First Annual Cabin Fever Writing Competition Judging

I have just printed off all the entries to the "First Annual Cabin Fever Writing Competition."  I am excited about taking these over to our judges and finding out who will be the winner!  I am hoping to post the stories sometime next week.  Every second day I will start posting with our third place winner, second place winner and finally our first place winner.   

I must apologize in the delay for posting anything about the competition as I have been down with a bout of bronchitis for the past week.  Hit me like a lead balloon and just as nasty.  I am happily back at work as of yesterday - kind of tired but ready to roll.

Watch for results and thank you to everyone who has participated.  Everything I have seen come through has been top-notch!

Good luck to everyone who entered and have made this possible!

Picture Perfect

The cedars in my front yard.

Under the huge cedar tree at my front entrance.

I think I have fallen in love with taking pictures - there are just so many exquisite, beautiful things to enjoy in my world. The pictures allow me to rediscover them even when the season is past.

Looking up into our maple trees in the backyard.

 
My lovely yard offers me so much.

In their winter frost.

 I love the textures of things that have braved the elements.

Bricks waiting to become part of our cabin.

Nature's backyard leaf art.

The really neat thing about these pictures is that none of these has been doctored (except for adding my name to the leaf art picture), this is exactly how I took these pictures and how they have come out.  The natural world doesn't need visual doctoring - it just needs to be appreciated for how wonderful it already is.

Don't you love the texture of our firepit?  It looks so tactile! 

On top of our firepit in the backyard.

First Annual Cabin Fever Writing Competition Deadline

For everyone that is submitting your entry for the First Annual Cabin Fever Writing Competition  - the deadline is today!!  Hard to believe that the 31st is here already!

To submit:  Simply post your story and it will come through my email.

I am really looking forward to everyone's submissions!  So far, they are looking wonderful!

Good luck

First Annual Cabin Fever Writing Competition

I just wanted to remind everyone that the date for "First Annual Cabin Fever Writing Competition" is getting near.  I am so excited about doing this - I hope to see a few submissions!

Just as a refresher - here are the guidelines:

"First Annual Cabin Fever Competition" - the inaugural topic this year will be - what else but cabin fever!" It should be 200 words or less... and the timeline would be ... say the end of January? The 31st?

Good luck to everyone who submits a story!

"Wine-ing" away

I made some rhubarb wine in 2008 from some rhubarb I had frozen the previous summer.  I think I had about 15 lbs or so of it to use for a batch of wine.   It was frozen in large, heavy bags of about 5lbs each and took what seemed like forever for it to thaw out.  Into the primary bucket it all went along with the yeast and other winemaking powders to help it along the way.  It started out fine - smelled great, in fact!

Then, life interfered and I got pneumonia.  As a result of this, I forgot to move it into the secondary after the allotted amount of time.  It sat there for a good couple weeks or so extra before I could work up the energy to filter it into the secondary and put an airlock on it.  I knew that it was still possibly salvageable but not a hundred percent sure.  I consulted with my local wine guru and he said it would either oxidize, which is one step or so away from being vinegar, or turn to sherry.  In other words, I could toss it or play the odds.  I decided to play the odds.

Now it is 2011 and we decided to crack open a bottle of that dubious "wine."   I rummaged around the basement shelves to locate it, dusted it off and carried a bottle of it upstairs with a little bit of trepidation.  We grabbed a couple wineglasses and cracked it open.  I took a sniff of the bottle and wasn't too sure what I was smelling.  I poured a couple glasses and let it sit for a few minutes before sampling it.  We both took a sip and realized that we indeed had sherry!  It seems really sweet on the first sip but this diminishes after a couple sips.  Unfortunately, it also has a kick like a mule.  The flavour is good though - definitely a nice surprise considering that I had no high hopes for it at all.  It starts out sweet but ends on a more wine-like note.  It is not at the commercial level by any stretch of the imagination but it was pleasant, especially after a glassful or two!  Mind you, with the amount of alcohol in it, after that glass or two it could taste like a glass of swamp water and be fine.  I am hoping in another year or so it will be really good - probably wistful thinking on that though.

