Sweeney Todd."

This weekend I found some great purchases. One being this roaster for only $20. We actually cook a fair amount of roasts and they never seem to a) fit in our current pan or b) do very well without a resting rack, which this one comes with. It also matches our pot set so I'm pretty excited. Lenny is too, although not as much, as you can probably tell by the picture.

My mom sent me a HomeSense giftcard in the mail (AWESOME!!) so I promptly went out and bought these purdy wintery towels that say Pretty without being overwhelmingly girly. They'll also be useable all winter long so that's nice. The second item is a group of higher quality socks. My feet are always cold and I suspect it has to do with my inferior sock choices. Hopefully these new Christmas socks will do the trick!

Last but not least I have a picture of me wearing my Aunt Donna's sweater from c. 1970s. My grandma knit it and somehow it got passed down on to me. It's soooooooooo warm and therefore awesome.

Well that's it for now. I'm off to enter the happy world of marking and, hopefully, the Amazing Race!

New watches!

Lenny and I are so excited for our new Garmin Forerunner watches! We got the BEST deal at amazon.ca thanks to their Black Friday sales. I've been timing using a watch that I've had for well over 10 years and am really looking forward to some more gadgets on it.

In other news, Len is doing quite a bit better now. He's fever has finally broken and now he's just pretty fatigued from all the coughing fits. We were planning on going to see the lighting of the lights in Victoria Park tonight but have modified the plans to watch it from inside a coffee shop. Should be fun. :)

I've been stumbling a lot of websites lately and thought some of you might get a chuckle out of this:


And in closing, a really happy video that some former classmates of mine put together in Welland, Ontario:




Happy Friday everyone!

Poor Lenny...

This is day four of his fever over 100. Poor guy. He said this morning that he didn't sleep at all last night but as soon as I sat down beside him finishing my breakfast and checking e-mails, he fell right asleep. I think I'm going to postpone getting ready for school...

"In Russia, Bears Backwards You!"

- this was one of the many nonsensical quotes from Len as his fever reached upwards of 103. He did go to the doctors this morning and got some antibiotics so hopefully he'll be getting better soon. Although I enjoy the house being 26 degrees celcius, I don't think we should be keeping that up... yay fevers!

Today I had a rehearsal with my accompanist to work on the Telemann F Minor sonata. YouTube has a fairly good performance of this piece if you're interested:



This afternoon I counted 1000 articles of clothing at the store, tagged them, and put them out. Since getting home we've pretty much just been cuddling on the sofa bed watching tv shows, answering e-mails, and doing laundry.

Sorry there's nothing much else to share today.

A low-key day

Soo not much is new. Lenny did a great job of recapping yesterday's activities but because he's been so sick today we didn't end up doing much at all really. Here are some pictures from the day:

I did the groceries today and picked up Lenny's favourite fruit, watermelon, and then decided to sweeten it up a bit. I ended up making a gigantic fruit salad that we can eat over the next couple of days. It's not the most seasonal or inexpensive thing I've ever done, but it certainly is delicious!
I made some lentil-carrot-leak soup tonight for dinner. It turned out pretty well although the leeks are hurting my throat a bit... turns out that I must be developing an allergy to them to. It doesn't surprise me that much because they're so close to onions, but geesh, swelling hands just from chopping them is a bit much! In more positive news, Lenny's mom brought us the cutest penguin cookie jar also featured in the above photo.

This final picture is just for kicks. Lenny is so sick that he was eating cookies off of my laptop! My laptop people! haha poor guy gets so loopy when he's feverish that he doesn't know what way is up.

Tomorrow holds the first rehearsal with my accompanist since September followed by four hours of work at the beloved clothing store. Hopefully I don't get sick and Lenny fares ok without me!

Guest post:: It Feels Like There's a Drummer in My Head

Hello,

This is a guest post by Lenny. I do many things, and most recently, I've come down with a high fever and chills. I spent the better part of last night and this morning baking myself between heaters, blankets and warm clothing.

