A delightful surprise today

When I opened my mail this evening I had a wonderful surprise. My blog has been featured on blog called Canada Blog Friends.

The author, Rob, of Canada Blog Friends states that the blog is a celebration of life in Canada, as manifest in many different blogs, across many different genres from every part of the nation.

The coolest Canadian blogs are profiled here, and sometimes extra passionate posts are condensed in compelling story briefs and further digested in comments.

Canada Blog Friends links to our nation’s best content everyday.

A new blog but one that I will certainly subscribe to and I hope you will visit other Canadians that are featured here.

Thanks Rob for choosing my blog to feature.

History of a suitcase

When we go to Mexico we need to travel fairly light because we are going in our little yellow Aveo. The only luggage I currently own is a great big red suitcase that was my father's in which I lugged some keep sakes back from England after he passed away in 2003. Mostly they were old cookbooks of his and my stepmother's in which they had written quite a few notes, and some hand embroidered linens that had been in the family for years. Not many photographs as we were just not a snap taking family.

He had had that suitcase for years having bought it in a luggage store in Baghdad in the early 1950's so it was a bit of a keepsake in itself. I remember seeing that suitcase being packed each time he returned to his job in Iraq after a visit home, while I was packing mine to return to boarding school, so there was some emotion attached to it as well. He remarried several years after my mother's death and I remember clearly that suitcase being put into the back of the car he had rented for himself and his new wife, Katy, to go on honeymoon. It was also the same suitcase that had all they could grab thrown into it when they fled  after the assassination of King Fisel of Iraq, when there was a very real threat that non-nationals would be slaughtered also.

Now it is stored in the back bedroom closet, I don't think we will  use it again as it is a really monstrous thing with little wheels attached to the bottom so It is probably time to get some designer luggage for our trip to Mexico, something that will be easy to carry in and out of hotels each evening as we intend to drive down taking about a week and on the return about two or three weeks, checking out Arizona, New Mexico and Texas perhaps to buy a mobile or something so we can be snow birds and get away from the winter each year. It is a dream anyway.

Goodbye Annie

We took Annie to a new home today. We have been having quite a bit of trouble with her escaping. Although we have a fenced yard she has got out several times and we were at our wits end on how to keep her in. We resorted to having to tie her but life on the end of a rope for the remainder of her years was not a great idea and it also made her more aggressive. So we heard of an Alpaca ranch that was looking for Maremma dogs and they were happy to take her. Her breed is really a working guard dog not a pet and although we rescued her it has been an uneasy if loving relationship.

There will be at least two other Maremmas working with her and probably teaching her the ropes but the freedom of acres of land and fulfilling her calling as a guard dog, protecting her charges from wolves, bears and other predators will make her life more rewarding we hope.

Hubby will be a bit down in the dumps for a while as he loved her but he had come to the end of his patience, especially as the village is charging $75 if they pick her up. I have laid down the law though, no more dogs. It simply does not fit with our planned winter vacation to Mexico and maybe future snowbirding.

I am having a go at beading

I have never been much of a person for hobbies but decided that I needed something else to do beside computer stuff so bought some beading basics when near a craft store in Prince George on my last trip. Here is a picture of my first two earring and necklace sets. They were fun to make.

I just bought a beginners kit to see if I would like it, so there was not a great investment. One thing I have against hobbies is what does one do with the stuff when finished, and as there are no girls in my family except me I have no one to give them to.

I have a friend in the village who makes cards, and she does a really beautiful job of it and she sells them in a lot of specialty stores that offer hand crafted items, as well as the local Information Centre which has a local crafter's section. She makes enough to buy her supplies and a little extra besides. So I wondered if I could get aspire to do the same otherwise I can't see the point of it.

I thought I might be able to get some interesting beads in Mexico. So we will see, it might go the way of my partly finished sweater, or the one quarter embroidered tablecloth that I had big plans for, the crocheted squares that I finally gave away for someone else to sew together. Did I ever mention I hate to sew. I glue, staple or tape hems as long as I can get away with it.

Got another gadget

My eldest son has been after me for some time to get a webcam so I can keep up with his two boys so I bought one on the way home. I hate how I look, it is a reminder that I am get older. I have it connected to my desktop computer but I have yet to figure out the sound which is very poor but I have been able to connect and see him on camera. My middle son bought a laptop while I was in Calgary and his has a webcam in it and since my youngest son lives with him we are now all able to communicate visually. So even though we can see each other we still are typing as we haven't figured out yet how to hear each other. It works with Windows Messenger although it is meant to work with Yahoo and Aim. I am not sure I like it that much and of course the wire is not quite long enough so I will have to see if I can get an extension.