Cruel Fate

He stopped for a moment before he went in. He knew it was going to be difficult and wasn't sure how he was going to approach everyone. It wasn't until later that he knew that nothing he did or said would have changed the outcome.

It all started before the funeral, during the viewing. There were awkward silences and furtive glances. In his grief, he didn't have a clue about these. Later, he would wonder at this and feel as though they were all travelling the same direction but on different highways and no matter how hard he tried, he could not make them converge and become one.

When they shut the coffin, he finally realized what all the fuss was about.  Him.

Candy of the North

I watched him slowly and methodically cut open the carcass. His hands moved with the surety that only comes with experience. As I gazed up at him, I shivered with anticipation as his knife slid into the eye socket and deftly removed the glutinous, very round, black globe that once held sight. It slid sideways down the face, still attached by its optic nerve and its sheath. With a quick flip of his wrist, the knife slit the tentative join permanently. Shyly pleased and with a gap-toothed grin, he handed me this gem after giving it one more little slit on the side - the candy of the north.

Closet Poet

I was laughing to myself the other day, totally in sympathy, when I saw how the kids at school were struggling with poetry. With poetry, it either clicks right away and you get it or it doesn't and you have to struggle through. I have seen tons of kids struggle but enjoy the rewards of their struggle when they have their aha! moment. Compounding this is finding poems for a certain theme and understanding how to share and reword it into a critical essay with a reasonable amount of intelligence. Again, easy if it clicks - a real curse when it doesn't.

I was talking to a couple kids how I had had a themed poetry assignment when I was in high school and how I dealt with it. At that time, I mentioned that we also had a very small library and, unlike today, absolutely no internet for resources. Being a typical teenager, I procrastinated until I had only the weekend to do this long assignment and I had to work one of the two days at my part-time job. I think we had to find ten or so poems to use. I hit a dead-end getting poems because the library was closed by the time I was off work but I wasn't willing to call it quits - my marks were good and I wasn't willing to take a fall, especially because of my own idiocy. After a brief moment of thought (remember - time was of the essence), I sat down and popped off ten or so poems of varying lengths and styles dealing with the theme. I added made up names for the poets/authors and anonymous ones for some of the others. It was easy to write a critical review of the them because I had written them and knew exactly what the poet intended and the styles that were used! As I recall, I got one of my best marks for that assignment.

I still laugh to myself when I think of it!

(That little microsoft guy above says it all!)

Finally Smokin'

I walked around the house yesterday trying to figure out where the smoke smell was getting in. It seemed to permeate everywhere I went in the house. I had finally taken the first giant step of seasoning my new smoker that I got as a Christmas present. I knew I had set it up properly out of the wind and had been careful about going in and out so that the smoke wouldn't follow me in, so it was important to me that the house not smell like a smoker.

Everything went as it should have, the pucks advanced, the smoke poured out the top and the digital instruments gave temperature and time readouts. It finished shortly after dark and I removed the generator and covered up the smoker after it cooled and came back into the house.
I could still smell smoke throughout the house - I finally asked the youngest if she could smell it (she has a nose as sensitive as a puppy's sometimes) and she said no - only a little in the kitchen by the generator. So I thought it was because I had inhaled a few whiffs and the smell was stuck in my nose. Later that night, I groaned when I realized that it was me that smelled like a smoked sausage! I had forgotten how smoke adheres to hair and clothing and permeates it completely.

So, today I put back on my smokey clothes and went downstairs to put in some marbled cheddar cheese, cheddar cheese, paprika and coarse salt to smoke. I poured the salt and the paprika onto some coffee filters and put them on the racks and loaded up the cheese racks. I preheated the bisquette burner and put them all into the smoker. I kept checking the temperature but it didn't want to go over 60F and I needed it to go to about 80F. So I turned on the bottom burner and waited for it to heat up. It was going so slow - 2 degrees at a time...until finally I went out to check the connections. I laughed when I realized I had not put on the oven burner cord because I had planned on cold smoking the cheeses. It heated up quickly to 80 once I did that.

