Homemaking

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Finding Treasures

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Yes, that’s a guy hunting (gophers) behind my home. Doesn’t even make me blink anymore.

Moving on…

Those of you not on Facebook are going to have to wait to find out how my first week of work with my booster went! I want to make a few more adjustments.

My work week finished at 2:00 and as I got closer to that time, I realised that I had plenty of time to go to the Willow Bunch Thrift Shop before it closed at 4:00! I’m really not disliking my 6AM start time, except for the fact that I’m starting to eat at ‘weird hours.’ Yes, I just wrote that. Me who hasn’t had a ‘normal’ schedule in years. It’s funny how slowly becoming more of a morning person has changed things. But I digress.

I was greeted to a round of applause at the thrift store for my work on the internet situation. I was actually disheartened by this because everyone is so keen to tell me I’ve done good work on this, but no one wants to help. 🙁 I caught up with one of the ladies from the museum since we’ve only been corresponding about translations, then I started digging for treasure. And treasure I found. I actually got to the point where I said, “Enough!” and I made a beeline for the cash register without looking at anything else!

The first things I found were two tee-shirts. I really haven’t bought many clothes this summer because I didn’t need anything, but I have kept my eye out for tee-shirts. I buy cheap ones and rotate through them. I found two today that were colours I liked. The blue one has stitching on the sleeve that I’m not nuts about, but it’s otherwise in good condition and the colour is lovely. The pink one still has the original tag!

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Then, I found what I am fairly certain is a diaper bag, but I am planning to use it as a computer and airplane carry on bag. It is really cute. I love all the pockets, as well as the découpaged flowers!

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It has a lot of pockets in addition to the roomy middle compartment. There’s even a separate mini case for my cell phone.

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Then, I found a little purse/wallet. Much as I love the purse/wallet I bought in Madrid, after living with it for a few months I know it’s not going to work well for its intended purpose on Isla as it’s too big and floppy and the change compartment is too small to really see what you’re working with. Like in Mexico, I use a lot of coins in Canada, and if I’ve been frustrated here by how hard it is to pull out a toonie or whatever, I will go nuts in Mexico where most of my transactions are with coins.

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I like the colour and it is just as roomy as the Madrid purse/wallet, but will allow me to be better organized.

Finally, I bought a purse… I’m a sucker for a good quality genuine leather purse in a style that I don’t own. I had a colleague back at the government who was really into high end expensive purses and taught me how to spot one at a second hand shop. So when I saw that this purse had feet and a beautiful liner, I was not surprised to find the ‘genuine leather’ tag. Danier is a brand I know well from Quebec since they made my old coat that I am still mourning (except for the fact that it was a size 18 or 20 and I’m a size 6-8 now…).

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And the colour! It’s a dark rustic rose with coarse ecru stitching, totally me. It’s the perfect “in between bag” between my giant tote and my purse/wallet. I really don’t ‘need’ another purse, but this one could not be left behind.

That was it! I grabbed my haul and went down to the cash register, where I was glad I had my chequebook since I only had about $14 total on me. That was twice as much as I needed!!!! Yes, I paid $7 for this entire haul!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reeling from shock, I left the shop and headed to the Jolly Giant pub to get a burger to go. That would put dinner around 3:30 by the time I got home, but I had breakfast at 5:00 and lunch at 10:00, so my stomach was adamant that it was time for dinner!

The burgers at the pub are just gorgeous, with a homemade bun, homemade patty, generous slices of tomato and red onion, romaine lettuce, real cheese, mustard, and relish (I have them hold the mayo). And look at those fries, just like what I’d get back in Quebec! A real bargain for $10.45.

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Soggy Saturday

BRR. I want a refund on my summer! 🙂

I woke up very late this morning, thankfully, since I’ve been desperate for a good night’s sleep. I had a slow morning responding to a few comments and emails from ignorant people. I finally got dressed (jeans and a heavy sweater, in August!!!) and went to town.

My first stop was Western Financial to deal with my truck registration and insurance renewal. I have to make an in-person declaration about my being a snowbird while maintaining SK residency so that I can take the truck out of the province for as long as I want. SK is the only province that allows a vehicle (and driver) out of the province as long as they want and still maintain insurance coverage, one of the many reasons why I chose to move here. The computer system didn’t have Mexico as a destination and the clerk and I figured that it was likely because I’m covered by Mexican insurance there rather than SGI (SK government insurance). So she put down that I would be in various U.S. states to make sure I’m covered while transiting. Add a signature and done. So easy and efficient!

Then, I went to Trifon’s for lunch since I was seriously craving pizza. They do a 6″ pizza with two toppings and Greek salad combo for a very good price. Their pizza is rather like Pizza Hut’s and the salad is very hearty since they don’t skimp on the feta and olives. My server was attentive, making sure I never saw the bottom of my coffee cup. I took my time with lunch so that I could catch up on some online stuff.