My husband has taken to my new laptop and he is not usually interested in computers. He is doing his Bible reading on it right now using the battery so he doesn't have wires everywhere. I want to find him some games, he likes card games he can play against the computer, since I am terrible at card games. Also I will probably get round to getting a wireless router which will pick up my satellite signal and we can have both computers connected to the Internet. It is amazing that the laptop has more than my desktop computer and at a quarter of the price and that is since 18 months ago. It has a gigabyte of RAM and my desktop only has 512mb. It has Windows Vista on it that I think is really over rated. On the surface it is much like XP so what all the hype was about I don't know.

So now my travels are over and I have to think about Fall and making jam, canning fruit and all that stuff. I can't say my heart is in it, at least not yet.

Some pictures of the trip home from Calgary

I came home through through the Rocky mountains, it was a little dull but I got a few nice pictures. It was a much more relaxing trip than going down, much less traffic although one can't drive so fast but the view was worth it.

 

Heading back tomorrow

Image via Wikipedia

Planning to get out of Calgary as early as I can and go home a different way than when I came. I will drive to Banff and through the ice fields in Jasper National Park, then stay overnight in McBride again. It will be slower going because of the tourists but hopefully a little shorter and I can take time to enjoy the views. Although clouds and rain are threatened so there may not be anything to see. I won't get home to early evening of Friday, I will have put a lot of miles on my little yellow car this month. Next big trip to Mexico.

Saturday movie fest

Image via Wikipedia

We went to see Prince Caspian, one of the Narnia movies, this afternoon. I always get my movie fix when I come to Calgary as I don't see any for a year. Then we rented some of the movies I wanted to see. So after supper tonight we put on a Harry Potter movie. We have a bad habit of chatting over the movies,when we view them at home, critiquing the actors performance and such. We all do it and it can drive other people mad but it is a way we interact with each other.

It is really hot here today, so we walked in the park by the river for a while to catch the breezes but that was mainly why we chose to go to the theatre this afternoon. Otherwise it was just a regular day. We plan to go out for breakfast tomorrow and let the day unfold but if it still is really hot, over 30C, we won't be outside long.

Thanks for those of you that have been travelling with me, I think that is neat and blogging this trip is practice for the big trip to Mexico in February.

Trip to Calgary saga

I finally fell asleep in the motel in McBride BC around 11:30 pm thinking that I would get up about 6 to get on the road again but in fact my eyes snapped open at 3:36 am and nothing would convince them that another couple of hours of sleep would be be a good idea as I had a 10 hour drive coming up. So I gave up and got up and slowly got myself together as I wanted the sun to be up before starting out. It was a lovely morning in the Rockies and if I had not had such a long trip ahead of me I would have stopped to take pictures of the sun coming up over the mountains.

Once I was in Alberta and away from the mountains the highway really opened up and you could see ahead a very long way, plus the legal speed limit is faster although I was clipping along a little faster than that. One thing I found different from BC is the lack or rest stops, they had lots of pull out places but no bathroom facilities and since they were so good at keeping the road sides clear of brush there wasn't a decent bush to be found. I finally found a very nicely kept rest area with facilities but by that time I was getting pretty desperate. I guess Albertan's just have bigger bladders than those of us from British Columbia.

As I came into the Edmonton area I saw lots of big green signs pointing to this place or that but I had my eyes glued for signs to Calgary and would have missed it as it was on a tiny black and white sign pointing south to Red Deer which is along the way. I drove off the highway and up the ramp and was immediately swallowed up into a bottle neck which was like that for at least an hour as we inched our way around Edmonton. The highway to Calgary was good and fast but very busy. I pulled off at Red Deer for the usual bathroom break and I took time to freshen up as I was starting to feel tired plus a cup of coffee helped break the fatigue a bit. I drove into Calgary about 4:30pm right in the middle of the going home rush. There had been an accident on the highway ahead of me and we all had to go into one lane but I must have arrived when it was just about cleaned up so it did not take that long.

All along I had been worrying about finding a parking spot near where my sons' apartment is especially in the late afternoon and because I have never learned the art of backing into a parking place I need a long run into one. It has never been a problem in my near 40 years of driving but I knew it could be on the streets outside their building, but miracle of miracles as I drove up to their place there was a long swath of sidewalk without any cars parked there and I was able to slide right in and outside their front entrance. God's little graces.

I stayed up chatting until 11:30 as being with my sons gave me a boost and I got up this morning while they were still sleeping at 6:30 as strains of Cher singing her heart out came in the window from apartment next door. I think I need earplugs it only takes an ant to pass wind two blocks away to wake me up and I am seriously thinking of trying sleeping pills once in a while as I get these spats of insomnia that will last for a couple of weeks and then they go for a few months. I have no idea why.