A couple hours later, I pulled out the cheese but left the salt and paprika in. I raised the temperature to 260 and prepared a chicken I had been marinating since yesterday for smoking. I used a Rickard's Red beer can chicken stand to put the chicken on and with a bit of olive oil and Italian dressing I put it into the smoker. Halfway through, the whole unit quit working!! I unplugged and replugged everything numerous times until it finally kicked in again. I guess you actually have to push the plug all the way in so it can connect properly! lol

I removed the salt and paprika after an hour with the chicken, cooled them and put them into jars to use later on. The salt is going to be wonderful on crusty buns and as a flavour enhancer. It is interesting how it turned from a bright white to a soft tan, which will continue to darken as it sits.

I decided to finish the chicken off in the oven inside the house and brought the bird in. It looks wonderful! I put a casserole of rice in to cook alongside. I think I will make a broccoli and raisin salad to eat as well to help balance out the possible saltiness of the chicken flavours.

We found that the chicken had a lovely, mild smoke flavour reminiscent of a very tender ham. It was so good. I can hardly wait to try smoking some trout and the back bacon (Canadian bacon) I have marinating in the fridge!

Who would have thought that smoking a piece of meat and some cheese could turn out so great!

Task at Hand

He noticed how she quietly went about doing it her way. She did it slowly and real careful like. Her cuts were clean, and precisely where they should have been.

He let out his breath slowly, so as not to disturb her. He knew his head would be on the line if he did and that was the last place he wanted to be. She turned and looked at him with no expression in her eyes. It was as if she was dead and stuffed, with glass eyes that held no feeling and no depth. He shivered despite himself and slowly handed her a clean cloth and some gut to finish up.

She bent back down and continued with the task at hand. As she placed the last piece in place, she let out a slow sigh like a gently deflating balloon that you could only see deflate and not hear. Finally, she turned to him and said, "Well, that's all I'm doing for today - you did a good job."

He smiled and picked up the heavy tubs. As he heaved them onto the dolly, he thought of when things were better. He wheeled them over to the freezer and carefully emptied the contents onto the shelves at the back, hanging the sausages from the hooks in the ceiling. Returning back to the operating room, he removed the bones and skulls, glad it wasn't him that was going to be dinner tomorrow.

Blackberry Widow

I am a Blackberry Widow. My husband got a Blackberry for work at the start of December. I knew he would be obsessed with it, initially anyway. He is a gizmo kind of guy and a Blackberry is a gizmo deluxe!

Previously, he always said he didn't see what the fascination was with Blackberries - they seemed to be like an addiction. He even said that he didn't know why people got so caught up with them and he couldn't imagine having one. What a pain to have your work follow you home, he said.

Then he got one.

At first, he was tentative about the Blackberry. Cautiously asking our daughters questions about how to do this or that. Then he began to explore on his own. He became like an armchair adventurer, delving into the abyss of the Blackberry. Like cocaine, it has sucked him deeper and deeper into its mysteries. Revealing itself, one small step at a time.

Then, the unbelievable happened! I called him for dinner one night and he couldn't put it down until he finished dealing with it's siren call. If you knew my husband, missing dinner is like cutting off one of his limbs. When he was younger, he would pace back and forth until I had a meal on the table, always anxiously awaiting his sustenance. I knew then, that the Blackberry had its hold on him.

As if he wasn't addicted enough, he received "Blackberries for Dummies" book for Christmas. I haven't seen or heard much from him since...I think he said something about downloading some apps but I'm not sure because I don't think he even knew I was there...was he even talking to me? Or to the Blackberry?

First Annual Cabin Fever Competition

How would you like to do something fun this January that will help celebrate (or not) the cold weather? How would you like to write a story or a poem for a potentially wonderful prize?

I am calling this my "First Annual Cabin Fever Competition" - the inaugural topic this year will be - what else but cabin fever!" It should be 200 words or less... and the timeline would be ... say the end of January? The 31st?

(I do reserve the right to disqualify anything that is very inappropriate, which still gives you tons of leeway...)

As a prize I will send the winner a little something...not sure what yet but it will be something great - something quintessentially Canadian - I will let you know closer to the date.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and the best of the season.

