My Flog for December 7 + No Smile-Inducing Words of Wisdom

First of 4 day offs, and I found  it very hard to get stuff done, would have been very happy just to eat and sleep all day. Wish I knew where to get some energy!

•  Breakfast - Toast and Coffee
• Lunch - Frosted Flakes
• Dinner - Chicken Drummies, Scallop Potatoes and Veggies
• Snacks - Candies, who knows how many? I don't. And chips. 

Since I didn't want to do anything but eat and sleep all day, I polished off Howard's BBQ chips, snacked on Tootsie Roll candies, and watched TV between dozes - knowing tomorrow is another day and I hope to have more get-up-and-go. I did pick up Chris from school, and I did make dinner, and I did finish knitting the sixth Christmas stocking in between though...so it wasn't an absolutely wasteful day..

My Flog for December 6 + WARNING - Do Not Drink and Read...just sayin'

I find I'm being very creative during my transit rides, as poems, songs and ditties skip through my brain at incredible speed. However, as soon as I hop off, all 'train' of thought disappears, like fog in the early morning sun.

So I think it's time I started carrying a notebook with me - it would probably come in very handy for lots of things, like remembering my phone number, address, and the number of stamps to buy for Christmas Cards. And, of course, remembering to mail these same Christmas Cards. I think I have some addressed and stamped from the first year we were married - just waiting for Howard to drop them in the mail.

However - I didn't need a notebook for this one - a 'new' store in the 'Asian' part of Richmond, which I noticed this morning as I was sitting on the nearest side on the bus - get this - LICENSED SEX SHOP. (Geez, sometimes it's just too easy.....)

So I wonder - what on earth would they sell where you'd need a license to either sell it or use it? And what kind of license? Maybe a driver's licence for a very large vibrator on wheels, so you could just hop on and have an enjoyable ride to the corner store? Maybe a gun license in case your partner starts or finishes without you? I don't know. Maybe I'm just too old or too square now.  Maybe they have a liquor license, so you could order a beer or a Scotch while you're browsing around (and no, no comments here, please, these synonyms always seem to pop in every now and then)?

Or maybe they just have a License to Thrill.

This actually reminds me of the shortest conversation I've ever had with my son, Steve. He called while I was driving around with my buddy Marina (we do Yarn Store Crawls) and asked if I had any double A batteries at home. I said, "If I do, they would be upstairs. I don't have anything in the bedroom that takes batteries." I guess he heard Marina and me laughing, so he said a very loud, "Bye, Mom," and hung up.

• Breakfast - Toast w/Cheez Whiz
• Lunch - Broccoli/Cheese Soup from a new soup place across the road from work. Didn't make the grade, unfortunately - watery, bland, and the broccoli had the sh*t blended out of it.
• Dinner - 2 Sausages, Scrambled Eggs, and a slice of homemade Bread w/margarine
• Snacks - Grapes, Water, 4 Tootsie Roll candies

My Flog for December 5

A long day at work. Lots of stuff done, lots of stuff sold, and now, as you can see by my menu for the day, I myself am stuffed. Come to think of it, there were a couple of customers I felt like telling to get stuffed today, but I kept my mouth shut. Now I'm working for 12 big $s an hour, so I better behave....or I could possible behaved out. (Hope you all got this one .... )

Steve and Nikkie were telling me that this earlobe stretchy thing I wrote about a couple of days ago is more common than I knew. Nikkie said she saw one guy with ears the size of plates - I don't think I would believe her, though. Maybe side plates. I wouldn't think dinner plates. I don't have a clue why anyone would want to stretch out their earlobes - the world is indeed getting peculiarer and peculiarer. One can only hope they won't breed.

• Breakfast - Coffee and Toast - not just plain toast, but homemade bread toasted over the stove element, with Cheez Whiz
• Lunch - Pea Soup
• Dinner - Grilled Cheese Sandwich, Spinach Salad
• Snacks - Candy (there are still tons left! Yippee!), and since I have been having trouble with my night vision, a piece of Carrot Cake - one has to look after ones eyes, Diet Pepsi, Water, Grapes

My Flog for December 4 + Where Have All The Normal People Gone?