So I don't know what we will do today, probably just hang out together. Talk to you later,

I'm loving it

I left home about 7:30 am and drove to Prince George where I tried out my new laptop with the WiFi and it worked great. I stayed in Prince George about two hours and went into Michael's Craft Store where I bought a starter beading kit. I have never done that before but will give it a try and see how creative I can be. Then I drove on towards McBride, as I was leaving Prince there was a sign saying that make sure you have enough gas as nothing for 202 km. Why would they put a sign like that after you passed the last gas station. I probably had enough gas but rather than risk it I had to backtrack to get some gas. It was a lovely uneventful drive, I stopped by the Fraser River at a rest stop for a little while. It was very hot. I arrived at McBride just before 5pm played with the laptop a bit and then went out for a Chinese meal. I love this sense of independence I could do this a lot. Tomorrow I plan to get up early and drive on to Calgary, about 10hours as I will not go through Jasper Park because it will be slow going because of all the tourists.

I went out for groceries and came back with a laptop

I have been dithering for some time about getting a laptop for trips and had just about convinced myself I could get along without one and would just keep a handwritten journal of our trip next winter as we drive through the States to Mexico. However when I went into town today they had a laptop on special for Back to School for only $399.0. It has 15.4" screen Windows Vista, lots of memory and hard drive space etc etc.

I played with it a little this evening and found it loads pictures from the camera so easily. I can plug it into the car and use it there if I want. It is as loaded and has as much as this desktop computer I bought last year except this has a 17" screen and was way more expensive. So I will be playing with it on my way to Calgary and while there. I want to download some stuff and I haven't had a chance to do it here as well as I am not sure about messing around with my satellite setup.

I leave for Calgary early Thursday morning and drive for 7 1/2 hours to McBride which is just west of the Rockies and I have booked a hotel and then next day will go through the Rockies on to Edmonton and down to Calgary. That will take me 10 hours with no stops, so it is a long trip. I will be staying with my two younger sons who share an apartment and I haven't decided how long I will stay. When I return we will be getting ready for winter as we can expect the first snow anytime, however it won't stick until later on but the days will be cool and hopefully sunny and no bugs, what a relief but the bears will be on the prowl because they are super hungry at this time of year getting ready for the big sleep. Winter has its bonuses since there are no bugs and no bears.

Next time I write I will be using my new laptop probably from the hotel in McBride.

BC gets a gold medal for Greed

The BC government has awarded its top civil servants a hefty pay raise of up to 43%.

Currently in BC our medical system needs money poured into it, homeless people and the mentally retarded are without adequate care and housing. There are many people out of work due to the Pine Beetle epidemic and because the mills are closing down. British Columbians are dealing with the new carbon tax, which is on gasoline and heating fuel. We have spiraling housing costs, higher ferry fares and we need to put money into crime prevention in order to take a stand against the gang warfare that is currently plaguing Vancouver.

The average weekly wages in B.C. rose 3 per cent between 2006 and 2007 but the cost of living is skyrocketing. Our minimum wage still sits at $8 per hour. We have the lowest minimum wage in the country. It's been frozen for seven years and they refuse to raise it.

One only has to shop for food to see that everything has gone up due to the price of gas, and heating fuel is getting very costly and that is not a luxury in Canada.

Will it take some pensioner to starve and freeze to death before these politicians come to their senses? What about single parents barely making ends meet. It takes both parents working to meet the costs of raising a family but there is not adequate child care

They claim that BC needs to stay on par with what other provinces are paying their civil servants. Well I say let them go to another province if they want, but our civil servants should not be paid more than the people can bear.

Our politicians need to come down to where the people live and get out of their ivory towers. They can keep piling taxes on the people's backs because with the money that they make now and the money they are going to receive, what is a little tax, they will hardly notice it.

How dare they! I feel so angry about this, but so helpless too.

Be warned

Losing weight kills older folks

I came across this  which may be of interest to some of you. I have taken the basic premise of the article as it gets a bit technical.

Adiponectin, a protein produced by fat cells, may play a pivotal and counterintuitive role in cardiovascular health for older people according to a new study.

As people lose weight the concentration level of adiponectin in the bloodstream increases. In previous studies, high adiponectin concentration has been associated with lower occurrence of diabetes and cholesterol abnormalities. The new study reveals, however, that despite the known association with blood sugar and cholesterol parameters, elevated adiponectin levels may lead to heightened risk of heart attack in older adults.

This study examined a sample of 1,386 participants of the population-based Cardiovascular Health Study from 1992 to 2001. Participants consisted of adults aged 65 to 100 years and were recruited from four field centers in the United States. Subjects underwent physical examinations and laboratory testing. Of these participants, 604 experienced a heart disease event. Those with the highest levels of adiponectin were most likely to suffer a heart attack.

The kicker is this: Weight loss causes adiponectin to rise.

Given that repeated analysis of the huge volume of NHANES research found a similar increase in death with weight loss even when people's underlying health conditions were screened out, I doubt that underlying conditions are the explanation for the correlation here. Indeed, there may very well be a reason why our bodies start to pack on weight at middle age and that reason may be that the fat we pack on helps keep us alive.

