I'm a popsicle

It's been so cold here the past couple of days I feel like a popsicle. The other night we were suppose to have had a windchill at -40. CRAZAZY!

Just got done watching a National Geographic channel show on multiple births. They showed twins, triplets and quads from the point of conception to a few months after they were born. Was pretty interesting to see them at the different stages in the womb. I am very scared with the PCOS issue I will end up having to do fertility meds and well those are one of the biggest causes of multiple births. One baby is enough of an adjustment to your life but could you imagine 2, 3, 4 or more babies all at once? All the diapers you would have to change, all the nights you would get no sleep because just after you get one baby to stop crying and off to sleep another one starts up.

OMG woman who do this successfully have my utmost respect. I have my doubts that I would be able to remain sane throughout that kind of ordeal. I do imagine that you would get a routine in place pretty quickly and you would get used to having these little people in your life. But man just thinking about it exhausts me.

Saw a cute movie yesterday. Juno.. It was a bit weird but had a lot of funny parts. It's about a teenage girl, she is around 16, named Juno who finds herself pregnant. She took 3 pregnancy tests in the bathroom of the gas station. She took 3 because the first two she said looked more like a division symbol. LOL. She ends up finding a couple to adopt her baby. The woman is totally into it and the guy acts like he wants a baby but after Juno spends some time sharing music interests and such the guy opens up to her and tells her he is leaving his wife and doesnt feel ready to be a father. She freaks, the woman finds out. The couple divorces but Juno still lets the woman adopt her baby. It was really sweet watching the woman hold the baby for the first time after he was born. Juno has a very sarcastic sense of humor and made me laugh out loud all throughout the movie.

Well Mermaids is on and I wanna go watch.

Beef Stew

Got a slow cooker a few days after Christmas and this is the first recipe I made in it. Was pretty good.. I would recommend adding some water, it doesn't call for it in the recipe but next time I make it I will be adding some. While cooking mine for the recommended time and setting it started to over cook some of the ingredients so watch it when you get about 7 hours in. I like my stew to have a bit of a gravy that you can soak up with a biscuit or corn bread and this one was a bit too thick for my liking. But other than that I really enjoyed it.

Ingredients:
2lbs beef stew meat, cut into 1 inch cubes
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 1/2 cup beef broth
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 glove garlic
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon paprika
4 carrots, sliced
3 potatoes, diced
1 onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, sliced

Cooking Instructions:
Put meat in stoneware. Mix flour, salt and pepper and pour over meat; Stir to coat meat with flour. Add remaining ingredients and stir to mix well. Cook and cover on LOW for 10 hours or HIGH for 6 hours. Stir stew thoroughly before serving.

BIG Puppy

Well Cooter had his last puppy shots today. Vet says he looks very happy and healthy. Says his coat looks exceptional. Nice and shiny. And his teeth are starting to change which is right on schedule.. My little poochie is no longer so little. He gained 12 pounds since his last visit. He nows weighs in at a staggering 38lbs. He is only 4 months old for crying out loud. He already eats like crazy. LOL Next vet visit will be the neutering surgery. Then that is it until next year.

Well got everying mailed in (passport app and marriage license papers). Now its just a sit and wait kind of thing. Did I ever mention I hate waiting for anything? It's not good to keep me waiting. I guess you could say it is one of my biggest pet peeves. I dont like to be late and dont like for others to be late either. But alas now I must sit and wait and cross fingers that everything goes smoothly.


American Idol started tonight. Didnt fail to entertain. They are showing some of the auditions both good and bad. I have to say I really look forward to seeing the bad ones. It always shocks me when you get the ones who sing horribly.. I mean a screaming cat is more pleasant than they are and for some odd reason they think the judges are jerks because they try and tell them that they can't sing. They don't believe them and get mad because "they are the greatest undiscovered talent there ever was". How can they NOT know how bad they sound?? Someone must have lied to them and told them how wonderful they were.. Shame on those people lol.

Well gonna go to bed now.. Got a game to host in the morning and wanna be all rested up. I leave you with a pic of a snow plow doing its job on the streets of Fort Frances.. Isnt the snow beauitiful.. I love it..