We were blessed with an exquisite amount hoar frost and no wind. It has been like driving through a winter wonderland for the past four days. So incredible! I felt like I was in a Christmas card at times, especially at night.

Christmas is winding down for us now. We just finished a lovely traditional dinner with lots of turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and the like. Now, we are all lolling about enjoying the digestion process and sipping a little something. It was a different Christmas for us as this was the first time one of our daughters was not here for Christmas dinner! It felt so quiet but it was still lovely because we had our other daughter and my sister-in-law here.

Well, hopefully your Christmas was just as nice. Have a great day!

Half of a Whole

I followed him as he drove slowly down the street. It wasn't a long street; just a long, short journey. I wondered if he even noticed me as I drove behind him or if he was still so wrapped up in his thoughts that the outside world didn't really exist for him. I noticed only because I had to. I had been following him since he turned off the main road just before I turned and followed close behind him. I watched as he slowly made his way down the street and turned into a driveway about half way down the block.

The house was unassuming in the most unassuming way. It had almond coloured siding and brown trim that had once been very popular in the 60's and 70's. The picture window was covered by equally neutral drapery, again reminiscent of a past era. The house was well-maintained and had an air of quiet comfort, despite it's bland exterior. It was so reflective of the way he lived his life that it made me sigh quietly inside.

As I pulled into the driveway, I could see that he had waited for me. I turned off the engine, undid my seatbelt, and slowly climbed out. I could see his pleasure of seeing me reflected in his eyes but also the deep sorrow furrow his face. He held out his hand and folded mine gently into his as we quietly walked up the path to the front door. As he reached into his right pocket, I could hear his keys jingling quietly as a solitary bird leapt from the bush by the steps and flew off. He pulled them out and unlocked the door.

"I...I guess we had better get out some food," he said with a hesitancy that had never been there before.

Knowing that he was overwhelmed and would rather just go and sit, I swallowed and quietly replied, "Yes, I guess we had better do that. Why don't you just go and sit for a bit while I put it out?"

He looked at me for the first time that day, as if he was really seeing who I was. "I would like... like that, just to sit a minute before...before..."

"I know. This isn't easy is it?" I cut him off before he could say it out loud and we would both have to face the awful truth once again.

"No it isn't!...I just wish it wasn't at all!!" he barked out.

His vehemence surprised me. He had been so placid and accepting up till now. I hadn't realized how angry he was. I didn't blame him, it was so needless that she died the way she did. They had always been such a loving couple, so supportive of one another in their quiet way. I understood in a flash that he was now only one half of a whole and beginning to realize it himself.

Into the Void

I stood on the edge of a dream, distraught and completely disorientated. I felt it's remnants in my shattered soul; a tapeworm of terror coiled in my bowels of hidden thoughts. Snippets of truth intermixed with the dream creating an indiscernible reality. I lay in terror unable to thaw my frozen limbs and not really knowing if I had yet awakened.

I could still see my lovely home floating in the abyss of space; it was split in two - a torso ripped in half with multi-coloured tendons of wire and raw splinters of bone/studs exposed for all to see. Tendrils of ice cold horror coursed through my veins and filled me with despair as I realized that I could not reach my precious babies floating in the black void of neither here nor there. My screams shrank and were sucked into the silence of darkness; my husband slept, unconcerned and completely disconnected from the truth around him. I wept tears of hopelessness.

Lust, Baby Lust

He thought he could hear her heart beating. He paused briefly, surprised with the knowledge that it was his heart beating that he could hear.

Thump-pa-Thump-pathump-pathump.

He could hear it speeding up...pathump-pathump/pathumppathump...as she drew closer to him.

He inhaled her smell, the perfume that gave her a warm, spicy, fruity, all-female smell. Her essence undermined her perfume and added a warm, earthy undertone to it.

How he lusted after her breasts, so warm and hard with perfect pink aureoles. It made him drool just thinking about them. He wanted them so bad that he could almost taste them in his mouth. He ran his tongue around his lips, as if caressing them. He reached for her and she dodged him, turning away briefly. He started shaking with a rage that soon overwhelmed him; the desire for them that great. With a raucous cry, he grabbed at her once again and pulled her roughly towards him. She laughed, picked him up and undid her top so he could drink the nourishing milk that he so desperately wanted.

