Stupid Canada

This is the view off of my deck, taken a half hour ago. Fifteen centimetres of snow down, another fifteen to come before midnight. I have had enough of this winter stuff. Yes, those are my Christmas lights. And yes, I am tempted to turn them on.

The power went off this afternoon, while we were at work, and was back on before we got home. Awwwww, I love power outtages! And I missed it! Stupid storm can't do anything right.

On the other hand, as the snow has been slowly melting over the last week or so, all the "gifts" our dog has left us in the back yard have start emerging. At least now they are covered over again.

Oh BAD WORD

I just checked on my lovely Portuguese pickles. One of the jars had mold in it (ewwwwww) so I threw eveything out.

Guess I will have to start over.

Bad word.

Huh?

I need to get something off my chest, something that has bothered me for ten years or more. Maybe y'all can explain this to me in a way that makes sense and allows me to bury this question forever.

When people get married, why do couples BUY the woman's wedding dress, but RENT the man's tuxedo? Shouldn't it be the other way around? When I married my Ex-Husband fifteen years ago, I too went all bridal on his ass, and purchased a dress that cost almost $1000. Fifteen years ago. And it has sat in big box in my Mum's basement ever since. Money well spent, huh?

And in my OWN basement? I have my Mummy's wedding dress in a big box. Granted, one of her sisters also wore that wedding dress -- in 1971-- so it has "only" been a pain in the butt to all and sundry for 38 years. I know my Mummy had always hoped I'd wear her dress when I walked down the aisle....but the woman was 4'9" and weighed 90 lbs on a good day. Me? Not so much. I have zero reason to keep her wedding dress (or my own, for that matter) but I am now saddled with both for all eternity.

The reasonable thing for a chick with a penchant for a white dress to do is rent the bloody thing, and buy her man a tux. Granted, a man doesn't get to wear a tux everyday, but I can assure you he wears it more often than one five-hour period out of his entire life.

So why do so many women, myself included, go temporarily insane over the matter of a big white dress?? Explain it like I'm four years old.

Earth Hour in 83 minutes...

Trying to get us fed and watered before I turn off the power at 8:30.

Some people gripe that Earth Hour is just a publicity stunt. Well DUH, of course it is. Some people say that one hour's worth of conservation doesn't even amount to a single drop in the bucket. Well DUH, of course it doesn't. Some people say that, by abstaining for one hour, folks will think they have "done their share" for the year and immediately go back to their wasteful ways at 9:30pm.

But so what?

Who CARES if it is just a publicity stunt, or that some of the participants don't really "get" what it's all supposed to symbolize. Every little bit helps. Let me tell you, the way I use the earth's resources today is a far cry from the way I did even two years ago. The small changes, the minor decisions I make every day, they really DO add up. Especially when you add my changes to yours. And to your neighbour's. And to that guy's.

If you choose not to participate in Earth Hour, that's cool. Your choice, man. Just don't let anyone tell you Earth Hour is a bad idea.

Two things I learned this weekend.

First, when making pickles, make sure you have a pot large enough to process the resulting jars. Durrr. I have never used pint sized jars before, only smaller ones. So imagine my surprise when they were taller than all my pots, and of course I hadn't borrowed my Mum's Big Pot.

I ALSO learned that making Yorskhire Pudding is harder than it seems. Well, maybe it's not harder than it seems, maybe you just need to pay attention to the recipe before you go slinging flour and egg all over your kitchen and throwing them in the oven. Oh, that part about how it is CRUCIAL to pre-heat the muffin tin, and that your ingredients be at room temperature? Yeah, missed that.

Granola Girl Update!

--After suffering many humiliating cheese-making related defeats, I have a lead on a source of raw milk....which is totally not legal to "purchase" in my part of the world (grr), but nothing to stop someone from giving me some as a gift. And then maybe I will give them some cash as a totally unrelated reciprocal gift.