Long long 6-hour day at work, only two people on board today, and it was tremendously busy. Was walking home from the SkyTrain station when Howard called me - he was at the SkyTrain station waiting for me to get off the train - guess we missed each other by THAT much (as Agent 86 often said. If you don't know who Agent 86 is, then you need to Get Smart.) Anyway, he was a bit ticked off because he missed me, although I had no idea he was walking up to meet me, but since I missed him, it was obviously my fault and once again I got shoved in the proverbial Dog House.

Customers are starting to get rude. I went to bag someone's purchase and she actually snarled at me (keeping to the dog theme.) "I SAID I didn't want a bag."  So I had to apologize, even though it wasn't my fault I didn't hear her - my co-worker was asking me something at the same time and even though I have two ears, they tend to work in stereo and hear the same sounds.

And - talking about ears - a couple of seats ahead of me on the bus were  two guys - and one of them, I noticed,  had what I thought was black fungus on the back of his ear - my eyes aren't very good any more. Closer investigation showed it was actually a black shiny circle around the size of a quarter, and there were two of them, with his earlobe squeezed in between. Looked painful. But then I noticed his buddy - he had white shiny circles squashing his earlobes together, and they were at least 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Now, I may tend to exaggerate on times, but not now. At first I thought they covered his whole ear, and wondered how he could hear, but NO - they were on his earlobe only, and his earlobe was stretched so much, scrunched between these two disks, it looked like a white Oreo cookie with a pink earlobe filling. Gross. So I tried to take a unobtrusive pic with my phone, but I think the guy in the seat in front of me thought I was taking his pic, cos he turned sideways, obviously to keep an eye on me. I was going to post the pic, but if the subject ever reads my flog, I may be in trouble, so you'll just have to use your imagination. It did remind me of a song though...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzPt3Y2E_Rc
... and I'm afraid he would have to answer "Yes" to the first two questions, because they did indeed hang low, and they wobbled to and fro every time he shook his head, banging off his collar and swinging in the opposite direction.

• Breakfast - Toast and Coffee
• Lunch - Chicken Soup and Yogurt
• Dinner - Spinach Salad and canned Peaches (leftover from Yesterday's Cake)
• Snacks - Small piece of Yesterday's Cake, Nutrigrain bar (guess which was tastier?), grapes

My Flog for December 3 + A Good Old Newfie Recipe For Ya!

Today seemed to be a lazy day, but it really wasn't. Up before 7am, thanks to the kind husband insisting on waking me up real early (pre 5am) and getting upset because I didn't want to have a conversation with him, then flouncing out of the room leaving the light and the TV on, after flinging the blankets off me. Pre-dawn mornings are pretty chilly now, believe me. At least this morning he didn't throw his pillow over my head as usual, but I guess if he did he would have had no need to leave the light on.

Anyway, I 'helped' the kids clean their room (meaning they sat on the bed and watched me,) did another laundry, and baked a Peach Fruit Cake. In my downtime, I watched The Time Traveler's Wife, (such a wonderful movie, if you haven't seen it yet make sure you do), and knitted some of my 6th Christmas Stocking - you haven't heard about them for a while, have you now? Looks like I'll be just a little bit behind my deadline, which isn't bad as I haven't been knitting since we moved here at the end of September.

Regarding the Peach Fruit Cake - it's a really moist light fruit cake, and well liked by lovers and haters of traditional Fruit Cake. Recipe below. You would never find any leftovers of this in your cake tin in July.

• Breakfast - Toast and Coffee - the son who was going to get up and make bacon and eggs for breakfast wimped out yet again
• Lunch - Chicken Soup and 1 slice of home made bread and butter (butter wasn't home made.)
• Dinner - Chicken cooked in home made Barbecue Sauce, Newfie style Chinese Fried Rice
• Snacks - a few Saltines, a few Candies, Diet Pop

PEACH FRUIT CAKE

Suzanne Clarke's recipe from Home Cooking Secrets of Trinity Area

Fort Point Lioness Club Cookbook 1982 -1983

1 cup Butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 eggs, beaten (ow..ow...stop it...stop...ow..etc)

1 20 oz can of peaches, drained and chopped (or crushed, either way is sadistic) -save the juice

2 tsp vanilla (oh shoot, I misread this and put in 3 tsps - and I use the expensive real stuff)

3 cups flour (I knew there was a 3 there somewhere)

1 tsp baking powder (Don't ask why, I'm sure 1 tsp doesn't make any difference...)