The Dad, the Daughter and the Snowman

This was an email I sent out to my husband's sisters. My husband loves to pull practical jokes and tease us all quite mercilessly. Our Youngest can be the same way. Here is one of their jokes:

Hi Guys,

I had to email you about this because it is such a rarity in our household that Hubby admits he was beat at his own game....lol

Hubby and the Youngest were joking back and forth and somehow it came up that the Youngest would make a snowman this afternoon before her Dad got home from work. Well, the bet was on and the stakes were high - Hubby bet the Youngest that she couldn't make a snowman this afternoon because the snow was too dry and not sticky enough to roll the balls for it.

So, the Youngest being the Youngest, and definitely a knock-off of Hubby when it comes to practical jokes, sat down and thought about this snowman. She knew that the snow was no good for rolling because it was too cold out but there was $20 bucks at stake....She came upstairs at lunch and consulted with me how to make snow sticky. We talked and decided that if she just made a bunch of slush it would stick enough to make a snowman. So, she headed off downstairs and got all dressed up to go make this snowman. I, in the meantime, left for work thinking that it would take her awhile to make this work of art.

I came home later and asked the Youngest about her snowman.

She said, "Didn't you see it? Dad said it had to be out front to count."

Now, I hadn't seen anything resembling a snowman, other than snowpiles, on the front lawn. When I said I hadn't seen anything she said to look on the front step. So, outside I went and looked. Our step isn't that big that I would have missed seeing a snowman on it as I came up the stairs but I had! There it sat in it's glory, with peppercorn eyes, toothpick arms and bowtie, in the middle of one of the black planters - all eight inches of it!

I laughed so hard, I almost choked...and then we waited very impatiently for Hubby to get home. Like me, he did not see the snowman as he came up the front step and had to go back out and look for it. He was a little surprised and chagrined by the snowman's size but had to admit that there was no stipulation made in that area...it almost killed him to admit that she beat him at his own game but he did. In the end, he really enjoyed the joke quite a bit and was very proud of the fact that she had pulled a fast one on him!


Couldn't help but share this - it was too funny not too.

The Downside/Upside of Winter

We are now totally in the grip of winter. It is a gentle, beautiful vice of magical, glittering diamond sharp snow that surrounds us. Already, we have more snow than we have had in November in years. The temperature is hovering around -20 Celsius - the perfect temperature for winter. At these temperatures, the roads are not slippery and we know we have to dress properly or we will freeze. The rivers and lakes are making strong, rock hard ice as I write and soon it will be time to drag the ice fishing shacks out to the frozen water bodies.

I woke this morning to the kind of sharp frosty air that pulls at your nose hairs when you inhale too fast. Unfortunately, I had to stay home sick with a wicked sore throat. That was the downside...but the upside is that I can enjoy the lovely view from my window. The sun is shining brightly through the absolutely clear morning air, the kind of crystal clear air that you only get when the temperatures fall. The hoar frost is thick on the trees and there is a gentle wind that is just starting to blow it off. It falls through the sunlight like magical crystals, fairy dust that flashes cheekily as it twirls and rotates in a happy eccentric dance to the ground.

I can see Squirrely Magirly hopping along the fence and then pausing. She digs daintily in the snow until she unearths a treasure. It is a small pinecone that she gives a decisive shake to. Now she starts to peel away the layers to get to the delicious pine nuts at the base of each cone scale. The dog is going nuts inside because she can see her on the fence but Squirrely Magirly remains completely unperturbed as she snacks away in the sun.

And to think I would have missed all this if I wasn't at home sick!

Fingerless Gloves/Wrist Warmers

I just ordered some really neat wrist warmers/fingerless gloves from Sarah at Cottage Garden Studios. I have an artist friend whose hands are always cold - now she will be able to draw and stay warm! I picked up a couple of other pairs as well to use as gifts in the family. I think that they are going to be a big hit!!