Passport day

Well today is the day I am going to go to the County Recorders office to get my passport stuff handed in. We have to go to Walmart first so I can get my passport photos retaken. I had taken them in Texas the last time I was there but they are older than 6 months. I was soooo hoping to get lucky and be able to use them but alas they are dated on the back.. Curses!!

We are also going to be mailing our stuff to the registrars office in Thunder Bay for our marriage license. Woohoo productive day for me..

Well almost time to host.

oopsie didnt post piccy

I swear i did upload the picture but for whatever reason it didn't post it in the blog entry. So I am gonna try this again and fingers-crossed it will work. Oh and J, I changed the setting for who can leave comments and now anyone can leave me comments so whenever you feel like it comment away :P

Weird winter

Freaky winter weather we are having. It has been above freezing here the past couple of days and the snow is melting rapidly. The outdoor thermometer said it was 50F. How wacky is that??

We still have a lot of snow on the ground but a few more days like this and the grass is going to start peeking through. I would really love a blizzard. I know someone who has had a couple of em just recently *stares in the direction of Ottawa* and I am jealous. LOL I would really like to experience one. Think it would be fun. Well fun as long as I am nice and warm and safe in my house with lots of supplies so I wont have to go out in it. :D

Ed's dad has finally vacated the downstairs apartment and I have started the cleaning process.. OMG ewwwwwww its disgusting. Last night I swept, mopped, got on my hands and knees and scrubbed then mopped again and again (cooter did the walk n pee trick) and finally waxed the kitchen floor. I had to keep emptying the bucket of water I was using because it was turning black.. yes that is right BLACK! I vacummed a bit of the living room floor. Cooter got scared and peed on the floor while trying to run from it lol.

Today I started working on the bedroom because that is where we are going to put our storage stuff. So far I have scrubbed two of the walls and I am still not happy with them. They need a paint job BAD.. Ed's dad is a heavy smoker so you can imagine what the walls look like. Once I get done with the walls I am going to have to scrub the window really really good then a heavy vacumming before we can put anything down there.

I was going to attempt the bathroom but I opened the door turned on the light and peeked in. I then turned off the light closed the door and told Ed that he is in charge of that room.. Gonna have nightmares about that one. LOL

Tomorrow I am going to attempt to finish the walls in the bedroom.

Well I am exhausted just thinking of scrubbing more walls so I am going to head to beddy by now.

I leave you with a pic of a blizzard :D isnt it beautiful?

The State of Alaska ROCKS!

Here I was worrying myself to an ulcer about getting my passport app done in time for the Jan 31st deadline. Nothing like waiting to the last minute eh?

What is the hold up you ask? Well I only have one official copy of my birth certificate. I need that to get back and forth across the border. So I faxed in my request form to the appropriate office in Alaska along with my credit card info so they could charge the fees for an official copy of my original birth certificate. I did this a little bit before Christmas and was beginning to worry that I might not get it in time and then would be stuck without a passport and not being able to get across the border to apply for one.

Well I had no need to worry because I went to check the mail today and low and behold there was my birth certificate sitting waiting for me in the mail box.

Alaska you ROCK!!! Fruitcakes all around.

Good news.

I just heard some very very exciting news!!! Because of the writers strike CBS is going to be doing an extra Big Brother this year. Big Brother Winter woohooo!!!!!! I usually have to wait until the summer for my Big Brother fix but now I only have to wait until mid February. I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited!!! Big Brother is my all time favorite reality tv show.

I can hardly wait til February.

It's early

Well I have a few minutes before my hosting duty on vzones so thought I would stop by here and say a few words.

I am faithfully working on my novel. Even if I don't write anything some days I am still thinking of the next move in the story or I am doing revisions on a particular section that I have already finished. I have tons of notes. I sat down with a calendar the other day and worked on time frames. I even did a whole biography of my main character. Even though I am not using all the info it's nice to kind of know who that person is. Once you put down all the details about a character it helps them come to life. At least in my imagination. It helps me know how to make her react to things because of her history. Think about it.. If you have a character in a book who went through something traumatic as a child, say a fire destroyed her home and killed a beloved family pet. Do we really think she would not be extremely careful as an adult. Fire alarms all over the house. And would that character end up being a fireman perhaps?