1/2 tsp salt

3 cups raisins

1 1/2 cup glacé cherries (Steve found the e with the accent online for me, and also managed to screw up the rest of my font, but I still love him and am thankful for his ability to make me laugh.)

1 cup coconut

Cream butter, sugar and eggs. Blend in peaches, raisins, cherries and coconut. Add vanilla. Combine flour, salt and baking powder and fold into mixture alternately with peach juice. I added some Malibu to the peach juice just for the fun of it, but make sure you add the Malibu to just a little bit of peach juice first as you probably won't need much juice. Don't let the mixture get too soggy.

Pour into well greased and lined pan - I use my cast iron pot so I don't bother lining it. Bake at 270F for 3 hours. Slow and steady does the job! After it comes out of the oven (well, after you take it out - it won't come out by itself) let it sit in the pan for 10 minutes or so, and turn over on a cooling rack.

Enjoy! (After it cools, that is.)


(My thanks to Suzanne for her terrific recipe, and my apologies for bastardizing it.)

My Flog for December 2 + The Art of Drinking Coffee

Buying a cup of coffee from Tim Hortons to warm up hands and tummy on a cold walk isn't always a great idea. First of all, in order to drink the darn stuff, you have to push the sippy part open, which always results in coffee spilling over gloves or hands...whatever. Then some coffee lies in the indentations of the lid, ready to drip onto your jacket as you raise the cup for a drink.

However, Tim Hortons staff don't think this is enough to start your day, so they double cup your coffee, which effectively turns your cup into a very effective dribble cup. I imagine the staff in the back peek out the window, bent over with laughter as they watch the poor customers walk up the road wiping their chins. Unfortunately, this was pretty early in the morning, and I didn't realize it until I had half the coffee gone - one quarter of it in my tummy, and the other quarter on my gloves, coat, chin and sleeves (from wiping my chin.) Second cup in the garbage, and the rest of my coffee went down without a problem

I don't know why teenagers can't wait to be grown up. Grown up is really hard.

• Breakfast - Toast and Coffee
• Lunch - Leftover Shepherd's Pie
• Dinner - Home Made Best Ever Chicken Soup, Beans w/Onions & Red Peppers & Bacon, Fresh Rolls (Yes, I Baked Bread today! I also Scrubbed Floor, Made Soup, Walked to Walmart and did 4 Loads of Laundry.)
• Snacks - 3 Candy, Pudding, Diet Pepsi, and 1 Saltine Cracker

I guess I'm making up for years of Capital Letter un-use.

However, my walk to Walmart was a celebration of a beautiful fall day - it may be December, but the sun, sky and earth were absolutely delightful!

My Flog for December 1 + Bubble Bubble Toil and Trouble

A very tiring day, and now I'm too tired to write about it. Let's just say I walked for miles, bused/skytrained to Steveston, cooked dinner, and now am going to bed. I now realize the best time to bus is really early in the morning, when all the riders are too sleepy to talk and fuss and poke - I got really ticked off when three women surrounded me when I sat in the front area, and one of them leaned over me to talk to her pals, while another one kept banging my leg as she flung her arms around as she talked. Very rude. They made me feel like the cauldron in Macbeth. 

• Breakfast - Toast and Coffee
• Lunch - Tim Horton's Coffee and Glazed Ginger Donut at 10:30am, OR Butterscotch Pudding at 3:20pm. Not sure which was lunch and which was a snack.
• Dinner - Shepherd's Pie and Carrots
• Snacks - Whichever one of the above was not my lunch, 4 Tootsie Roll Candy, Diet Pepsi

I'm not too ashamed of my new number, as it is indeed the 20 pound mark. So far in the past 6 months, I have lost that much, and not gained, which I think is 'a good thing.' Even though I've tried various methods of dieting over the years, and most of them brought a 15 - 18 pound loss in the first month alone, I never could stick to any of them, thereby piling the pounds back on after the first few weeks of losing - and discovering those pounds even brought more friends along for the ride - or should I say waddle. Anyway, if typing a few words every evening means an average loss of 3 and a bit pounds a month, I shall keep on tapping - a calorie burned is a calorie burned.

My Number For December 1 - The Festival of Calories Arrives

160

My Flog for November 30 + A New Story, For Those Of You Who Miss My Stories...