(Okay, the Grammar Girl in me is cringing over the oxymoron "unrelated reciprocal")

--Two days ago I started some cat grass seeds on the kitchen counter. Then tonight I started some radish seeds in a jar, looking to eat yummy sprouts in about a week.

--Then I saw Husbandly One's eye start to twitch, as he realizes I am "cluttering up" the counter with my mid-life crisis. Sheesh, relax already. After all, I'm just getting started, hee hee.

--I bought some white wine vinegar a few days ago, and depending on how my weekend goes, I may pickle some carrots this weekend. Yes, I know pickling carrots from the grocery store in March is weird, but this is part of a long term plan. As mentioned, Husbandly One longs for the pickles of his native Portugal. Well, I think I have found a good recipe for these....but they have to sit for eight weeks before eating them. So I figure if I make them now, he will try them sometime in May....early enough to potentially tell me if I got it wrong and still allow me to try a second recipe before our own carrots need processing.

(Sometimes I AM capable of thinking ahead, you see.)

--If any of you have tried (or are thinking about trying) the homemade laundry soap, I have a new warning: do NOT use it in conjunction with bleach. Why? I have no idea, but I assume there is a chemical reason for this.

--Actually, I better go and update my old post on the topic to include this info. Ciao!

See, THIS is why I can't be a "girl"

Had a girl's night out with the ladies from my office tonight. We went for a drink and nibblies, and then off to the spa. Well, actually off to an aesthetics school; these ladies are nearing graduation and offer heavily discounted prices on the procedures so they can get more practice. I will tell you right off the bat that I really enjoyed it; I had some kind of super detoxy blah blah blah facial, it was relaxing, it felt great, my skin feels like a baby's butt, and it was dirt cheap.

On the table next to me, on the other side of the discreet curtain, was a lady I don't have much in common with. You know what, this is my blog, so I'll just spell it out: I think the woman is a complete airhead. But she was trying to chat with me so I figured I could just make some mindless chatter and then she would leave me alone with my lovely facial.

Unexpectedly, she asked me if I was still happy with my homemade laundry soap (I am). This turned in to a whole enviro tangent that frankly floored me. She was asking me what I believe, what I want....and, even knowing that every single person I work with could hear me, I found myself telling this airhead my ambitions of chickens and hogs, of fertile gardens, of sustainability, of living simply.

Then she hauls off and says, "Did I tell you I started my own business? I am a rep for Majorly Expensive Cosmetics. What I love about them is that their products are made from 'botanicals' and the seven step cleansing system is only $400 and it lasts a long time."

(Here's the proof that I can't do this whole "girl" thing.)

I basically replied that while I wish her well, and once received a sample of the seven step process as a gift and agree that it was lovely, spending $400 on a seven step cleansing process doesn't fit in with my desire to live simply, nor does the time involved in a seven step process, that even if it did I could never justify the expense, and what is so wrong with looking my age ANYWAY, and if it hadn't been for this organized outing I would probably never have had another facial for as long as I live, and I figure plain old soap is good enough for me.

And that's when I realized my esthetician, who hopes to spend her live selling such clap trap, was listening. As was every esthetician in the room. As were all my co-workers.

If my back wasn't still so bad, I probably could have gotten my actual foot in my mouth. That's all that prevented it.

Nobody talked to me much after that.

At the end of my facial, my poor affronted esthetician tried to fix my hair with her fingers before I got up. I told her she didn't need to do that, I was good....then I stood up and saw my dishevelled self in the mirror. I snorted, "Omigod, I totally have sex hair!"

My co-workers near me giggled, and I heard one of them further away ask, "What did Irma say?"

"I SAID THE FACIAL TOTALLY GAVE ME SEX HAIR."

I heard shocked gasps from across the room, and my cosmetic selling coworker hissed, "Irma, there are other clients in the room besides us!!!"

Ugh.

Now everybody hates me. Even people I don't know.