Great coffee sleeve

I am so guilty of asking for a double cup at my local coffee chain.

The thin paper burns my fingers and some places don't offer a sleeve at all.

This little gem is a fantastic idea. When you aren't carrying a coffee you can wear this attractive coffee sleeve as a wrist cuff.

The downside is that the makers of this attractive sleeve aka bracelet cuff is that its expensive.

I've been on some crafty blogs lately and have seen a much cheaper solution either sewn or knitted. So if you are a little bit crafty here is a great idea to make something pretty and environmental. If you aren't crafty there are friends out there that are.

Even better though, carry a plastic coffee container. Okay if you are like me this isn't always convenient - the cuff is a great thing.

Pull up your pants!

I haven't been able to understand the male pant trend for the past 15 years.


Why do nice young men walk around with their drawers showing. Really guys - give yourself some self respect. Buy some pants that fit comfortably and invest in a belt. I've seen some extremes over the years. I can't understand how one can even comfortably walk with their pants at their knees.


Nice kids are spending their parents hard earned dollars on expensive BIG jeans but then they have to go and hack off half the pants because they are way too long when you are zipping at the knees.



Stop the insanity. I'm not saying go out and buy a pair of skinny leg jeans, baby steps are necessary here. Buy your size in a nice straight cut and voila - you look like a grown up.



I am a teenager of the 80s. I grew up having to lie down to zip up my jeans (okay not so healthy) and the guys did just the same. I have to say I loved the view of the 80s, fashion faux paux's and all. I mean we had tight tight jeans which defined a nice ass. Even men with no ass had a somewhat nice ass.

There were tight jeans! Okay wayyyy too tight but we were on a learning curve.



There were spandex (boo) a little over the top but the hair bands pulled it off.

There were painter jeans!

There was acid wash jeans (okay that was bad but they fit at least).



Now you just can't tell who has a butt and who doesn't. Mind you I don't have any interest in the age group wearing those pants but still... guys think of the girls in your cohort. They need to see the merchandise.

Eventually boys... there will come a day when you are going to get totally comfortable with yourself and wear your pants up to your chest - its inevitable.

Make peace with the pants.

The big commute question

I am not a morning person.

I recently did my taxes and came across a credit I hadn't been aware of. For residents of my Province, monthly bus passes can be written off in a proportion towards your total tax credit. Anything I can do to not pay so much to the taxman is cool with me. So the wheels have been turning.

When gas reached a $1.25 a litre this week and with the news that its only going to keep creeping to over $1.50 by mid summer it would be stupid of me not to take this opportunity to save at the pumps and at the taxman.

The downside - I hate our public transit system in my city. The buses come at odd times and where we live to get to the centre you have to seriously plan your day the night before.

My morning routine is to hit snooze 5 times, drag my butt down the stairs to a nicely brewed cup of coffee, jump in the shower and grab my lunch and breakfast on the fly out the door. If I do start commuting on the bus I'll have to set the alarm a half hour before I do now. NOT hit snooze at all. Hustle my butt out the door. What I loose is time with my daughter in the morning and the afternoon. I will loose that precious hour.

I'm trying to convince myself of the plus side.

• save money at the pumps, only use the car for evening kid based activities and groceries.
• environmentally responsible
• tax write off
• time to read a book
• meet 'different' people
• less wear and tear on the car
• did I say environmentally friendly.... I'm really working here
• I can sit with my spouse who is working his way up to this commuting thing.
  
• the weather will be nice. I can't quite bring myself to wait for a bus in a snow bank at minus 20 just yet.

So in the near future... I'll be joining the masses.

I can also probably afford a tank or two to head to the cottage this summer. Win win really.

The scariest thing ever

If I woke up to this I would be in need of instant Therapy. I am not a fan of dolls. Barbie does not creep me out but little dolls with blinking eyes are just WRONG on so many levels.

This was someone's art exhibit and if their intent was to horrify well they are good.


This is like a mini Night of the Living Dead. "Brains"

Maybe to someone these are cute but look at their cold dead eyes.

Creepy.

Time to dig deep in the garden

I am over the moon that the weather had finally gotten warm enough to stick my somewhat rusty old garden tools back in the earth.

Last year we started expanding one level of our lot into a garden fit for a summer long feast. We started with three rows for Leeks, grape tomatoes and herbs. The Leeks didn't work so well, they were small but still delicious to cook with all winter. I chopped up what survived and froze them. The grape tomatoes were much bigger than what you would get in the grocery store and way sweeter and salty. These little gems didn't make it to the table past summer, my kids were eating them right out of the garden. I didn't really mind because it meant it was less time eating at the candy store. They were better than Candy. I planted only 4 cucumber plants because expert gardeners had warned me that these plants can really take over your garden. I should have planted 40 plants because I only got about 8 cucumbers off the entire group. I was also impatient and picked them when they were somewhat small. I may have picked the wrong cucumber - English - but it was neat how they grew. They curled.