Oh joy, oh joy, what a wonderful day! I had a wonderful night's sleep - neither purry clawing cat nor snoring elbow-in-the-back husband woke me up between the hours of dusk and dawn, and I happily bounced out of bed smiling and humming The Dutchman, with visions of Keith Harkin singing, of course. My fluffy slippers and soft bathrobe, heated from the warm air whispering from the heating vent, wrapped me in a cozy cuddle.

The smell of coffee lured me upstairs, where bacon was sputtering and eggs were scrambling on the stove. Buttery toast was sprawled on my plate, and the coffee in my mug was just as I wished it.

The whole house was sparkling and tidy, in its pre-Christmas glory. The undecorated tree in the living room sparkled with its fairy lights, and the sun shining in the windows put a glow on everything. Even the little Christmas Cacti we had rescued last summer were pink with blossoms, and the whole day just lay in front of me like an unwrapped gift.

Because we both got paid today, I planned to spend the whole day shopping ...... okay, I know by now you're wondering what the hell is going on ... the above is indeed a work of fiction, but one can only dream, right?

• Breakfast - Toast and Coffee (made by me for me)
• Lunch - Bean and Bacon Soup - I found it in the bottom of the freezer while searching for tonight's dinner, so I thought I'd put it to good use, 1 slice of bread and butter
• Dinner - Roast Beast (didn't really know what animal it came from, as it was a bit freezer burned, I believe, but I had faith in my cooking, onions, and Lipton's Onion Soup Mix.) It turned out to be roast beef, a wee bit tough but delish anyway, mashed potatoes, veggies and gravy.
• Snacks - Diet Pepsi, Grape Pop (Yes, I know you're wondering - it was in the fridge and I was thirsty...), 4 candies, and a cookie.

So - what did I really do? Dragged myself upstairs, put on coffee and made toast, got the kids cereal for breakfast, then did a major overhaul of the kitchen, two loads of laundry, and cooked dinner. Looking forward to tomorrow, when I have to bus to Steveston to pick up my check (NOT - what I am looking for is a reason not to have to do it at all. Nine hours of bus a week is plenty enough for me, thank ya.)

Plus tomorrow is a New Number Day and I'm not very optimistic about that.

My Flog for November 29 + Is It Free If It's Not Nailed Down?

I know now why Fast Food is getting so expensive. On the bus this morning, a gal sitting opposite me spilled her coffee, and right a way the gal sitting next to her pulled out a huge crumpled tissue - or more probably, a paper towel, and insisted the spiller take it to wipe her coffee off her coat. When the gal didn't want to take it - I mean, come on now, who would actually take it? Who's to know how many sneezy germs or how much ear wax or armpit sweat was in that piece of fibre? - anyway, when she didn't take it, her neighbour just tossed it in her lap.

Whereas the spiller put her hand in her pocket and took out a two-inch thick fistful of napkins, obviously from the same establishment as her coffee. I think she used one of them to remove the offending gift from her lap.

That reminds me of an older Chinese gentleman we used to to see when we went to McDonad's for morning coffee. He'd bring his tray with his senior's coffee to the table, along with a huge mound of napkins. Several times he'd go back to the counter for his 'free' refill, and pick up another huge mound of napkins each time. He must have been using them to insulate his apartment. 

So, next time you wonder about the price of coffee at your local pit-stop - remember, you are helping supply the needy population with their napkin fix for the day.

• Breakfast - Toast and Coffee
• Lunch - Veggie Sandwich, wafer bar, Cranberry Juice
• Dinner - Pasta
• Snacks - Nutrigrain bar, Cookie (the last one of the Famous Irresistible Ones), 3 Tootsie Roll Candies

My Flog for November 28 + I Love My Job, I Love My Job, I Love My Job,

Today I wore black boots, brown tights, khaki skirt and stripey burgundy, tan, white and brown top, and my blue tweedy sweater and/or blue Crafts'n'More vest, depending on how hot or cold I was running at that precise moment in time. The plan? To curtail everyone from asking my advice on colour matches for their afghans, sweaters, or skin-tone.

"Yes, I think that particular shade of puce goes lovely with the bright orange and pale pink yarn for your sweater...." etc etc etc.

It's not because I'm mean, really, it's just that we have these incredibly long lists of stuff to do, and if we don't get everything done, the manager isn't very pleased when she comes back on Tuesdays, and since I work on Tuesdays, I'm the one who gets the pleasure of her venting.

