I really need to read labels more often

Today I was making dinner – salad and leftover chicken.

I had a bag of salad mix, the one with iceberg lettuce, carrots, purple cabbage, chopped up some tomatoes to add to it… and then went searching for salad dressing… there was some in the fridge but mom likes the Asian Sesame one.  I had a “new” bottle in the pantry so I grabbed it and happened to look at the Best Before date.

Um.   Best Before 29 Mar 2011.  Oh.

Showed Mom… she thought it might be okay, I mean, it was still factory sealed, right?  So I opened it… it wasn’t rotten, but didn’t smell terribly fresh.  So, down the drain.

Plan B.  I pulled the Peppercorn Ranch out of the fridge door… and, yes  I did check the date…  3 Nov 2010.  Right… okay, trash that one too.

On to Plan C.  Then I pulled out the bottle of Catalina…. Now this is where it gets REALLY embarrassing….

Kraft changed their bottle design some time back… um… yeah… let’s check the Best Before date shall we…

Now, we could be kind and say that means the 3rd of December of 2016… but we all know that isn’t the case.  The Best Before date is December 16 of TWO THOUSAND AND THREE!  That partially used bottle of Catalina has travelled with us through two moves, possibly three… O.M.G.  It was expired before we moved into Grande Prairie in 2004.

How and the heck did that happen?  I mean, I DID clean out the fridge every time we moved… and I know I’ve cleaned out the expired stuff a couple of times over the past couple of years…

This is really, well, embarrassing… and the real kicker is… Neither of us even LIKE Catalina!

Needless to say I did NOT open that bottle!

The only bottle that was left was Creamy Caesar… and, thankfully, the Best Before date was 12 May 26!  And it was good.

I have to stop buying multiple bottles on sale as we obviously don’t use them up fast enough.

Another year end looms

Only five more sleeps left of 2011 and then it is 2012.  And if you subscribe to that theory about the Mayan calendar we’ve got less than a year left… so make the most of it!

(If you don’t know what I’m referring to check it here.)

I’m just taking a break from doing my bookkeeping.  Over the years I’ve perfected my system… I do a whole year’s worth of data entry in 2-3 days between Christmas and New Year.  I used to do my books every week – took a couple of hours every weekend to enter and file my receipts and pay bills.  Then one year I just kept adding things to the bin… until the year was almost over.  I sat down to do all of it at once and it only took a couple days to do it all in a blitz.

So I figured out that two hours a week average was 104 hours spent doing it opposed to spending 16 to 24 hours doing it all at once.  I spend an evening or two sorting out the paperwork (bills in chronological order so they are easy to key in), types of payments, bank statements, etc.

It goes pretty fast.  The most time-consuming part is entering all the individuals receipts from my Visa card… then I have to reconcile everything:  credit cards, bank statements, RSP statements.

It all gets done and then I just have to wait for my T4s and RSP receipts before I take it all to the accountant.

At this point I can say that 2011 was my best year to-date.  Haven’t got all the expenses input yet (had a few unexpected such as a new computer, back-up drive, printer) so not sure how it will be in the end, but total gross income is well up.

On Christmas Day I FINALLY got to watch some of the Dr. Who Christmas Specials!  All at once as they were running them in a marathon on Space starting at 6 p.m.  They don’t show them in the regular schedule so I’ve never seen them.  Started with this year’s “The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe” and then all of the David Tennant ones… I didn’t stay up for all of them but think I saw five or six.  Went to bed around 2 a.m. or so.

We had a nice dinner here – I cooked for 10 people.   Mom and I are now eating leftovers for lunch and dinner… breakfast we’re having our usual for a break.  I figure we have about another three days of turkey and fixin’s to finish off.

My secret to an awesome turkey dinner?  Butterball pre-stuffed frozen turkey!  Tender, juicy, stuffing is delicious (just like mom and I USED to make, but now I don’t have to… and no one ever realized I stopped making it!)

