Friday, January 30, 2009

5 addictions

Taken from Kyriaki, I usually never do these things but I'm bored today.

5 of my addictions:

Internet. I have trouble NOT sitting down in front of the computer first thing when I get home after work in the evenings, and usually don't get other stuff done because of it. And that's on top of spending all day online between calls at work. Although I'm not as bad as I used to be, when I was a teenager I'd spend entire days/nights on the internet on forums, chatting, etc. I'd leave the computer to eat/sleep/shower and that was it lol.

Taking pictures. I take my camera with me everywhere. The most pictures I ever took in a day was about 600, the day I went to the botanical gardens for the first time lol. I filled up my entire 2G memory card.

Dermatillomania, in case you hadn't noticed already looking at a picture of me lol.

Bacon and cheese! I love eating these, in any shape or form, preferably together. Strangely enough I'm Canadian but I don't like what Americans call Canadian bacon as much as real belly bacon itself. For me it's just ham.

Dagwoods.

Like Kyriaki, I tag whoever reads this.

Hang on tastebuds...

Bacon Explosion here I come!

Yet another reason to finally make my own smoker...

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Pictures!!!

Here's the kitchen at Mat's dad's place, we finished painting the walls and ceiling white this weekend. I love how sunny it is there! There's sun all afternoon :D





Here are some scenes of froggy death that were on display at work last week, courtesy of the reception desk and the tracing dept:





Here's Mat sitting in the kitchen at his dad's last weekend after plastering:



And here's a store I noticed one day a few weeks ago, I'm gonna show this to my friend Kris lol:



Here's Mat and one of his mom's dogs, Chloe:



Painting in the livingroom at his dad's place:



The finished product:



Here's the sanctuary at St. Seraphim skete in Rawdon at Nativity:



Here's at New Year's with our usual spell of holiday freezing rain:



And finally, here's my take on "The Blake":

w00t!

I didn't fall asleep this afternoon! Yay! *dances*

The system was slow this afternoon again though, and now we're starting to get calls for missed pickups. Sigh.

But to make up for it I'm reading some good webcomics, Kukuburi and Butternutsquash, both by the same guy. Now if only my computer at work wasn't such a piece of crap that it takes 5 minutes to load each page!!!!! Grrrrr.

No time

Needing to sleep at least 9 hours per night to function properly at work the next day plus having 2 hours of travelling per day to and from work (9-hour shifts) leaves me with little time in the evening to do non-essentials such as posting all the pretty pictures I took. I have several other pictures I've taken lately that I want to post, but monday night was spent doing laundry and running around doing the usual just-got-home-after-being-away-4-days routine. I just managed to get in bed by 9:45pm after having strewn wet laundry all over my apartment to dry (the janitor told me he had used the dryer 2 days before and it was working... I have to leave a message with the superintendant about that today...). Then last night was groceries and a bit of internet and phone time and dishes and putting away clean laundry, which I didn't even have time to do finally. I was lucky I got an unexpected lift home with a coworker who lives near me and happened to pass by work, so I spent 15 minutes getting home instead of 45, yay! I managed to get to bed about the same time again last night, and it feels soooo nice to be somewhat rested again! Although I have yet to see if I fall asleep between calls this afternoon... This weekend I got an average of 6-7 hours of sleep if not less, plus I hadn't completely recuperated after the holidays, so I'm gonna try to keep forcing myself into this strict sleep schedule even if I have to take a week to get all my chores done at home lol. Tonight shower, cooking dinner, putting away clean dishes and laundry, vacuuming, cleaning the cat litter, brush Sambuca (the long-haired one, she gets reeeeally matted in the winter with all the static) and hopefully some time to post pictures and pay attention to my poor neglected cats after that lol. They go crazy when I get home after I've been gone a few days, following me everywhere and demanding attention :P Licorice even grabs my arm and hugs it as if to say "I MISSED you!!!" when settles down to sleep beside my pillow. I love my cats :D

Tomorrow night I'm going to sleep over at Mat's place again since I probably won't see him till Sunday if not later and on Friday my sister is coming over with a friend to spend the weekend. They don't get to come to the city often so I'm gonna bring them shopping and maybe a movie or something fun if we have time. They're leaving Sunday so I might see Mat again Sunday evening if he's back from his dad's.

Yesterday was a looong day at work. On top of my usual nodding off in the afternoon, there were problems with the phone lines AND the program we use for customer service and pickups (I work in the calling center of a shipping company), so we were stuck taking pickups by hand all afternoon. And today we'll probably get the clients that didn't have their packages picked up yesterday because of the problems. And on top of that we're getting a snowstorm, which will delay things even further. Sigh. But the good news is it's my lunch break in 4 minutes, yay! :D

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Heehee :D

Ok I couldn't help posting this... Who knows I might want to remove it later but it's how I feel right now.