• Breakfast - Toast and Coffee
• Lunch - Chicken Soup, Ham and Cheese Croissant (thanks to Pauline), wafer bar (thanks to me and the British Home Shop)
• Dinner - The last of the Chicken Soup, Pudding Cup
• Snacks - Hot Chocolate, Banana, Nutrigrain Bar, and probably a few Hallowe'en candy, the night's not over yet.

My Flog for November 27 + I'm Not a Saint, so Why Should I Even Try?

I didn't realize how many inactive muscles I had until I crawled out of bed this morning and found them everywhere in my body, my arms, my legs, my everythings. Should have had better sense scrubbing the kitchen floor, should have just got a gallon of paint and painted it. I'll know better the next time.

Busy day at work, and even though I didn't really want to be there, the time went by quickly. Glad to be home, even if I have a non-talkative husband. At least non-talkative to me. Guess I'm in his 'black books' file for the time being. It's too much bother to trace back to what I may have said or done to cause this - unless it was something I said about 3:30 this morning when I considered myself to be fast asleep. Oh well.

• Breakfast - Toast and Coffee
• Lunch - Chicken Soup, Pudding
• Dinner - Chicken, Potato Salad, Dressing
• Snacks - Ginger Ale, Gingerbread Latte, Blueberry Scone, 1 (so far anyway) Hallowe'en candy (Tootsie Roll! Who can resist that?)

My Flog for November 26 + Another Unsuccessful Day Off

The most terrible thing I've done in ages is to try to get some skid marks of the kitchen floor, marks that the mop wouldn't erase. I bent over with a (an?) SOS pad, and magically, the off-white of the kitchen tile became a pure white - which means I found the true colour. Rats. Now we have two shiny kitchen tiles on a floor full of dingy tiles. Which means ... well, I don't have to spell it out for everyone, as I know you all know what I did this morning.

Most horrible 4-letter word that doesn't have 4 letters: WAX BUILDUP. 

Oh well, at least my hands are clean. I guess it would be a good time to make bread, if I had the energy.

• Breakfast - Toast and Coffee
• Lunch - Microwaved Scrambled Egg on a bun with a slice of Mozzarella Cheese (a sorta kinda Mozza Burger, I guess)
• Dinner - Meatloaf, Mashed Potatoes and Veggies 
• Snacks - An irresistible Cookie, Water, Pudding

To make this day complete, I moved every single one of the boxes off the floor, just in case the rain causes a flood in our basement, which it better not, although we are insured for that - I think - but anyway, along the way looking for stuff for my husband also - I found the Christmas movies and music, but unfortunately not his balls.....or lights.....enough said.

My Flog for November 25

I feel fatter than my jeans today, I hope that doesn't mean that I'm growing out once again, but that the jeans were in the washer. The last time I washed them, I didn't realize that the last person to use the washer had the dial set to hot/cold, so I'm pretty sure my jeans shrunk. I hope. At least I'm counting on it. 

• Breakfast - Toast and Coffee
• Lunch - A Grandma Burger, fries and pop from A&W. Nikkie tried to get me to eat a Mozza Burger but I resisted her evil persuasions, and went for the Sirloin - protein packed (we won't even think of the fat grams involved) - burger made especially for us old nannies (poppys don't seem very impressed with them, in my neck of the woods, anyway)
• Dinner - Pork Chop, Scalloped Potatoes, and Rice-A-Roni (yeah, that San Fransisco Treat - no wonder everyone was going to San Fransisco....)
• Snacks - An irresistible cookie, Diet Pop, an unlimited number of Hallowe'en candies

Now I'm taking my neck pain to bed, while my pain in the neck is still upstairs finishing his dinner. 

My Flog for November 24

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah .... etc.

That's how my day and I feel and I'm sure you don't really want to hear about it. 

• Breakfast - Apple Cinnamon Bread (carbs) and Coffee
• Lunch - Toast (carbs)
• Dinner - Left-over Pasta (carbs)
• Snacks - One Irresistible Cookie (carbs), Pudding, Diet Pop, Candy

Early morning - Crawling upstairs to the Coffee Pot, following my nose to the cinnamony scent of bread in the cupboard
Mid morning - Sweeping half the kitchen, eating half of Lizzie's pudding because her "I don't like it" words were coming out of her mouth and into my ears. Another of my famous headaches brewing in the back of my head. One load of laundry in the dryer, another in the washer. Listening to the rain and wind, therefore NOT walking to Walmart for a Spinach Salad for lunch. Just want to go back to bed, actually.