And last night I… read a book!  Last one I had a chance to read was back in July.  Mom wanted to go to bed early and since I am off this week it was okay (if she goes to bed early she starts waking me up around 3 a.m. to use the commode… repeatedly so I won’t let her go to bed until 9 on work nights.)  So I had a chance to read.  It was really nice.  Managed to finish off one nice thick paranormal romance in a couple of hours.  And I might read another one tonight!  I have a stack of them I haven’t got around to reading yet.

My next gig is theatre – Snow White.  Dress rehearsals are the second week of January and then a three-week run.

Right now we’re watching that true classic of the season…. JAWS.

Christmas shows to get me in the mood

So Christmas Day is in a week… at this time in seven days it will be all over, the guests will have left and the dishwasher will be running and I’ll be sitting here relaxing as I mess around on my computer.

Right now I’m watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation… Clark just got the notice of the Jam of the month club and is spewing out his tirade… I love this movie.

I get annoyed though, about movies.  There are so many great Christmas movies that we just don’t see every year… we can’t locate them on the schedule some years at all.  And some of the Christmas TV specials too seem to disappear.

My favourites, in no particular order are:

A Christmas Carol (1951 starring Alastair Sim, in the original black and white.  Mom prefers the colourized version.)

It’s a Wonderful Life (Why isn’t Mr. Potter one of the top all time villans???)

The Bishop’s Wife (Cary Grant, David Niven and Loretta Young… What’s not to love ?)

A Christmas Story (you’ll shoot your eye out kid)

We’re No Angels (Humphrey Bogart, Peter Ustinov, Aldo Ray and Adolf the viper)

Die Hard (oh, the weather outside is frightful… terrorists and Christmas?  What could be more festive?)

Ernest Saves Christmas (THE best Ernest movie, ever.)

Scrooged (“That bitch hit me with a toaster”… how much more Christmassy does it get??)

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original 1966 animated version)

A Charlie Brown Christmas (the tree is a classic)

Bump-In-The-Night, T’was the Night Before Bumpy (a claymation series that aired on YTV in the 90s… it had Rolling Santas of Doom!!!  I really enjoyed it but only saw it once.)

There are more but those are the ones that pop into mind most of the time.

Last night was my (day-job) company party – mom and I went.  It was held one the staff’s home – there were eight of us so it was a nice size for a house party.  We played games, did a gift exchange and had Christmas dinner – we all made dishes (I took potatoes).  We didn’t get home until about 2:30 a.m. this morning…   Had a great time, won the trivia game, our team won Christmas Cranium, I tied for the “what’s in the stocking” game but lost on tie breaker.

I also had my last Christmas gig yesterday.  Out in the rural area at a rustic homestead.  There were sleigh rides and I was inside this old cabin with only a wood stove for heat.  Painted maybe a dozen or so.  And was paid in cash and one bill was one of those new plastic $100 bills… very cool.  It is transparent in parts and shiny.  First one I’ve seen in person.

Once I got up today … around 10, then I sat down to turn on the TV and dozed off again until mom called me at almost 11 a.m… I got some more candy made and two different kinds of cookies… Did pecan brittle, almond brittle, oatmeal raisin cookies and church window cookies.

Ran out of corn syrup and raisins.  So a run to the grocery store at lunch tomorrow so I can finish.  Have to get stuff on the bus by Wednesday!

National Pizza Month

One of the local morning radio shows, Paul & Pike on Q99, was making a big deal out of October being National Pizza Month.  They challenged people to submit their weirdest pizza toppings, ones that they would be willing to eat, on air.

Well, not one to pass up a challenge… I put a lot of thought into it and posted on their face book page.  I thought they weren’t considering entries until Wednesday and I posted my list of toppings on Tuesday morning:

Hmm… how about, deep-fried onion rings, pork rinds, maraschino cherries (drained and patted dry first!), garlic sausage (sliced), black olives, English Toffee (chopped up Almond Roca would work), and red bell peppers (NOT hot ones.)

Then, yesterday, I get a call at work… from Paul… and I knew I had been chosen.  He asked that I be at the station for 7 a.m. THIS morning to eat MY pizza, made by Charles from the Crown & Anchor Pub, on air, in front of witnesses.  The reward for doing this was pizza, wings and beer on Charles at the Crown for my crew.