Everything we experience in life helps to shape who we are in the present. So in writing down a mini biography you see a person develop before your eyes and they become real in a sense.

In my story I have based the main character around myself. Some details are the same some are different. The story is also loosely based on my life. Names were changed (in the story my Aunt's characters name is Susannah and my Dad's name is Mitchell) and some locations are a bit different (San Antonio is not specifically mentioned I just say South Texas and I don't move to Canada instead its a small town in Northern Minnesota near the Canadian border. I am still working on a name for that little town)but those who know me will see the similarities.

I was having a hard time working on the book I had started about my Grandmother. I was hitting a wall. That is when this story developed. It is a fictional version of my life from the day I found out my Grandmother had passed to now. So I was able to use some of the stuff I had written for the other book just needed to tweak it a bit.

There is one character that stays the same in the book as he is in my life. Jake is as always my faithful companion and what would a book sorta kinda about me be without a Jake?

I joined a writing thing online, nanwrimo or something like that. Have to write 50,000 words by November. It's a bit of a contest.

Well anywho got some players at my game in vzones so better go say hi.

Yummy Pecan Pie

I also made this pie for the holidays. I gave one as a gift, took one to a family dinner and made one for Ed and I and one for a Boxing Day party. It was a hit! One of the best pecan pies I have ever had. Just be careful to not overcook it.

Pecan Pie

Ingredients:
1 (9-inch) unbaked deep dish pie crust (I use the frozen pie crust from the grocery store)
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup Corn Syrup (I prefer the light to dark but it’s your personal preference)
1 cup white sugar
¼ cup melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup pecan halves

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Beat together the eggs, corn syrup, sugar, butter and vanilla
Arrange pecans in bottom of pie crust and pour mixture over.
Bake for 1 hour or until knife inserted 1 inch from edge comes out clean.
Allow to cool before slicing.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I made a couple of batches of these cookies this year and gave them as gifts to friends. I received so many compliments. Everyone loved them. They are a softy chewy cookie and that is my fav type of Chocolate chip cookie. Hope you enjoy them as much as we did.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
2 ¼ cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup butter, softened
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 pkg 12 oz semi sweet chocolate morsels
1 cup chopped nuts (opt)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375F. In a small bowl combine flour, baking soda & salt. Set aside.
In large bowl combine butter, sugar, brown sugar & vanilla; beat until creamy. Beat in eggs. Gradually add flour mixture. Mix well. Stir in chocolate morsels & nuts.
Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 8-10 min.
Makes abt 100 cookies

Happy New Year!

Well it's that time of year again. We say goodbye to 2007 and hello to 2008. I begin this year as I have always begun every new year. With high hopes and lots of dreams for it to be the best year ever. I have lots of things happening this year. I am getting married, starting the immigration process and possibly starting a family of my own. The last item on my list of course is something that will be way way later in the year. But it is always a possibility.

I have never really been one to seriously make a new years resolution. I always said that its pretty useless to make a resolution that will only be broken in a few weeks, so why bother with the disappointment. This year however I am making a resolution. I am going to get back to eating better. I am going to start exercising. Once stuff calms down here on the home front I am joining the Curves gym in town. I have already talked to them and really like the program they have set up. It's just something that has to happen. I have started to gain weight back that I had lost. My clothes aren't fitting and I am refusing to buy a bigger size again. So it's time for me to get tough with myself. Either I start losing the weight OR I cant go out anywhere because I will have no clothes to fit me.

I am going to start a new thing in my blog. I will try and post a blog at least once a week. Plus I am going to be posting recipes I have tried and really liked. Feel like sharing the good eats. The first recipes I will be posting won't be healthy choices but as I start to get more healthy the recipes will of course be changing as well.

That's about it for tonight. I will leave you with a greeting from "The Boys".

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!!!