This was at his dad's place on the weekend.

More reflecting on my situation

Last night I told one of my friends that I had gotten back together with my ex. His reaction was basically an outraged "You did WHAT!?!?", which is quite understandable considering my reasons for leaving my husband in the first place, if you think about it logically. Although at the same time he can't be 100% objective in this situation considering we dated last summer. So I was thinking about that last night. And then this morning I read this post, and it got me to thinking about how much peace I have with my own situation. I keep thinking to myself that I should be freaking out about this more than I am, but I don't seem to mind being in this situation. I don't know if that can be considered peace, even if it is, I was quite worried about the situation for a few days, so I can't say I was completely unbothered by the whole thing. At the moment we're still living our separate lives, who knows where things will go. I'm considering finding some sort of marriage counselling, but I don't know how doable that is considering Mat's joining the army.

So go my thoughts on my situation for the moment.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Sayings, food, and plans

Taken here, from Amma Theodora and Amma Sarah, ascetics that lived in the desert sometime around the 4th century. I think.

Amma Theodora

She also said that neither asceticism, nor vigils nor any kind of suffering are able to save, only true humility can do that. There was an anchorite who was able to banish the demons; and he asked them, ‘What makes you go away? Is it fasting?’ They replied, ‘We do not eat or drink.’ ‘Is it vigils?’ They replied, ‘We do not sleep.’ ‘Is it separation from the world?’ ‘We live in the deserts.’ ‘What power sends you away then?’ They said, ‘Nothing can overcome us, but only humility.’ ‘Do you see how humility is victorious over the demons?’

Amma Theodora also said, ‘There was a monk, who, because of the great number of his temptations said, “I will go away from here.” As he was putting on his sandals, he saw another man who was also putting on his sandals and this other monk said to him, “Is it on my account that you are going away? Because I go before you wherever you are going.”

The same Amma was asked about the conversations one hears; ‘If one is habitually listening to secular speech, how can one yet live for God alone, as you suggest?’ She said, ‘Just as when you are sitting at table and there are many courses, you take some but without pleasure, so when secular conversations come your way, have your heart turned towards God, and thanks to this disposition, you will hear them without pleasure, and they will not do you any harm.'


And Amma Sarah:

Once the same spirit of fornication attacked her more insistently, reminding her of the vanities of the world. But she gave herself up to the fear of God and to asceticism and went up onto her little terrace to pray. Then the spirit of fornication appeared corporally to her and said, ‘Sarah, you have overcome me.’ But she said, ‘It is not I who have overcome you, but my master, Christ.’

It was said concerning her that for sixty years she lived beside a river and never lifted her eyes to look at it.

Another time, two old men, great anchorites, came to the district of Pelusia to visit her. When they arrived one said to the other, ‘Let us humiliate this old woman.’ So they said to her, ‘Be careful not to become conceited thinking to yourself: “Look how anchorites are coming to see me, a mere woman.” ‘But Amma Sarah said to them, ‘According to nature I am a woman, but not according to my thoughts.’

Amma Sarah said, ‘If I prayed God that all men should approve of my conduct, I should find myself a penitent at the door of each one, but I shall rather pray that my heart may be pure towards all.’

She also said, ‘I put out my foot to ascend the ladder, and I place death before my eyes before going up it.’

She also said, ‘It is good to give alms for men’s sake. Even if it is only done to please men, through it one can begin to seek to please God.’

Some monks of Scetis came one day to visit Amma Sarah. She offered them a small basket of fruit. They left the good fruit and ate the bad. So she said to them, ‘You are true monks of Scetis.’

She also said to the brothers, ‘It is I who am a man, you who are women.'


This week has been somewhat busy. I forgot my cell phone charger at Mat's place when I slept over there last weekend, so I went to get it Wed. night and slept over at the same time. Then last night I went to eat at Frite Alors! after work. It's only about 15 minutes away from my job by metro and bus. I had the Rudolf Burger and fries with the Indonesian sauce. It was amaaaaaazing!!! The bun was some sort of delicious fresh-baked bread, not your usual mass-produced fluffy white hamburger bun, and there was REAL CHEESE on the hamburger! Gruyere, not some orange plastic cheese look-alike! And there were delicious sweet caramelized onions in there too, with fresh lettuce and tomatoes and mayo, no ketchup, relish or mustard in sight! Which is a Good Thing, IMO. The meat, caribou, was delicious too. And the fries were the most amazingly crispy fries I've had in I don't know how long! I'm the kind of person who digs in the bottom of the fries to find all the almost-burnt, super-crispy bits for the CRUNCH. These fries, ALL of them were crunchy, I didn't have to dig in the bottom! And nowhere near overcooked either. Fry perfection. The indonesian sauce was spicy but not enough to prevent me from being able to eat it. I'm somewhat sensitive to spice but this was tolerable. And very yummy. The decor is nice, the wait staff was nice, the prices were decent ($16.50 incl. tax and tip), end of amateur resto review lol. I've been reading too much at Montreal Food lol.