So… all night I was visualizing eating this pizza… since I had thought it out first I knew I could handle it.  Meat goes fine with fruit/sweet sauces so I wasn’t worried about the garlic sausage, the cherries, the peppers, olives, even the pork rinds (those were just for effect)… but … the English Toffee… that was the wild card.

So I arranged for Amy to arrive early, got up extra early, got mom up early… did NOT eat or drink anything (I needed to be hungry) and toddled over there, after making sure my cell phone was operational as I had to call up to the booth so one of the guys could let me in.

Randy (the Pike in Paul & Pike) let me in and then they asked that I watch for Charles with the Pizza… so I went down and let him in when he arrived.

I was expecting a personal sized pizza or a small… no, he brought a LARGE…

And… amazingly it was a VERY yummy looking, attractive pizza.  It even smelled good!

So once the guys were done with the news, weather etc. we got to go into the control room.  I took photos of the guys, to prove I was there…

This is Paul

This is Pike (Randy)

And this is Charles who made the pizza

So, live, on radio I ate a piece.  Paul filmed it.

You can read their blog here with all the details.

So I ate the one piece required, Charles and I exchanged cards (I need to call him to set-up my “prize”) and they made me take the pizza home.

I ate two more pieces for breakfast with a couple of cups of coffee… it really was a pretty good pizza… but the toffee was a mistake.  As it cooled it got really stiff and sticky and made biting through difficult.

No one at home would have any, and none of my friends wanted me to save them any… so, sad to say, since it was garbage day… the rest hit the bin.

Thanks Paul & Pike, Charles and Q99… that was fun!

Random bits

First… a reminder to everyone that the contest for three of my design sheets closes this Friday.  For contest details check the original post.

Second… I’m panicking… a bit.  Tonight’s rehearsal for Mad Moose Mayhem is the last one before dress rehearsal and I’m still not comfortable without my script in my hand…. I KNOW my lines, I’ve been writing them out longhand over and over, typing them, and running them with mom but I keep blanking out in two spots… argh.

Third… We’ll be having a visitor in November!  Lynne McKay from Glasgow, via Ibiza, is going to come stay with us!  Lynne was a very wonderful hostess to me when I visited Scotland in … was it 2006???  Wow time flies.  Might even put her to work at one of my Christmas gigs.

Fourth… Thanksgiving weekend.  Have company coming for dinner on Monday… I was planning a ham, but mom vetoed it so now pork roast with roasted fall vegetables.  I went to the butcher shop and got them to cut me a special roast – with the fat left on!!  Pork NEEDS crackling!!!

Fifth… Halloween bookings are coming in!  Saturday is getting pretty full up already.  Mostly zombies…

Sixth… the pro photographers that were at the Wearable Arts Show on Saturday have started posting their photos and tagging them on Facebook!  Check out my wall to see them… there are some totally awesome shots!!

 

Fall is just about here

Summer season is coming to an end.  Next weekend I’m booked up, and then… the typical September slump.  It is the same every year… I think it is a combination of school starting, weather changing and people just not planning things as they are busy.

On the plus side I got my first Halloween booking - a zombie, of course.  And there is a Zombie Walk on Sept 3… hope to either being doing make-up or maybe participate.  Would be funny to make-up mom and roll her around town…

Theatre season starts up in September but I don’t necessarily get booked for all the shows… this year I’m booked for three shows starting in January.  I’m thinking about auditioning for a couple shows too this year!  The ones where I don’t have to actually act, but be silly… I’m not shy and have no problem embarrassing myself.  I’ve played the Queen of Hearts in Alice and also have been The Fairy Godmother three times now (in three different shows)… I think I’m being type cast.

Yesterday was one of my annual fairs.  They got some extra funding so hired me for five hours this year… Mom came along and washed my brushes for me as she does at most of the public events I do.  It was a long day.  It was in Hythe which is about a 45 minute drive from here, then we set-up, painted without a break until the end of the event (turning away dozens,) then packed up, headed home, went through the car wash and stopped to deposit my cheque before getting home.  All without a bathroom break… for either of us – which is a minor miracle

Oh, almost forgot!  I got one tip yesterday… from one mom, for one kid… $20.  That was really nice.