Enough about being sick though. Yesterday's trip to Fire Roasted Coffee Roastery was *the* best coffee-related experience of my life. I usually describe myself as having coffee flowing through my veins, depicting my life-time love (read: addiction) to coffee.

The tasting program was designed by the master roaster himself, Patrick. He lined up 10 or so different coffees they roast, some blends and some pure bean roasts. We got interesting stories of where the particular beans come from, and what factors influence their flavour and their roasting. As well, we were given cups to sample the coffee (these were unlimited samplings!).

I discovered they supply a blend of coffee - a 70%/30% split, post-blend - of Sumatran Gayo and Ethiopia Harrar beans. These two coffees by themselves were everything I look for in a red wine - bold palatte, heavy body and subtle flavour accents. Of the single roast coffees however, I would have to stick with the Harrar if I wanted a slow sipping cup, consisting of smoky, almost achieving roasted marshmallows over a campfire flavour. The Sumatran Gayo on the other hand was not so bold in flavour, though still a dark roast, and tended to be more delicate on the palate providing grassy, earthy hints to the coffee.

I did not buy any coffee that day, only because I bought freshly roasted beans the previous night, but I now have a wishlist and will be back soon.

Unfortunately, there was not much to say about the Carolinian winery. The building was more designed to sell wine accessories and Christmas decorations, with an inexpensive restaurant attached. We both decided to have quiche for lunch, which was tasty, and chased it down with a Riesling and Cranberry wine. The Riesling was surprisingly flavourful, thought barely sweet. I really had no expectations of the quality of local wine, but it wasn't disappointing. The cranberry wine was delicious - very sweet, with a blush appearance. I couldn't determine the main body of the wine - though I suspect it was similar to a Vidal wine.

Well that's all for me. I've worked up an appetite for coffee. Cheers!

Cooking with Heather

So yesterday when I made my favourite dish of recent years, I thought I'd take a picture and share the easy peasy recipe with you. I got it from a Clean Eating magazine a while back.

Ingredients:
- 2 bell peppers, chopped
- 1/2 chopped onion; sometimes I use green onion (you could adjust this amount... I'm allergic so I don't use much at all)
- 1 chicken breast, chopped
- Mrs. Dash Southwest Chipotle spice mix
- wraps
- cheese and/or salsa and/or sour cream

Directions:
- Warm up 2 tbsp of EVOO in a frying pan. Cook chicken pieces.
- Add peppers and onion. Steam with a lid (or fry with the lid off) until peppers are soft.
- Season with Mrs. Dash as everything is approaching doneness
- Put in on a wrap. Top with shredded cheese and/or salsa and/or sour cream
- Enjoy!



In other exciting news, I've done a bit of shopping in recent days. I picked up this sweet 30-minute recipes book at Home Sense for only $10! It's got quite a bit of inexpensive fancy dishes so multiple plusses for that. Other items purchase were some new Smart Wool socks from the Running Room last night during the Richmond Walk. They're soooooooo warm and awesome. Tonight we went to a Christmas Bazaar at the London Christian Academy and got some Christmas Blend Coffee from Las Chicas Del Cafe and mini-oreo cupcakes. Lenny's french pressing the coffee now so I'll have to let you know how that goes later. I also picked up some jewelery for Lenny's formal end-of-year party for only $14!

This afternoon I made macaroons. They're surprisingly very very easy and quick to make. They also look very nice on this new Christmas plate I got.

Well now that I've successfully avoided my paper due at 12 midnight tonight, I suppose it's time to get on that.

Tomorrow's excitement: a morning coffee class, a lunch at a winery, and dinner with Lenny's family who are coming down for a visit. Should be nice!

No body informed me...

... that the pumpkin spice latte was a really short-term item at Starbucks! Lenny and I walked (in the rain no less) to our local Starbucks to cheer me up tonight, and alas they are no longer serving pumpkin spice lattes. I had a peppermint mocca one instead but it doesn't hold a candle to my dear pumpkin spice latte. Thankfully, I think Second Cup and Williams have not fallen off the band-wagon yet so there's still hope. Tomorrow night I'm hoping we'll be able to go to the Richmond Street Christmas Walk which will allow me to check out the Williams.