I'm definitely going back there with Mat :D Next time I'm gonna try the Hamburger Kebab:) After I got home at around 8:30 last night I packed my bags, did a bit of cleaning, and went to bed. Tonight I'm going to sleep over at Mat's mom's place, then tomorrow morning we're going to his dad's place to plaster and paint :D. We'll be sleeping at his dad's place tomorrow night too, so I won't be able to make it to Liturgy but oh well.

This week has passed quickly, it's already friday :D And I'm gonna spend the weekend with Mat :D I have to get as much time with him as possible now cause I don't know when he's starting his training in the army. Not within the next month I think, but I'm pretty sure within the next 4-6 months. Then 2 months (I think) before he has weekends off. He still has to go for more hearing tests and get the results and wait for the army's decision on when he'll have his eardrum grafted.

Yawn. Off I go to find something to do on the internet between calls till 5:58pm tonight...

Thursday, January 22, 2009

This morning

Nothing special has happened, but in reading a few posts on DC and a blog entry by Isaac I've started to find a certain measure of peace and direction for the moment. It reminds me of Fr. Pau's advice to me, to concentrate on one thing: God, when I am scattered in 5 different directions. Recent changes lately have been taking first place in my mind lately, but I have to remember that although important, it's still secondary to my true purpose, Theosis.

My situation should ideally be more of a help and incentive towards theosis, but at the moment it seems like it's not all it could be, although I'm glad for what it is, I try to remember to thank God for all things. I have to remember to pray, believing.

And actually now that I come to think of it, I've been avoiding mentioning what this huge change in my life is. I guess I'm ready to say what has happened for those of you who haven't guessed already, I've gotten back together with my ex-husband with whom I had been separated from for 2 years. I might post more of that story someday. Part of me still fears that I've made a huge mistake and brought calamity upon my ( or possible future children's) head. But it's too late to worry about that now, I can't change things, all I can do is pray.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

So...

A part of my life has taken a 180 degree turn since New Year's Eve. I don't know what I would have expected to feel about that, but for some reason I seem to feel like this is nothing special, that not all that much has changed, although it's somewhat of a huge thing in reality. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel but I think I should feel more than what I do. At the moment I'm ok with things, but still slightly apprehensive. At the same time I know I shouldn't worry about the future, I can't know what will happen. I just don't want the past to repeat itself. Especially not with kids. If that happened I don't know what I'd do. Although I think the chances of that happening are a lot slimmer now. Sigh. But at the same time I'm happy :)

Am I just deluding myself? I don't know.

Ok I have to stop thinking about this now. It's not like I can call things off at this point. Although I don't think I want to, but maybe I should? I don't know.

Must.

Think.

About.

Something.

Else.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

The Great Hamburger Helper Experiment

Last week I tried another bacon dish of my own invention, involving a box of lasagna-flavor Hamburger helper...



Some beef and bacon (with a bit of spicy mesquite) that I cooked up...



The leftover fried mushrooms and onions from the Great Hamburger Experiment...



And cooked it all up together...



This was during the cooking, I don't know why I didn't think to take a picture of the finished product. Must have been cause I was too busy eating it lol. It was amazing, next time I'm gonna put cheese in it too :D

Vinegar on icecream?

I would never in my wildest dreams have imagined that combination, but apparently it's good, when using the right kind of vinegar (a.k.a $125/50ml!).

I ended up just making a simple BLT for dinner yesterday after I forgot to write down the ingredients for the Kentucky Hot Brown I wanted to make. Maybe tomorrow. I'm not big on sliced turkey though, and why have ham when you can have bacon? So I think I'll replace the turkey/ham combination in that for either some more bacon or smoked salmon and make it a Kentucky Hot Brown Benedict loll. Speaking of which, I have to make some eggs benedict again sometime soon!

Monday, January 19, 2009

Bacon EVERYTHING!

I've spent the last couple of days reading Bacon Unwrapped between calls at work, and have since been inspired to make a few bacon dishes myself, as you might have noticed in my last post. As well as the Hamburger Experiment, I also did a Hamburger Helper Experiment with bacon that turned out amazing, which I will post about later. Just now I spotted a recipe off her blog that I absolutely HAVE to make tonight, and my original plan of a triple-decker blt will simply have to wait till tomorrow :P

[sarcasm]No I'm not in the least bacon-obsessed.... [/sarcasm]

Loll.

