http://www.kix106online.com

Yesterday the coolest thing happened.

There’s an authour by the name of Karyn Bosnak who I really dig. She also has a great blog called Pretty in the City. I’ve linked it a few times on this blog because I want to share her hilarity with all of you. She must have some high tech blogging gadget that alerts her to people posting a link to her blog because yesterday when I checked it I saw this: (scroll down to the Jelly Shoes post)

http://prettyinthecity.blogspot.com/

Isn’t that fun?! She linked my blog on her blog!

I loved her book “Twenty Times a Lady.” I’ve read it 3 times and cannot seem to recall the last person I lent it to so I am going to buy it again. Girls…read it. You will laugh until you cry. I hope they make it into a movie and I also hope I can have a cameo in said movie.

We had an lovely dinner with some fellow KIX folks last night at 20 King in downtown Kitchener. Wayne Gretzky has a new ice wine that is super yummy. He truly is the great one. I may or may not have had a little bit to much of the super yummy ice wine. Okay I did.

  There’s some cool lightening happening in Kitchener right now and I’m gonna go watch it.

Have a wonderful weekend. And thanks Karyn! You’re neat.

It has come to my attention that my last two Blog posts have a tone that one could describe as “grumpy.”

I pride myself on being a happy, positive person who believes you get what you put out…so let me focus on some goodness.

At 5:48am on Thursday May 29th these are the things that are making me feel the joy.

1. Things are popping up in our veggie garden. I prayed for this. Seriously. Yea! Thanks God and Mother Nature. 

2. Next Wednesday we are off to Nashville with what appears to be a group of rockin’ good time kinda folks. Yee-Haw.

3. I was 2 pounds lighter this morning then I was last night. How the hell is that even possible?

4. Last night for dinner I had a Fireside Restaurant (Fisher Hallman and Homer Watson in Kitchener) Chicken Taco Salad. Pretty much my favourite salad ever. I try to have one once a week. Get it with the garlic ranch dresssing. Heaven without the guilt.

5. Yesterday my tickets to see the New Kids On The Block this September arrived and we have AMAZING seats. By “we” I mean two gal pals and I. It wouldn’t be appropriate to tell you what my hubby said when I asked him to come to this show. So. darn. excited. There’s no accounting for my former teenage taste in boy bands. It is what it is.

6. I get to spend the weekend with my dreamboat husband in the backyard digging, planting and beautifying.

7. Tomorrow is pay day.

8. Friday morning I am going to get new hair. Well, highlights and a trim. I love my dye guy Dan. He keeps me laughing in the hair chair.

9. It’s gonna be sunny and 22 today which means a trip to the KW Humane Society Leash Free park for me and the puppers and a nice lonnnng walk.

10. My friends and family are happy, healthy and a whole lotta fun.

PS…My talented co-host Linda Martelli just showed me how to post pics! This blog is about to get a lot more colourful. In celebration of my “happy” blog, Here’s a pic of one of my happiest moments yet and another of my happy girl Talullah the puggle.

Does anyone else find that Sumo wrestler commercial where they are rubbing various body parts all over the car while washing it vile? Grosses me out. I seem to always be eating when it comes on. Maybe I’m just always eating….?!?

And what’s with those crazy bed sheet thongs they wear? I don’t get it.

I think it’s a Nissan commercial. We are Nissan people..we have two in our driveway, but if they top that spot with something grosser I may have to reconsider my brand loyalty.

PS..My husband thinks the commercial is the most hilarious thing he’s ever seen. Giggles his you know what off every time it’s on while I try to keep down my dinner. Go figure.

http://prettyinthecity.blogspot.com/ 

 Unless you are three years old and super cute. I can’t handle them. They make me anxious and upset.

I also hate the word hate. Okay, I strongly dislike Crocs.

I’m sorry if you love them and you wear them cause they’re comfy.  Keep in mind..in the eighties, I wore jelly shoes. This too shall pass.

Check out the link above and this pic showcasing Croc hate..err.. Croc *strong dislike* on Karyn Bosnak’s Blog “Pretty in the City.” She rocks.

Okay…I gotta give my man some love here…..

I came home from the “man shopping” trip with three shirts, two pairs of shorts, perfume, a pair of shoes and an Ipod.