I wonder if the crappy feelings inside and out are caused by a carb overload. Hmmmm. Something to think about.


Early Afternoon - Went back to bed, actually, watched The King's Speech (excellent movie for a rainy, windy, headachy, tired day.)
Now it's dark, and dinner is late - I haven't actually eaten yet, but I know all I have to do is stick a plate of it in the microwave. Nikkie is cooking some kind of beast parts for Howard and Steve.
My head is now officially a mucous factory and I'm going to bed very early tonight. Maybe even before Dinner.

My Flog for November 23

My friend Marina kidnapped me from Neil and Shannon's this morning, and we went on another adventure. The first stop was a bakery with the most delicious looking goods on the face of this earth, then a yarn store in White Rock called Knitopia - a tiny little narrow store whose owner left us in charge while she went back to her van to get inventory. Marina told her we were on a yarn store crawl... and I said, Yeah, because the pubs aren't open yet - and for the first time in so many years, I almost made her spout her mouthful of coffee. Brought back many fine memories of carefully placed comments that caused  people to lose their beverages.

We hit Two Bakeries, Two Yarn Stores, Three Thrift Stores, and One Book Store, then headed to Marina's mom's house for a pee and coffee and biscuits, in that order. All together a lovely day out!

• Breakfast - Toast and Coffee
• Lunch - I really will try to write it here - let's see - cos I can't say it, and am really not sure how to spell it - Mullysomething or other soup - oh heck - hang on til I Google it... Mulligatawny Soup, which was actually very nice. I thought it was a British soup, but according to Google it's more of an Indian soup, not the bows and arrows and feathers in their hair Indians, but the curry type. Also a very delicious sandwich, turkey, bacon, cheese and lettuce, and of course bakery baked bread. Yum. And coffee
• Dinner - Goulash with lots of cheese, bakery fresh baked delicious bread, and also a slice of the best ever bread I've ever eaten, from a wonderful bakery in White Rock - Cinnamon Apple Bread, and if I wasn't keeping an honest track of my food in this stupid blog I would probable have eaten the whole loaf....
• Snacks - Coffee and Biscuits (only 2) at my friend's mom's house, two bites of a wonderfully tasty delicious coconut cake from above bakery, and that's it. I guess that's enough. The cookies I bought there are upstairs - I don't know how long they will be safe. Also a diet pop.                                                                    ...and I did forget, but I'm back now to own up to it - a pudding!

My Flog for November 22

The hardest thing to do on Wednesday Night is to remember what one ate on Tuesday, but I'm pretty sure I didn't leave anything out. I absolutely wolfed down my lovely Spinach Salad lunch, as I had to use some of my half hour lunch break to go to the pharmacy to pick up some Tylenol 1s. I've been having some horrible headaches, lower left side of my brain, just above my neck, sometimes radiating down my back. Stress I think, either that or hovering over a pricing gun at work for hours at end. If anyone out there had the same strange things happening to their head, and are still alive to tell about it, please let me know if it could be anything else. (I'm just hoping Gregory House reads my blog, that's all....)

After work Neil picked me up in his chariot (Flat Bed Tow Truck) and took me to his house in Ladner for the night. It was nice to see everyone again, I do miss those little rug rats. 

• Breakfast - Toast and Coffee
• Lunch - Spinach Salad
• Dinner - Lasagna and Caesar Salad - thanks Shannon!
• Snacks - Pudding, Banana, Diet Pepsi

My Flog for November 21

I have a beef today. A pet peeve.

Imagine this: a line up at the bank. Someone is waiting rather impatiently for an ATM machine, as she only has a little break, but still needs to deposit her check, because if she doesn't the car loan people will be unhappy - and if they are unhappy they have the power to make her unhappy too. There are two people ahead of her, and a mommy, daddy and toddler using the ATM.

"Mommy mommy, can I press the button?"
"Of course, you can, honey, here...."
"No no not that one..."
So now they have to start all over again.

"Can I do the next one mommy?|
"Yes, sweetie, press this one....NO NO NO not that one....."
So of course they have to start again once more.

Is it just me, or does anyone else think a 3 year old should be doing banking for their parents? Shouldn't they be colouring on the walls of the bank, or turning around making faces at the person next in line, or something, instead? It's the same at the store where I work, the number of kidlets who get 'sat' on the counter in order to press the green okay button on the credit/debit terminal is amazing, and every time one of them yanks the credit or debit card out prematurely, I feel like slapping their parents' hands.