Sarah has some wonderfully different yarns and some really cute styles of fingerless gloves/wrist warmers, scarves, and other items that she does for both kids or adults. She is also an incredible photographer that teaches and sells her work. (Both pictures I have shamelessly copied from her blog.) You should check out her blog and Etsy shop as well!

Here is her marketing address that also connects to her other blogs and Etsy shop:

http://cottagegardenstudiomarket.blogspot.com/

It would be wonderful if we could support her in her endeavours - she does lovely work and like a lot of people, has been affected by the downturn in the economy. I have followed her blog for quite a while and have enjoyed her photography immensely. I hope you enjoy her site.

Help wanted and the big disappointment!

I need some help! Not that kind, well not right now anyway. I requested a pasta maker for Christmas but didn't realize that there were so many types on the market. I thought an electric one would be nice because it is not as messy but even these have numerous styles and attachments. Does anyone have a pasta maker, manual or electric? I really am not sure which way is the best direction to go. My hubby was thrilled with the request - he openly admits that he is missing his pasta "off" switch and the thought of fresh pasta definitely has him smiling and quite pleased to fulfill my request. I would like something not too fancy, not too expensive and not too hard to use...any other suggestions what I should be looking for?

Well, I was a bit crushed/disappointed that no-one took up the challenge of a limerick. My Irish roots were saddened that I had no-one to give my give-away to. Barb, from The Bad Tempered Zombie, offered her comment of "Yoiks, limericks!" (A remark which, for some unknown reason, I was unable to publish on the post - still can't seem to get it on there...) Whoever heard of a give-away that didn't go? I think I will send it off to Barb as part of her Christmas parcel for at least commenting...

I can always tell when I have been feeling under the weather - the frequency of my blogging goes straight down. Sorry about that. It has been a bit of an up and down year health-wise but am hoping to get things resolved soon - It is not life-threatening, or anything like that, just incredibly tiring and it is sometimes a bit of a nuisance when I can't get all the extra things I want to do done. What I need is a magic wand that I can wave and my list done for me just the way I like it but I bet all of us wishes that at some point in our very busy lives.

Also - I almost forgot - limericks are actually of English descent but that oops! is ok because my English roots were equally disappointed...lol

Halfway to 100 posts!!

Seems like I hit 50 posts on the last one and didn't even realize it! I think that calls for a give-away! Now I am not sure what I should give away but I'm sure I can find something nice and maybe a little quilted item and something delicious to dig one's sweet tooth into as well. I will randomly choose from whomever sends me a limerick about the great snowstorm we just had across the prairies but to make it a little more difficult it also has to have the number 50 in it somewhere. The other caveat is to become a follower. The cut-off will be the Nov.25th at midnight - an early Christmas present.

Have fun!!

First Annual Family Pumpkin Carving contest!

I am posting this a little late but what the heck...it was too good not to share!

We hosted our First Annual Pumpkin Carving contest (FAPC) starting the night before Hallowe'en! We are at the stage in life where the kids are now adults and all the fun things associated with Hallowe'en sadly no longer involve us as much. However, we decided that we needed some family time and still needed to decorate outside with pumpkins. So we held our first annual Family Pumpkin Carving Contest.

Our daughter and her boyfriend and ourselves literally dug into four lovely orange globes to each create a masterpiece! Each of us took a pumpkin and went off to our respective corners and slashed and carved and carved some more. We handed out knives, scrapers, bowls for the guts and hoped for the best. Although everyone tried to keep their design "secret", it was pretty hard especially when we all sat on the kitchen floor together, cutting, scraping and moulding our respective gourds. We were only somewhat successful. Well, truthfully, not particularily successful but it made for some good fun and camaraderie.

Finally, they were done. The men chose logo type of carvings, while the two women were more creative and opted for more art/sculptural types of pumpkins. One was an outdoor, traditional scene and the other an incredible 3D face.... Our older daughter and her boyfriend came over the next day to do their rendition of a masterpiece. We still needed to see what they would bring to the table...and it was to be interesting! The judging took place after supper, in the form of ballots, and interesting prizes were awarded.