I married a Prince, God bless him.

Ohhh…he did allright too. Got all the summer stuff he “needed.”

I’m not that spoiled…we’re sharing the Ipod. Tee Hee.

My husband is on his way home and we are about to desend on the Fairview Mall for some man shopping. He needs shorts, t-shirts and a bathing suit our upcoming trip to Nashville. As much as I looovve shopping, I am not feeling the normal euphoria I often do when a trip to the mall is looming. Why, you ask? Okay you didn’t ask but I’m gonna tell you anyway.

I don’t need anything. “Needing anything” normally doesn’t play into my trips to the mall. What does “needing anything” have to do with sexy new stillettos that I’ll only wear once being 50% off??? Usually I can shop in peace ALONE during the day..(gotta love those early am hours!) but this time Todd will be supervising and I won’t be able to come home and hide those little plastic taggy things that I viciously rip of the new items before I try to hide them in the back of the closet so I won’t be lectured when he gets home. Foiled!

My husband is like a freaking mystery solving Hardy boy when it comes to exposing my overspending. His skills have recently improved as he now not only finds the little plastic taggy things, but has figured out that tiny little gold safety pins are another giveaway I’ve been a bad, bad girl.

I used to wait a few weeks before pulling something new outta it’s hiding spot waaaaay back in my large closet and play the whole..”What this ol’ thing?” game when he noticed it. Some of my favourite lines have now worn out. “I bought it a long time ago….” fails me every time. “I borrowed it from_______.” Nope, he doesn’t fall for it.

 So I’m off to the mall. To buy boy stuff. Fun, fun. Opposites attract, I guess. It’s a good thing they do…or I’d be alone, broke,  and crying into a closet full of SUPER hot shoes I just HAD to have.

Check this out:

 http://100milediet.org/

When the average North American sits down to eat, each ingredient has typically travelled at least 1,500 miles—call it “the SUV diet.” On the first day of spring, 2005, Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon (bios) chose to confront this unsettling statistic with a simple experiment. For one year, they would buy or gather their food and drink from within 100 miles of their apartment in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Since then, James and Alisa have gotten up-close-and-personal with issues ranging from the family-farm crisis to the environmental value of organic pears shipped across the globe. They’ve reconsidered vegetarianism and sunk their hands into community gardening. They’ve eaten a lot of potatoes.

Their 100-Mile Diet struck a deeper chord than anyone could have predicted. Within weeks, reprints of their blog at thetyee.ca had appeared on sites across the internet. Then came the media, from BBC Worldwide to Utne magazine. Dozens of individuals and grassroots groups have since launched their own 100-Mile Diet adventures. The need now is clear: a locus where 100-milers can get the information they need to try their own lifestyle experiments, and to exchange ideas and develop campaigns. That locus will be here at 100MileDiet.org—turning an idea into a movement.

Todd and I  (okay..maybe me more than he!) are pumped to be putting in a big garden this weekend. We’ll be planting tomatoes, beans, peas, radishes, lettuce, pumpkins, squash, cuccumbers, beets, carrots, spinach, peppers and more.  Here’s why we decided to take control of what we eat and how we get it:

*Support for your local Ontario farmer! Like that *annoying* commercial dude sings…”Good things grow..in Ontario!”

*It’s such a great way to reduce pollution and gas consumption (by growing your own produce, it doesn’t need to be brought by truck from thousands of miles away.)

*It’s totally organic so you never need to wonder if dangerous fertilizers and such are going into your body.

*There something so emotionally satisfying about digging in the dirt and watching what you’ve planted grow.

*Gardening, weeding, tilling and harvesting are good excersize and a great hobby to share.

*I love to make pickles, jams, salsa and other canning items..this way it’ll be completely homemade. (Preserves, pickles, jams (and maybe a personalized bottle of make your own wine!) in a basket make wonderful gifts that you’ll have in your pantry for every occasion.

My how things change. 10 years ago I would’ve  so excited to be raising a ruckus and drinking too much beer on May 24 weekend. This year I am over the moon to be preparing a pile of dirt with peat moss and bone meal. Although, there will probably still be beer. Tee Hee.

Happy Victoria Day weekend!