I also had some herbs. Friends were only too willing to pass along basil, thyme and chives. I added Rosemary and a chili thyme that had small leaves but gave a big punch in my cooking and just alone in a garden salad. I didn't have as much luck with my dill. It grew tall and weedy which I'm not sure it should have and it also went to seed. I've got to good Dill because it is such a great way to punch up a boring bowl of mashed potatoes.

So this year I'm trying to decide what to grow again. I'm definitely expanding to do three rows of just different types of tomatoes. They are such a big part of our winter cooking - which also means I'm going to have to investing in some canning jars and lids to save them for the winter (if they make it that far).
I'm dividing up another row for green beans and sugar snap peas. I think I might need to make some kind of trellis for this though as I've seen sugar peas climbing.

I'm going to grow cucumbers and yellow zucchini too. I'm not very comfortable planting in the ground so carrots and other tubers are out. Some of our lot does have tailings dust from the old form of mining so the thought of my children putting that in their mouths doesn't sit well with me.

Any suggestions?

My super awesome Rink making Dad

It was the winter of either 1979 or 1980. I was obsessed with skating after watching Dorothy Hamil skate in the winter Olympics. I wanted to skate 24-7. Well I was a little bit too young to go down to the rink by myself and my parents were busy most evenings with things kids don't get. Things like paying bills, making supper, arranging playdates for the younger sibling, downtime from work. They ran us around 3 nights a week already with skating, dance and brownies so the 2 nights they had free - they actually wanted to have something still not quite heard of, especially for mom's in the late 70's ..."me time".

But wait it was all about me wasn't it?

Anyways, my Dad has always encouraged us to do whatever it is we dream of doing and he always tried to give us the tools to do so. He was a busy man with a busy Accounting practice and in the winter he adjusted his hours to work at his peak times - noon to about 3am from January to April. He was home for supper for about 2 hours but then gone again after a quick goodnight kiss and a tuck into bed. But I guess I must have really inspired him or pestered him to the point of sanity because one night not long after we were back to school in January he went out to the front of our driveway and started shovelling the unused summer side. My sister and I dragged on our snowsuits to go out and help but more so watch in fascination as he marked off a perfect 20 foot rectangle with sticks and string.

What are you doing Daddy?

You'll see.

He smoothed out the bottom surface and told us to stay out of the square. It was getting pretty cold and his engineering prowes although neat was getting boring so we went inside and pestered Mom for Hot chocolate. I went off to bed thinking not of the rectangle but probably something a little more to my speed - like who was the better buddy Skipper or Gilligan?

The next morning, heading off to school I stopped short at the end of the driveway. The Rectangle had transformed into a glistening slab of thin ice. I was excited. I remember rushing home from school and digging out my skates only to be stopped by my mom. Yes it was going to be a skating rink but it was going to take some time to build up the ice so it would be safe to use. Bummer.

I can only guess that when my Dad got home from work that night he brought out pail after pail of hot water and threw it across his surface. The man is a saint.

Well I waited.... and waited... and waited. Finally a week later Dad announced that the ice was very solid and smooth and it would be safe to use. I ran to get dressed and put on my skates. I clomped down the driveway and stepped on to the rink for my first glide.

It was utter bliss. Smooth as marble. There was barely a bump or ripple. I skated until my cheeks were ruddy red and I couldn't feel my nose - then I still had to be dragged in by my Mom.

That winter our house was the hub of skating activity. No hockey was allowed because there was little ones on the ice and Dad didn't want too much maintenance on the rink but we had a blast. I was sad to see it melt away in the spring.

He kept this up for 3 more years until I was a teenager and only interested in closing my door and listening to music while talking on the phone. I think he was probably a little bit sad but also a little bit relieved that the momentous chore he had undertaken to please me had moved on.

The picture above inspired this memory. I looked at the rink that had been in some old catalogue and thought it was nothing compared to what I had received. My dad's diligence, love and time. It might not have been the pure quality time because of his crazy winter hours but it was time given with the intent of love.

I know this wasn't my usual sarcastic snip at something today but I can work on that. :)

Marketing Master mind or nut - you tell me.

I found this on Ebay the other day looking for inspiration.

It was on sale - used for $2.00 off the cover price. So really this is a double used product.

Someone has gone out of their way to collect the regurgitated by product from an Owls stomach, taken a scrupulous look at it and then wrote a book on how to look at this. Genius!

It is pretty gross but when my son was much younger he would have totally thought this was the cats ass.