Not too much else is new or exciting. I'm recovering well from my lung disease and despite my bass-like voice, I'm feeling considerably more chipper. Tomorrow should be helpful as I get to be home all morning and only have a lesson in the afternoon.

Update on the day

So things didn't get much more interesting today. I did end up with a solid 30 minute practice session and it actually went fairly well. I think I need to develop some sort of schedule or practice regimen though as having only done six 30-minute practice sessions in 2 1/2 months is not quite going to get me the successful completion of this degree. Hmmm.

I also spent some time searching for interesting things to do in the London area and came up with the following list of planned events:

• The Christmas Walk on Richmond (sales at the downtown stores + free hot drinks + free wagon rides = lots of inexpensive fun)
  
• Coffee Class at the Fire Roasted Coffee Roastery (more for Len, but I'm sure it will be interesting at the very least)
• The Carolinian Winery Christmas Open House (had no idea there was a winery in our area so this could be interesting)
• The lighting of all the Christmas lights and scenes in downtown Victoria Park (the evening of the 26th)
• The Hyde Park Christmas Parade... could be fun; I haven't been to a parade in probably 10 years
• Visiting the CP Holiday Train
• Checking out the London Christmas Craft Show (my FAVOURITE! I've gone three or four years in a row now)
• The Wortley Village Christmas Show
• Friend Sonja Gustafson's Christmas CD release party (check out her website for a listen if you're not familiar!)
• Christmas at McCully's Farm
• An Eldon House Christmas

I doubt we'll make it to all, or probably even half, of these events but their nearly all free (or a max of $10 pp). I'm getting so stir-crazy with this sickness that going out and seeing other people is a very exciting prospect right now. We'll see how I feel once I'm a little healthier with more work on my plate.

Well I think that's probably enough info for now. Ciao ciao until tomorrow.

Hmmmm

Today is a tough day to get started. I really don't want to do school work or anything else for that matter. I'm really frustrated with still being sick and not having a lot of motivation to really do anything at all. The weird thing is that I anticipated that this close to the end of school I'd be kind of antsy to get school over with that I would be working like a mad woman. Unfortunately I'm just wishing I was over years ago and not doing much to help pass the 5.5 months left. I'm sure I'm not alone here...

Hmm that is all for now I think. Just wanted to put that out there. Maybe some magical motivation will trickle back.

Adventures in St. Jacobs

An odd place to start, but here's a picture of Lenny's new sweater that I got him the other day. Fleecy Western wear; there's nothing quite like it!


Yesterday Lenny and I drove to KW where Paula lives and Keely was visiting from Ottawa. We started out with an awesome breakfast buffet at the Crossroads restaurant in Elmira and then headed to the market. Here's a picture of the gang entering the market:

We bought some delicious dried summer sausage, a spaghetti squash (only $1!), half a bushel of McIntosh apples (yum!), some fudge, and some coffee. The coffee place had a really neat counter that Lenny liked so I took a picture:
After the market we headed into the village to check out some of the shops including this fantastic chocolate shop:


Len and I bought a truffle each and Keely got some delicious candy cane fudge that she was kind enough to share bits of :)

Next up was the art stores in the silos and one of Paula's favourite shops:


While we were waiting for the girls to pay for their purchases, Lenny and I took the opportunity for a photo shoot outside the doors. These were the top two:
That pretty much recounts our visit to St. Jacobs. It was nice to see my sisters and hear a bit about what's new in their lives. Paula will be heading to Boston until Christmas time as of Thursday and Keely might be moving job branch locations in Ottawa. Sorry the visit didn't produce much more exciting info than that!

When we got home we started putting up the Christmas decor. Here is the now infamous bear tree with some pretty white lights, gold musical instrument ornaments, and some red bulbs:


I also have, as promised, a before and after picture of our fireplace mantle. Here's the fall look:


And here's the Christmas look:Health-wise my cough has come back again. Today was definitely a step in the wrong direction. boo. I have a follow-up appointment with the doctor on Tuesday so we'll see if things get better or worse in that time.