1. Clay Pidgeons: Joaquin Pheonix and Vince Vaughn. Dark, incredibly funny and oh so strange. I like strange.

2. Boiler Room. If you work in sales…a MUST see. I’ve watched it 16 times. “Act as if….”

3. Crash. Wow. So good it was on while we were vactioning in Mexico and we choose to stay in the room with our beers and watch instead of going to the fiesta.

4. Anne of Green Gables. I think the count on this one may be the highest.  Viewed 100 times. Possibly more.

5. 21 Grams. It changed my life.

6. The Kite Runner. It changed my mind.

7. Pay It Forward. Oh. My. Gosh. Didn’t stop crying for days.

8. Braveheart. “The good Lord tells me he’s gonna get me outta this………..”

9. Return to Paradise.  Give up three years of their lives, or give up the life of their friend. You cannot watch this movie without heavy soul searching and asking yourself..”what would I have done?”

10. Legends of the Fall. Such beauty, such honour, the family dynamic, brothers and their bond, that endless Montana sky.

11. American History X.  Hard to watch.  Hate begets hate.

12. The Shawshank Redemption. “Get busy livin’..or get busy dying.”

13. Mermaids. Sometimes it’s hard to be a sister, or a daughter, or a mom…..

14. Fried Green Tomatoes

15. Into the Wild. Success, possessions..what REALLY matters to you?

16. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. So damn funny.

I think this may have to be an on going list……….I am noticing that many of my fav movies are also my fav books.  Favourite book list coming soon. I just made a grocery list too. I am in a list making kind of mood.

As the entire country goes crazy about a ‘stolen’ timbit…I have other pastries on my mind.

It’s my husband Todd’s birthday this weekend. Todd is not a cake fan. He’s a pie guy. So big is his love of pie that at our nuptual, we had a wedding cake…and a wedding pie.

When I asked this week what kind of treat he’d like me to make for his 34th birthday his answer, not suprisingly, was “apple pie.”

Now, I LOVE to cook..but baking…that’s another thing. I like the freedom of cooking..tossing a wee bit of this or a lot of that into whatever I’m creating and make it my own. One cannot take such liberties whilst baking. If it says a 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda..you best make darn sure that you have the baking soda, not the powder in your hot little wannabe Betty Crocker hands. I learned this the hard way. It wasn’t pretty. Nor was the time I forgot the sugar in the bananna bread, much to my father’s first big bite surprise.

So I turned to my mother’s trusty cookbook to hunt for a wonderful recipe for Dutch apple pie she used to make when I was a kid. It was yummy with a cinnamon, granola type topping instead of a top pie crust. I have yet to find it…..I am halfway through her third handwritten cooking novel and am getting nervous. Be not afraid…I tell myself…tomorrow is market day…and everyone around these parts knows you can’t find a better pie than the Mennonite masterpieces in St. Jacob’s. How do they make that crust? It’s a secret I’d love to be privy to.

So my plans this afternoon are to get to the grocery store, gather only what I need to make the birthday pie (NO avoiding the pie making by impulse shopping) get home and get baking!

If a pastry tragedy occurs, the puppy and I will see you bright and early tomorrow in St. Jacob’s. Feel free to point us in the direction of the best pie.

I just came home from the Waterloo Town Centre where I had some errands to run. While I was in line at the post office there was a beautiful teenage girl with her equally beautiful mom in front of me. They were having a spat..like mothers and daughters do.  Their disagreement seemed to start about borrowing a car….then turned to the daughter’s Friday night plans which the mother wasn’t too keen about. I listened..remembering how my mom and I would bicker incessantly about silly things just like these two were, and was suddenly overcome with sadness and loss.

I lost my mom to bone cancer 5 years ago. The most intense bouts of longing for her come at the strangest times. Like in line at the post office. Lord knows my mom and I didn’t see eye to eye all the time….or even nose to knee sometimes..hahaha..but what I wouldn’t give right now, or this coming weekend to have just one more silly disagreement about things that don’t matter. Just to have her back for a minute. To hear her voice. To see her smile. Heck, even to listen to her tell me why I was a bratty teenager..I’d take it, she was right, as mom’s often are.

Girls…..be good to your mama’s. They love you so. And someday, you’ll miss hearing your mother’s voice, seeing her smile, or even ….having a spat at the post office.