I think I painted at LEAST 50 skulls… masses kitties and dozens of dalmations… and not a single Spiderkid!

We discussed picking up dinner but didn’t… so dinner was Eggo Waffles with a fried egg and a veggie burger patty and a bit of shredded tex-mex cheese… stacked.  Was pretty good… mom had her’s smothered in ketchup (as usual.)

Is my life exciting or what?

WOW, what great customer service!

Yesterday morning disaster hit the Fennell house.  Our Keurig kwit!

This is the one I blogged about here, bought January 2nd of this year… been using it everyday since, not a problem at all.  Then, yesterday morning, I turned it on… didn’t make the usual noise of filling the water and heating it, odd I thought, then the “ready to brew” lights and message appeared right away.  That was also strange as usually it moves the water in from the reservoir, heats it, then says it is ready.  But, whatever.

So I put in mom’s Nantucket blend, put her mug under it and hit the size selection… then it moves the water from the reservoir… WTF??  So I stood and watched… it took a bit to heat up but then it started … um, took forever and only produced about a half-inch of coffee in the bottom of the mug?  So… hoping it was just some sort of hiccup, I opened and closed on the same k-cup and hit the button again.  Same thing… another half-inch of coffee… it was pretty potent so I added some hot water to it for mom as she likes her’s pretty mild.

I got the manual out of the cupboard and went to the trouble shooting section… there was the topic about only making part of a cup.  So I followed the directions… cleaned out the holes in the dispenser assembly, ran water through… it produced almost a full mug on the largest size setting, so I tried to make myself a cup… nope, wouldn’t produce actual coffee with a k-cup, but would put water through, but only on the largest cup size.

So I continued with the trouble shooting, which was to de-scale it.  I had to fill the reservoir with pure white vinegar and then run it through the machine, twice… and then let it sit for 4 hours, then run a full reservoir of clean water through to rinse it.

I don’t think it needed de-scaling as we have only used bottled water (filtered water we have delivered as the city water here is horrid) so there should be no scale to be de’d.  But I follow directions well…

Then once that was all done… I tried to make coffee again this morning.  Still not working.

Next step in the trouble shooting guide was to call Customer Service at their 1-866 number.

It was answered pretty quickly by a man who very sincerely apologized for me having this problem, then took all my information and in the process of asking for my email address asked if I was a realtor or an artist.  I said artist and he said that people with their name as their domain are usually either realtors or artists.  So I told him I was a make-up artist/face & body painter … and you know what?  He knew who I was!  He said he has my book, Your Face or Mine!  Is that amazing or what?  He is a photographer and does his own make-up.

That was so cool!

Anyway, he put me through to a specialist who would help with the problem.  She came on the line very quickly, again, sincerely apologizing for this problem.  She talked me through another cleaning step of the needles in the lid (with the machine unplugged… very important!)  Then I had to fill up the water reservoir again and get a measuring cup.  She had me run the cycle three times and let her know the volume of water being put through.

We didn’t get more than 1 3/4 ounces on any try.  So, she says, we will send you a new machine, it will be a newer/better model and it should arrive in 3-7 business days.  Wow, cool.  And all I have to do is send in the cup assembly as proof of ownership back to them in Brunswick, Georgia (the state not the country.)  The new machine will have a new one year warranty too, not just the balance of this one’s.

I am very pleased with the customer service from Keurig.  Very.

UPDATE:   Our new brewer arrived yesterday (Aug 18) by FedEx… they left it sitting on the stoop on top of a pile of ant poison, so I didn’t bring the box into the kitchen.  Unpacked it in the garage.  It is a “Special Edition”, it is quieter than our old one, and fills the internal reservoir with a lot more water at a time.  Happy Dance!!!

 

More Christmas stuff

Well, I am slowly getting things done… not sure if I’m in the “spirit” yet but at least I am ticking things off the list.