My school projects are going well. I actually got a fairly respectable amount of work on an HR assignment done today. It will certainly be nice to have the anxiety that comes with looming assignments vanish once I finish it; hopefully tomorrow sometime... and then on to the next project!

Well I think that's a long enough of a post for now. Going to go check on our nummie roast beef dinner that's cooking in the oven. Yay Lenny's mad cooking skillz!

C is for cookie

Well I'm still not feeling that much better unfortunately. My cough is soundly significantly less pop-rocksy than in recent times but it's still far from over. Tomorrow I'm planning on spending some time with my sisters Paula & Keely in the St. Jacobs area and I'm hoping with all hope that I'll have enough energy and breath to make it through the day with ease.

Today I made Maple Leaf Cookies from Marthastewart.com. Turns out breathing in flour dust is realllly annoying when you're not breathing well at the best of times. The cookies took probably too much effort for how they came out, even though they're a pretty tasty version of a shortbread cookie. I ended up substituting salted butter for unsalted because I stupidly thawed the wrong pound of butter. I think the taste was balance off with the use of whole-wheat instead of white dough. All in all a tasty treat; it is rather hard to go wrong with sugar and butter anyways right?

I did a lot of shopping today. It's pretty much what I do when I'm waiting for Len and trying to kill some time out of the house. Turned out we didn't get to spend any one-on-one time today so a lot of shopping was had. I picked up some stockings and stocking hangers, red and gold tree ornaments (only $2.99 for 12 at Jysk!), a Western sweater for Lenny (only $21, regularly $42), some groceries (more goat cheese -- so yummy!), and some new pajamas (on sale for $12 at Zellers). I also finally bought some baskets for the kitchen. I've been wanting to get some for a loooooooong time but never had the monies. Here's a close-up of our new baskets:
And a pair of before & after photos:I'll post some pictures of the Christmas decor once it is up. I'm kind of waiting until after the St. Jacobs market tomorrow. Lenny wants to wait until Dec. 1. We'll see who wins. I suspect it will be the person that spends more time actually in the house...

As for a final picture, here is a nummy turkey burger cooked on our George Foreman grill. This grill thingy is great. There's nothing quite like being able to cook a piece of meat so quickly. woot. We certainly have a lot of kitchen appliances in comparison to the average bear, but we do use almost all of them on a regular basis.
Aside from shopping, I also did a lot of Stumbling through the internet (don't worry, I did a fair amount of school work today too). I came across this wedding proposal and the girl's surprise just warmed my heart:




I should say as a side note too that there's a jewelery store in the mall that's closing down Dec. 31 and everything is 15-50% off. I looked at a lot of pretty diamond rings and half considered buying myself an engagement-ish ring.

Well that is all for now. Going to see if tvpc.com has TLC up and running again.

Nomnom with Heather

Yesterday was another day where approximately 12 hours were spent on the couch being semi-comatose so today's blog will be a recap of the most exciting thing in life right now -- food!

First up is a pizza I handmade for dinner last night. It has fresh dough from Remark, the new alternative to Angelo's, goat cheese, sundried tomatoes, a pesto base, and some green pepper. It was delicious!


Next up is a delicious grilled cheese sandwich I had for lunch. Delicious dark rye bread with some cheddar cheese topped of with some carrots and ranch dip. Nom nom nom!

Finally we have some delicious "crunchy yogurt" -- vanilla greek yogurt, pomegranate arils (thank you Remark), walnuts, and some oats.


In closing I will share this awesome picture of Lenny having breakfast. Len has been working a lot these days and I'm super bored and lonely to start with. Anyhoo, this picture will remind me of his goofiness when he's gone for 13+ hour days. I also needed to test out the camera after leaving it in my purse with an open water bottle... All is well though.

TToday I checked out Kingsmills Christmas items and let me just say I LOVE this store. There are some beautiful things for your home in there. Too bad things are a little too expensive for our budget. That aside, I kind of fell in love with Vera Wang dishes. Who knew Vera Wang made dishes?