And apparently I can make my OWN SMOKER for only $50!?!

To boot, curing bacon is the simplest thing in the world from what I've read. I just need to get ahold of some pink salt. I can't find anything about it from a quick search on google or wikipedia, but pink salt is basically salt that's had a tiny amount of soduim nitrate added to it and then dyed pink to not get it mixed up with regular salt. It's used to cure meats, the sodium nitrate prevents botulism from forming and keeps the meat pink.

I'm definitely home-curing some bacon soon!! I had been meaning to do this for a while now, ever since I read this article, but new findings make it seem easier than ever.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

The Great Hamburger Experiment

Last week I decided to make hamburgers with the toppings IN THE MEAT. So I took half a package of low-salt bacon...



And fried it up on low heat...





Then drained off most of the grease and in the same pan fried up one package of white mushrooms and 1 chopped onion on medium-high heat till all the water evaporated, then turned it down to medium. I drained a bit too much grease off so I added some butter...



Then I cut up the bacon in little pieces and added that, half the onions and mushrooms and about 1 1/2 cups of grated cheddar to about a pound of extra lean ground meat with some salt and pepper...



And got this...



Then made a patty with it and fried it up on low heat...





There was about as much ground meat as there was other stuff in it, so it didn't hold together very well, and all the grease from the cheese melted out, so next time I'll use low-fat cheddar instead.

I made one to begin with, to see how it would turn out, and added some ketchup, mustard and relish to the bun...



And I found that the condiments totally overpowered the flavour of the meat mixture, so I decided to make the one for my lunch the next day without any condiments, just salt and pepper...



And it was delicious! This recipe made enough for 4 burgers. Very greasy, but very good :D

Friday, January 16, 2009

A few more gems

Sifted out from the guns and politics in LawDog's blog.

tink

The last line after the asterisk in that one made me laugh lolll. Yay Sweden! XD

thud

tink

Tonk

Thud

"in alphabetical order" ROFLMAO!!!!!! XD

Thursday, January 15, 2009

More funnies

Here, here here, here and here (make sure you read the comments!).

And something useful, as well as a nice story to bring a tear to your eye, and to top it off a Dragon Christmas Tree!!.

My favourite quote from that post being: ""Normal". Hah! I spit upon your normal! Ptui!"
-LawDog

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Laughter is the best medecine

This guy has had me laughing, snorting, wheezing and giggling all afternoon!!!

And another one!

It's official, I'm adding this guy to my blogroll!

More from another texas cop.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

The weight

is back on my chest.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Sticky note to myself

This is an approximate quote:

"Sometimes when we are in a situation where we think we might have made a big mistake, it's no use stressing and trying to figure out how to prevent it from happening, give it to God, pray, because sometimes you have to go through the mistakes to get you to where God wants you to be. (God "writes straight with crooked lines") Take things one step at a time. You don't know what will happen".

--Fr. Pau

This took a big weight off my chest tonight.

Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

The mind needs nature

Once again research has proven something that's pretty common sense. Next apartment I get will have more green outside the windows than my present view. That's only seen sitting to one side of the window in my livingroom, any other views from my apartment are brick walls and balconies. I had been thinking of getting rid of some houseplants cause they're all crowded on one small cabinet, but maybe I'll actually put up shelves for them sometime. I remember the livingroom when I was a kid was almost a jungle.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Lolll!

Put bacon on ANYTHING! Find out how here.

Best tree house EVAR!!

I want one of these! I emailed the guy for an estimate for the fun of it :P I'm guessing somewhere around 25k?

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Chickpea Spaghetti/Sloppy Joe Sauce/Tomato Hummus

My mom invented a really yummy version of spaghetti sauce with chickpeas in it. Or vice versa. You just take some store-bought sauce, and put it in the blender with a can of chickpeas. Add more or less tomato sauce depending on how thick or runny you want it. I think I only used 3/4 of the jar of sauce. Delicious!!





I didn't bother cooking spaghetti to put it on, just made some buttered toast and it was great :D

Happy New Year's!

Here's me and my mom this afternoon. I made a bet with her that I could stop picking at my face lol, so I took a "before" pic :P



And here's some New Year's eve pics. I ended up spending it with Steph, Cri, Dew and Mat.

Me:



Steph and Mat:



Now this one I really don't know what to make of:



And Cri:



We had a drink, watched Kung Foo Panda and had another drink, then watched My Neighbor Totoro and drank more, then called Nez Rouge (pronounced nay rooje) and waited lol, then Nez Rouge arrived and brought me and Mat back to my place. The next day we went to his mom's place and had breakfast, then dropped his mom off at his brother's place then he drove me to my parents place. :D