There was lots of food but, in the name of safety, no liquor was served at our FAPC until all the cutting was done. I could imagine severed fingers and slashed wrists adding to the drama and mess in the kitchen.

Kiwi, the dog, participated fully - eating her way through numerous pumpkin seeds and pumpkin viscera. Seems she has a penchant for raw pumpkin - all of it - not even fussy which piece she ate. Could hurt in the morning when she goes outside though...

The pumpkin results were wonderful - all were executed in good detail and we had diverse skills levels and subject matter.

Things are growing in the Dark...

Things are growing in the dark and destroying my beautiful batches of wines. I have had trouble with the last few batches of my wine turning, shall we say, rather undrinkable? It is very disappointing when I would bottle a batch of wine and it tasted quite nice - raw but nice - only to have it be almost undrinkable a few months later. It was a smell and taste I couldn't put my finger on. I started to super sterilize (obsessively?) all my equipment and nothing seemed to make a difference. The last batch of raspberry broke my heart and I knew I had to do something about it.

I grabbed a bottle and went down to the local wine store. Neil and his buddy opened it, sniffed it, and tasted it. They pulled out the manuals and went through it all. We finally decided that the wine was oxidizing - that perhaps I hadn't stirred it enough before bottling it. So I bought a wine whip and hopefully this will help my wines in the future.

Now, I had a conundrum - what to do with all the oxidized wine? I considered dumping it then gave my head a shake. Why on earth would I dump it? It is only a couple steps away from being wine vinegar. As you may remember, I make various types of vinegars: red and white wine, cider and also ginger beer vinegars. However, an over-sized pickle jar would not hold all of the wine that has oxidized. I dug around and realized that I had a glass carboy that had a huge opening and that I had never used because I couldn't find a food grade cork big enough locally. So - I now have a container. I can still use a paper coffee filter to act as a cover and keep the vinegar flies out and other unsavoury treasures but the oxygen can still get in. The first batch of wine to go into the carboy was my Riesling. Thirteen bottles later, I had filled it almost halfway. I added a jar of white wine vinegar that had a nice little mother in it and gave it a stir.

Now came the second conundrum, where to put this carboy? We have a nice house but it didn't come with very many or very large closets and storage is always an issue for us. I definitely couldn't put it in a closet and it is too heavy to go in the cupboard above the fridge. Vinegar, in the making, needs to be kept warm and in the dark. I mulled this over in my pea-brain and decided that a cover was the way to go. I went downstairs and again dug around for something suitable that could just stay in the kitchen in a corner. Nothing appealed or matched. As I was walking through the laundry room, I spotted an old, black heavy knit dress of mine. Aha!! the lightbulb went on and the peas sprouted! I took it upstairs, cut part of the skirt off, and sewed a sleeve out of the skirt with elastic on the bottom and a drawstring on the top. It looks reasonable enough to sit in the corner (although I think I will change the drawstring to black once I find where I put the old black shoelaces) and it solves the problem of leaving it somewhere in the dark!!
So the next conundrum will be what to do with 5/6 gallons of white wine vinegar? It has to sit probably until the spring before it is ready and mellowed. However, I think I have this one already taken care of - I have many friends who are thrilled with the prospect of vinegar in the spring when it is done.

Show and Tell and Do!

I spent a wonderful evening and day at a trunk show and workshop put on by a couple of our local merchants. It was a treat for all of us who attended.

The guest quilters/owners (Jeanne Large and Shelley Wicks) were from The Quilt Patch in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. (Shelley and Jeanne recently published a quilting book called "Tis the Season." It was their first time publishing a book and were they pleased with it!! It is a very nicely laid out book with lots of very brightly coloured, easy to follow designs in it. I expect it will do very well for them.) They not only designed but created the quilts that were featured at the trunk show. For those of you who are not quilters, a trunk show is like a fashion show of quilts. They talk about each quilt and then they are literally paraded around the room for everyone to look at. To our surprise and delight, we were advised to touch them. This is unusual because the audience usually does not get to handle the quilts because the oils from our hands can discolour and stain them. Shelley and Jeanne believe that quilts are meant to be handled and used in order to be fully appreciated. I applaud them for this because quilters are a tactile bunch - we love to feel the fabrics and quilts, turning them this way and that for a better look.