Well that's about it for excitement. Looking forward to a trip to the St. Jacobs farmer's market on Saturday with Keely and Paula (and Len). I can't wait to see all the beautiful stuff for Christmas!

Oh Boy! My Favourite!

This makes me smile so much - http://www.joke-archives.com/dogs/dogdiary.html

Sick - Day Five & Six

Yesterday was not all that exciting hence the lack of a blog. After dropping Lenny off at work, I drove to Hamilton to visit the music specialist I've been seeing about my tendonitis and playing issues. Thankfully the construction is finished on the 403 and I made it there with no major traffic slowdowns -- a first in over three years I think. I arrived an hour early and tried to find the downtown area to visit some cute shops but had no luck. I should have checked it out online before I left but I thought I had a general idea where it was. Unfortunatley all I found was a really run-down old downtown. Ah well. The doctor's appointment went really well. The good news is that my hands and arms are becoming more normal. The bad news is that I'm a lot more tense than I should be. Anyhoo, nothing that a bit of meditation and destressing can't fix.

Today was a day of waiting. I had an appointment on campus at 11:15 that was supposed to last for an hour but ended up only going for 45 minutes. Then I had to wait for my 1:30 class fighting with the terrible wireless access on campus. Class was supposed to last for two hours but he let us go after an hour because we were all looking like zombies or something. Then I had to wait until 3:40 for my doctors appointment. To top off my day of waiting, the doctor was 40 minutes late. On the plus side he was a bassoon player (really?!) and sympathized with my lungs sounding like pop rocks. I am now the proud new owner of an inhaler and some antibiotics. Hopefully this means this will be the last sick post!
In other news I've started a year-end project on Sabena Airlines management when they were transitioning from a private to public enterprise. If you've got anything to add to that, feel free to send it along.

In closing I will share this cute website I stumbled upon today: http://custom-figure.com/kinds-of-labs.html

Sick - Day Four

Well I still sound like I'm suffering from big time pneumonia. No news there. I'm feeling less tired today though and didn't even spend the extra hour of daylight savings sleeping.

Today was a pretty productive and fun day. This morning we decided to go out to Cora's for breakfast and we managed to score a table before the 9 am church-rush; a rarity for us. I enjoyed a sunshine panini-crepe and Len had a western crepe-omelette. I scarfed down lots and lots of fruit and finished it all off with a delicious fruit smoothie. Nom nom nom. :)

While Len digested and went to the gym to throw around some weights, I managed to wash all of the windows on the first floor inside and out (only two, but they're big!) and measure them for some plastic shrink wrap. I also got both bathrooms cleaned today -- it's so good to be able to move around again!

This afternoon Len suggested we head out to St. Mary's for some fall adventures. St. Mary's is a small town north of London, about equadistant between London and Stratford.There are a lot of really pretty stone buildings and some really neat architecture to look at. There are also a bunch of craft shops and independant stores including this delightful chocolote shop next to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame (click the picture to enlarge).
We took a walk along the water and watched some ducks and people walking their dogs. Here's a picture of me relaxing with some tea and a picture of Len checking out the ducks.
For dinner we went to a cute little diner and enjoyed some burgers and sweet potato fries. Ah comfort food, how delicious you are! They had some beautiful Christmas boughs outside and it made me a little homesick. Reminded me of when we used to make homemade wreaths with the cedar trees outside the front of the house in Algonquin. Sigh.


On the way back to London, we decided to check out the movie Due Date. It was really cute and definitely significantly better than the 39% Rotten Tomatoes gave it. Lenny laughed a lot and I tried but it would only result in large coughing fits... but it was still a really fun couply time. To make it even more awesome, we actually didn't have to pay for one of our tickets: when we went up to the machine, there was already one sitting there printed out and unclaimed. We picked it up and went to the machine beside it and paid for another one and no one came back to claim it. All in all a good way to end an eventful day.

Tonight I'm curled up with a case study for my HR management class and waiting for The Amazing Race to begin. Although we didn't cross countries today, I still had a good amount of fun. :)