And of course this reminds me of the number of small cute doggies that also get 'sat' on the counter while their moms pay for purchases. Really. I love the doggies....but I know what part of their anatomy they sit on, and they don't usually wear panties or diapers to cover those regions.

I guess I have two pet peeves.

• Breakfast - Toast and Coffee
• Brunch - Scrambled Eggs and Pancakes and Coffee  (McDonalds' Breakfast - I've got to stop doing this. I eat so early, then 4 hours after I get up,I am in Steveston, freezing cold with the need to eat comfort food.)
• Lunch - Soup and a Roll
• Dinner - Left over Pork and Left over Potato Salad, 1 slice of bread
• Snacks - Gingerbread Latte, Yogurt

My Flog for November 20 + Why Alcohol is Not My Friend

• Breakfast - 1 Bacon, 1 Egg, Toast and Coffee
• Lunch - Rice and Pepper Steak, frozen leftovers from a meal a while ago. Frozen and microwaved = yucky. Butterscotch Pudding
• Dinner - Howard and Steve cooked Roast Pork and Veggies (I know Steve helped as he made the gravy.) So I had a 'cooked dinner,' which resulted in tons of pots and stuff to wash up. (Thank you, Steve, for helping out!) And for those of you who don't know what a 'cooked dinner' is - it's roast meat of some kind, with potatoes, carrots, turnip and cabbage, and of course, gravy - the veggies are usually cooked all together in a big pot with Salt Beef, but for some reason Howard didn't do that, even though he has a tub of Salt Beef in the cupboard. He probably forgot he had it, either that or he couldn't find it. Who knows. But now everyone knows what a cooked dinner is. Although at home one would usually have it for dinner as in lunch, while today we had it for supper, which we call dinner now we are living on the west coast. Hopefully this makes everything clear for everyone.

Excuse the cat for taking a shortcut from the bed to his food dish, by way off the printer and my laptop...

• Snacks - Hot Chocolate, Yogurt, a few candy (of course, it's a long way from gone yet), and a Malibu and Orange Juice - or what was left of it. See below.

Anyway. Since the Tylenol pills didn't work to erase the weird headache I had today, I figured I'd have some alcohol to see if that would ease the pain. I dug out my Braun Hand Blender, added broken up ice cubes to the 'jar' thingie, and poured in some orange juice and Malibu. Turn on the blender, and immediately half the coconut rum/OJ mixture went fountaining all over the place - the counter, my feet, and everything in between. Nikkie to the rescue with paper towels and her Magic Bullet - I think I left out milk. One Christmas way way back when, I got a Braun Hand Blender for Christmas, and I whipped up Malibu drinks that kept my visitors and me buzzed all over the holidays, but it obviously wasn't what I made (or tried to make) tonight. I think there was milk in it too. If anyone knows - and I know some of you would definitely know, not that I would ever call you boozers -  please refresh my memory! 

My Flog for November 19 + A Fishy Story

Today has been a very strange Saturday, the last of my day offs. Still dealing with an upset tummy all day, although I did try to tempt it with things it usually doesn't get, little surprises of a Tootsie Roll here or a BBQ chip there, with a little bit of diet pop thrown in. I got some Ginger Gravol late afternoon and hopefully that will settle things down before tomorrow, when I have to hit the Sky Train once more. (I don't really mean HIT it, of course. You know that.)

Well, it's 6:03 and hubby's snoozing in the bed a few feet away. I refuse to go to bed before six, no matter how sick or/and tired I am. I think he's tired from a day of grumbling and complaining - I know that wears me out to no end (listening to it, I mean.) Hopefully tomorrow he'll have a better day - after all, I'll be gone for most of it!

• Breakfast - Toast and Coffee
• Brunch / Lunch / Snacks / etc - Junk Food
• Dinner - Fish and Chips and Coleslaw - I just had ONE piece of Fish. We are not saying just how big that ONE piece of fish was, though - it was still ONE piece. (Now I know, though, how 2 fishes could feed the multitude a couple of thousand years ago.) Yummy Omega 3 - I'm just assuming there is Omega 3 in codfish, and it doesn't evaporate when it hits the fat.....but what the heck. It's only ONE piece, after all.