It is worth noting, again, that despite all the demonization of obesity in the media, research about people who lived to be 100 years old or older found that fully one third of them were obese in their 50s.

So what does this latest finding mean for you? My guess is that it means that the best time to work on your weight is long before you hit your 60s. From then on your focus should be on blood sugar control and that your dieting efforts should be directed to maintaining your current weight rather than losing weight.

Certainly the body helps us out on this one. It gets tougher and tougher to drop a pound with each passing year and just maintaining our weight may take more self-restraint than we expended dropping 30 lbs in our 30s.

Vanity fanned by a media culture that makes people believe that we all should have bodies like liposuctioned, breast-augmented 20-year-old actresses makes it very hard to accept the idea that a healthy older person is a plumper older person.

Perhaps the next radical step the Baby Boom generation will have to take is to publicly challenge the fat-phobic media culture and start demanding that health authorities tell the truth about the relationship of weight and health in older people. That truth is simple: LOSING WEIGHT KILLS OLDER FOLKS.

Ignore it at your peril.

Adiponectin

I must be a jinx

Today was such a beautiful day and for once hubby was not working and offered to take me out on the big boat on the big lake.(When I say big boat it is relative to our little zodiac boat, it is not that big).

I packed a small picnic and Annie the dog and I hopped into the truck with him and off we went. We got the boat into the water without a hitch and Annie the dog jumped in the boat and got settled right away. This was her first time in the boat and we wondered how she would be. She turned out to be a good sailor and seemed to enjoy herself.

However the comedy of errors was about to begin. We got out a ways from the dock and hubby went to move the fuel line from the small engine to the larger one in order to go up the lake and we heard a plop and realized the little gadget that attaches to the motor had fallen into the water. So now we are out in the lake with no fuel, fortunately we have paddles, which we deployed to get ourselves back to the dock. We remembered we had one of these fuel line gadgets on the motor on the small boat so we tie up the boat and hop back into the truck, come home and get the plug thingy which hubby has to cut off his fuel line since it wouldn't come off readily. Now we go back fit the new fuel gadget on the line and off we go.

We get out a bit and at this point you transfer the fuel lines, which this time went alright, and pull up the small motor out of the water in order to get better speed with the bigger motor, it helps cut the drag to get the small motor out of the water, but it wouldn't move. I thought he was going to fall out of the boat trying to pull it up. He couldn't so we went up lake a bit slower that is all.

While we are sorting out the fishing things we realize he has left his net in the other boat because he took that boat out yesterday to a small lake at the back of the property. Not the end of the world unless we catch something sizable, like a 40lb char or a salmon which are now in the lake. He sets up the downrigger and we trawl for a while but then he decides that his line may have hit bottom so pulls it up to check and he also checks the downrigger and another plop, louder this time, as the 10lb downrigger ball falls into the lake to disappear for ever.

We did not catch any fish, but the lake was like glass and we enjoyed the beautiful sunshine, in fact it was hot and I was glad we could pull the canopy over for some shade.

I told him I must be the jinx as usually his fishing trips go pretty well. I don't think I will bother with another fishing trip this year.

Low Glycemic Brownies

Since I am now a Diabetic, I have been looking into ways to cook that do not raise my blood sugar. Actually whether you have diabetes or not you should be trying to keep you blood sugar low. I bought 'Living the GI diet' by Rick Gallop and found this rather unique recipe using black beans.

Beans are excellent for keeping blood sugar low so I thought I would give it a try.I tested my blood sugar 2 hours later, as I am meant to when trying a new food, and the brownies had not impacted it at all and I had had two pieces.

They were delicious, not so high as the traditional brownie but the flavor is great and they passed the acid test, Hubby liked them and has taken some fishing with him and a friend today happily boasting that they were made with black beans. The friend looked a little dubious.

Here is the recipe

1 can (540 ml) black beans drained and rinsed (I soaked my own and cooked first)
1/2 cup skim milk (I used unsweetened soy milk)
1/3 cup liquid egg (I used egg whites)
1/4 cup soft non-hydrogenated marge (I used canola oil)
1 tbsp vanilla
3/4 cup sugar substitute (I used Splenda)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Fry's Cocoa)
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup of chopped toasted pecans (I used slivered almonds)

Puree beans in food processor until coarse. Add milk, egg, marge and vanilla and puree until smooth.

In another bowl combine sugar substitute, flour, cocoa, baking powder, nuts and salt. Pour bean mixture into flour mixture and combine. Bake in 8" square pan. Preferably non stick.

Bake in 350F oven for about 18 minutes or until center is done.

Cut into 16 pieces.

Now I want to try and adapt this recipe to make Gingerbread which I love. I would use white beans but I don't know how to fake the molasses taste I like so much.