After, I went to the Co-Op home store to pick up two more sections of pole for my booster antenna. I don’t think I’ll be able to get them both up without finding a way to guy-wire the top section, but I’m going to try anyway and see how stable (or unstable…) the setup feels. I will, of course, reinforce the bracing on the bottom sections.

I didn’t need groceries, but cheese was $4 off for the 800g packs, so I went to the food store after to pick some up. Then, it was time to make a very cold and noisy trip home since I had to open up the windows between the cab and the back of the truck so the poles would fit inside and they rattled!

The rain is clearing up, but it is much too cold and windy to go work on the antenna and booster setup today. Guess I’ll put on a movie and get started on the project first thing tomorrow.

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Scorcher

It’s been hot here the last few days! I haven’t really noticed because I’ve been working and my home has a little thing called AC. With heat has come massive swarms of bird-sized mosquitoes, so it really hasn’t been outdoor weather!

Today is the start of a four-day weekend for me. I’m burning out from a really long and unending transcription marathon, so it’s nice to have some time to just breathe. Of course, I utterly failed at sleeping in this morning, but I did take it slow. I waited for the post to come, then went to town to run some errands.

By the time I’d hit the post office, the bank, and the thrift store, it was only 11:10 and much too early for lunch, so I decided to go walk around the Shurniak Gallery. This gallery is a real gem for Assiniboia, featuring lots of beautiful art in different mediums. There’s mostly paintings, but also some sculptures and other things. I’ve been to the gallery once, in October of 2013 for a music concert, and I didn’t have time to view everything.

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The artwork on display would belong in any world-class museum. My favourite medium is oil, so I spent a lot of time admiring the colours and brushwork on a variety of paintings. You really have to go through the entire building because there’s artwork tucked into every corner.

The gallery now has a cafe serving soups, sandwiches, and coffee beverages at a reasonable price and is really a lovely place to wile away an hour. Admission is free and donations are welcome.

After visiting the gallery, I decided to check out the lunchtime buffet at the New Moon Cafe. I usually do the buffet at Andy’s, but a neighbour told me that New Moon has ‘more stuff.’ It did and it was tasty and the same price as Andy’s, but the ‘more stuff’ isn’t things that I enjoy, like breaded and fried mystery meat in a very sweet sauce (typical Canadian-Chinese offerings passed off as ginger beef or lemon chicken or sweet and sour pork). So I’ll probably to stick to Andy’s, which has really good pizza! But I’m glad I tried it out and I did enjoy my lunch very much, especially the chicken wings and broccoli!

After lunch, it was time to get groceries. The grocery store parking lot is absolutely chaos as the store renovations progress and I had to drive around the block to find a parking spot! It’s no wonder they are so adamant that baggers take out orders as I don’t think everyone would be bothered to walk their carts back several blocks!

They had some good deals today on everything on my list, so it was a fruitful expedition. Shopping in that store is such a chore because there’s no room and people for some reason don’t get that and just leave their carts in the middle of narrow aisles. I really hope that the expanded store will give us a little more room to move around. I really do appreciate the increased amount of selection in the store, though, especially when it comes to ‘ethnic’ foods and am optimistic that when I come home next May, I won’t feel a strong urge to go do a big Moose Jaw shop like I did this year.

Next thing on my list for today, make sure that I’m ready to move to my new computer, which should be here Monday but I suspect could surprise me tonight… I don’t think I’ve ever moved to a new machine running a newer OS before, so I’m not convinced that a ‘restore from last Time Machine backup’ will work.

It’ll be cooler over the next few days, so I’ll be able to start running some tests to determine where I’ll be installing the new booster antennas. There was a very justifiable delay in getting the booster out (which the Facebook followers know all about), so probably won’t get it till about this time next week. I can’t wait to write a report on that and give the awesome store and tech I dealt with some much deserved praise!

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How I Cook

Now that I’m eating red meat again and have rediscovered the deliciousness that is a hamburger, I’m bringing home ground beef. It is one of the cheapest meats I can buy around here and I cut it with ground pork, which is so cheap they are practically giving it away. One of the things I’ve wanted to try to make is meatloaf. It was simply not something we had growing up, so I’d never made it.

On my break this afternoon, I Googled meatloaf recipes to see what’s in them. It turned out that the common ingredients were ground meat, seasoning, bread crumbs, egg, and ketchup as a topping/sauce, and that the baking time for about a pound of meat was 45 minutes to an hour.

Seasoning is to taste, bread crumbs are a filler, egg is a binder, and ketchup is sweet and slightly tangy sauce. Okay, I could work with that and what I had in my pantry.