I follow a blog called Cakewrecks which is hilarious and followed a link on there to Bakerella… very cute stuff.  She makes “cake pops” which is a cake turned to crumbs, mixed up with icing, shaped and decorated.  The pops are on sticks but they are done without too.

I thought the little cupcake bites were do-able.  So on Friday night before I went to bed I baked a devil’s food cake (started at 11 p.m. – who says I’m not a night person!) and left it out to cool.

Then on Saturday morning I crumbled the whole thing!  And then mixed in a whole container of milk chocolate frosting (sorry, scratch is too labour intensive for me…) and stuck it in the fridge to cool while I did other things… like laundry, a fitting for my fairy godmother costume, got the Christmas tree out of the basement…

I got the lights up on the window and put the tree together, then got mom seated on her walker so she could put on some of the decorations.  That’s all we are doing this year… I think I will Freecycle all the other stuff we have.

Since we no longer have the shelves upstairs there is no place to set all the bits we used to use.  So… I’ll get rid of them – stuff like fabric flowers, garlands, music boxes, berries and picks, etc.

Here’s the tree:

Then once that was done I went back to the cake mash and started making small balls of it.  I wore vinyl gloves to roll them as it didn’t stick to them and made it really easy to do.  I got 88 balls out of the one cake.

I stuck them back in the fridge and took a break as I has extreme pain in my right wrist… took a pill, made us some dinner and turned on the tree lights.  The flashing ones are hypnotic…

Once the pill kicked in I went and nuked the milk chocolate candy coating and using my candy mould for peanut butter cups I started to finish my cupcake bites.

I filled the cups about half full of the melted chocolate and then pressed one of the balls into it until the chocolate came up the sides to the top, then filled the tray and put it in the freezer to set-up.  I did that eight times to get all the balls done, then put them back in the fridge.

Then I melted white chocolate candy coating and dipped the “cupcakes” into it to ice them, and then sprinkled decorations on top of each of them.  In the background I was listening to “Kelly’s Heroes” on TV with descriptive video on TAC – The Accessibility Channel.  Mom was watching it in the living room.

Descriptive video is actually quite neat – the voices were naming the make and model of the jeeps and guns and mortar sizes, etc.

So… after about five hours of work I ended up with this:

Here’s another shot… (of the prettier ones!)

And, of course, a gratuitous extreme close-up

I also made some nut clusters with the left over milk chocolate to go with my sister’s gift as she really likes them.

I still have to make peanut brittle, english toffee, oatmeal raisin cookies, peanut butter cookies and church window cookies for our gift giving (it is tradition).

Today I painted at another corporate Christmas Party – here’s me ready to go to work.

After the job I went to rehearsal for the Panto – arrived while they were having “intermission” so got in on the second half, then headed over to get some groceries and made it home right on time.   The clerk at the grocery store asked if “they were stickers” on my face… [sigh]

Started the Christmas baking

Today was a rare day … it was the second of two days off in a row!!  Got most of the cleaning done yesterday so today we made some cookies.

I had a bunch of stuff to use up so I call these “Cupboard Cookies” – all the bits of stuff in the cupboard thrown in.

What is in them you ask?  Well… the dough is the usual – 1.5  cups of butter creamed with 1 cup white and 1 cup of brown sugar, 3 eggs beaten in, 3.5 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of vanilla… all mixed to a smooth dough…

And the rest?  Well in this batch there are (4.5 to 5 cups combined total) chopped nuts (peanuts, almonds, pecans, walnuts,) dried cranberries, raisins (sultana and regular), dried pineapple, dried cherries, dried strawberries, dried mango, dried kiwi fruit, dried apples, banana chips (broken up).  All of this was mixed up with a half cup of flour BEFORE being added to the dough, then mixed in well.

It should make about 10 dozen small cookies… yeah, but I only got maybe 5 dozen … mom was helping drop the cookies on the baking sheets and they got BIG… they are really YUMMY too.

I had all these little packages of chopped nuts and dried cranberries from those salad kits and some leftover fruit and nut snack mix… I almost added chocolate chips but changed my mind at the last-minute.

The next batch will use up all the toffee and nut crumbs from the candy making.