Unfortunately, my camera was dead and I didn't get to take photos of the trunk show. I did, however, get a few pictures the next day from the workshop.


We made a good dent in the lap quilt "High Strung",from their new book"Tis the Season," before the end of the day. It was an exercise in applique!! Cutting and sewing those numerous points on the trees definitely took time, as did the holly leaves. It is a very striking looking quilt; my picture does not do it any justice. I decided to try using felted wools for the first time. I was quite impressed with how they handled and how the felting prevented them from fraying. It did need a bit more pressing to get it to adhere to the cotton for appliqueing - quite a bit. I am pleased with the overall effect though - it adds a tactile/rustic quality that you don't get if you use only the cottons. I was disappointed that we ran out of time to finish our quilt tops. (Yes, I am whining...lol) This workshop would have been great as a two day event so we could finish more of the top. I never expect to completely finish a top at these workshops but always hope I will get done. I was very pleased with how they were on hand to help us and they gave us some great suggestions while we were sewing.

What a wonderful group of women from "As the crow flies...quilting workshops", Sheila McNish and Marlene Biles, that organized and attended the two day session! Everything was well planned and they, very generously, gave out numerous prizes throughout the two days. (My friend, Peggy, was one of the happy recipients of a turnover of fabric.) We had a lovely snack of homemade dainties Friday evening, a generous breakfast of muffins and coffee cake along with a variety of teas and fresh coffee for breakfast. We later had a very nice luncheon of tea sandwiches, fruit and (you guessed it!) more dainties. I don't think anyone could slight the organizers for their first ever quilt endeavour! They did a super job!

No password! No entry!

I changed my password to my Google accounts and then discovered, the next day, that the one I thought I had chosen was not actually my new password!! I had changed it but had not gone back to use it a couple times and as a result forgot it. I have to admit I did panic somewhat...ok quite a bit...more than I should have. I had not realized that not being on-line would even create a void for me. I sat and examined my feelings. I realized that I was actually quite bereft; I felt left out. It was like knowing about a party and not being invited into it.

I tried numerous words that I really like the sound of and had considered in the past for passwords. Words like shalloon, guidon, or flowers like day-lilies, or peonies came to mind but they definitely were not my new password. After numerous attempts I finally decided I should contact Google and see if they could help me track down my new, elusive code. I attempted to fill out the form, which I discovered is not for the non-memorizing types like me (like who ever memorizes email addresses or the like?), and submitted my information. I am still awaiting a reply. I have to give them a bit of leeway here because they did say 24 hours and it has only been about 18 hours...

I dug through the pile of papers on my desk in hopes that I had written down this elusive word. Again, I had no luck. This morning, I was grumbling and rolling words through my mind, all of which I quickly rejected knowing my pension for odd words - most were just too ordinary.

So, by now I was getting pretty pissed off with myself and Google! It was they who had informed me that my account had been hacked and to change my password. It was just so easy to blame them, when in fact it was neither of our doing. Damn hackers! It felt good to blame someone other than my rather elusive memory.

I told my husband, in hopes that I had given him the password. No luck. Now, I was definitely upset and hoping Google would have a password for me. So, I have to admit I waited - not very patiently.

I sat down and read the local rag. As I turned the page I happened upon a word that seemed surprisingly familiar...to the point where I ran downstairs and typed it into the password section. I hit paydirt!! I now know my password and have written it down elsewhere so I don't forget it again. Still haven't heard from Google though...

This got me to thinking about our aging society. We use passwords for everything; access to our bank accounts, our phone service, our computers, pin numbers for our debit and credit cards, just to name a few. I recently read an article in Time magazine how the number of people that will develop Alzheimers or age related dementia will be astronomical in the coming years. It makes me ask the question: What will happen to all the accounts that people don't access and lose track of? Are they contacted by the companies that they subscribe to? And just what if? It is kind of scary thinking about this but it can conceivably happen that we just forget and don't even know that we have forgotten, as is the case of many of these brain/memory related diseases.