Come dinner prep time, I dumped the following into a big bowl:

-about a pound total of ground pork and ground beef

-an amount that looked right of garlic powder and onion soup mix

-a small handful of quick cooking oats for my filler

-ground chia seeds for my binder

-a little water to make up for the lack of moisture from an egg

-BBQ sauce for the topping

I mixed everything but the BBQ sauce well, adding a little more water until the consistency looked ‘right’.

I then put it into my silicon loaf pan, smoothed out the top, and set a time for 4o minutes since my oven runs hot.

At the 30ish minute mark, I did a quick check and the juices were still pink. At the 40ish minute mark, the juices were brown, so I checked the internal temperature and the loaf was just about done. I spread BBQ sauce over the top and returned the loaf to the oven for another 10 minutes.

End result? A perfectly seasoned, perfectly loaf shaped (and not crumbly — it holds its shape!), meatloaf good enough for company.

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There is something about cooking that makes me feel like a magician. I very, very rarely have complete fails and utter successes like these are most often the norm.

But you can see why I rarely share ‘recipes’ — I don’t use them. I’ve been cooking for so long that I can eyeball measurements. I know how certain foods look at a point in their cooking time, so I very rarely overcook or burn anything and I can get the meat and the perfectly cooked veggies to the table at the same time.

I’m completely self-taught from watching my parents in the kitchen and just doing a heck of a lot of it professionally when I worked in a group home as a teenager. I think that for this winter, it might be fun to find a cooking class in Maz!

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Under Attack

Wow, it’s been a whole week since my last post! For all the excitement that’s been going on around here, there really hasn’t been much to blog about. I got a huge unexpected transcription project that is going to keep me busy pulling overtime straight through the first week of August. What a blessing!

My friends C and C are away for a couple of weeks and I am cat sitting. I go over in the morning to give them their wet food and back again in the evening to spend time with them.

The boy cat is wonderful and always glad to see me. You’d think he’d be excited about the wet food in the morning and the treats in the evening, but he’s more thrilled to see a human who will pet him and tell him what a good boy he is. In the evening, I sit in the living room in a comfy chair with my feet up and read while he sits beside me on the floor so I can pet him. I’m hoping that he’ll eventually move to my lap!

The girl cat is the devil incarnate and I steer a wide berth from her. This morning, I couldn’t find her and I didn’t like that. I searched the basement and main floor, then decided that perhaps she was hiding in the hallway upstairs. I climbed up the stairs, turned the curve, and BOOM. I found myself with an armful of hissing cat hell bent on scratching me to death. The little monster ambushed me! I managed to get away unhurt and I could swear she was laughing at me as I raced back down to the kitchen!

And speaking of getting attacked, let me tell you about my wasp situation.

Monday night, I was going into the shed when a wasp came and stung me behind the ear. It was the worst pain I have ever felt and I have had a dentist drill into a nerve for an hour with no pain killers, so I have a good point of comparison. My ear swelled up like a cauliflower and was numb for days. So soon as I can get an appointment, I need to go see a doctor so I can get a prescription for an Epipen as it looks like I might be allergic to wasp stings. Reactions apparently get more severe each time, so this isn’t something I can just brush off.

I found out that the wasp came from a nest inside my shed. I need my shed! I asked Charles before he left what I should do and he told me to get some wasp spray, wear thick clothing, go to the shed at dusk when the wasps are bedding down for the night, and shoot the nest until it’s soaking wet, then slam the door shut and run for my life. This sounded like a plan except for the possibly getting stung and dying from anaphylactic shock part.

Well, he came by the next day to let me know that he’d spoken to another neighbour (the one who leveled gravel and moved my power pole) and this neighbour said that he would deal with the nest for me!

I went to town yesterday and bought wasp spray (conveniently 25% off this week), then went to see him as it was perfect wasp killing weather (cold and wet). He promised to be by in the evening. We had a big rain storm (my roof doesn’t leak anymore, by way, YAY!) and as soon as the sky cleared, he was at my door. He was dressed in jeans, tall boots, a heavy coat with a hood, thick gloves, and goggles, looking ready to go to war!

I explained where the nest was and he went to work spraying it. He just stood there calmly and sprayed while I could see (from a safe distance) that wasps were pouring out of the nest! He sprayed about three quarters of the can, wanting to save some for this morning. Then he shut the door and promised to follow up today.

He was here this morning around 9:00 and went to check out the shed, telling me to stay back in case he opened the door and there was a swarm of angry wasps waiting to take their revenge. Nope. There was a huge pile of dead wasps on the floor. He still sprayed the nest a second time and left just a bit in the can in case I find another one growing nearby. He volunteered to get rid of the nest, but research tells me to leave it there as it will discourage other wasps from moving into the shed.

So that’s all of the excitement out of southern Saskatchewan this week. Stay tuned for the next riveting installment of Little RV On the Prairie!