Well, that didn't work! I was going to post some video we took on Christmas day of the dogs opening their stocking presents, but alas, our video camera software seems to be incompatible with my PC, or t'other way round. My PC won't seem to let me install Macromedia Flash, and the Sony Picture Package needs it to run. So, I will have to try and figure out some other method to transfer the video to my PC, and then to my blog. Some other day when I have nothing else to confound me for 6 or 7 hours or so :-p We have to be somewhere at 5 today, and I've already been fussing with this for a couple of hours, I give up!

In the meantime, maybe I'll go chase George around with the Dalek again. That was fun ;-)

Ciao.  ¶ 12:27 PM 1 Comments

  Countdown... Well, its just 2 more days until Christmas, and other than wrapping a few things, I think we're ready.

I was baking all week, I made gingerbread men, chocolate raspberry thumbprint cookies, and stollen, wrapped 'em all up in Christmassy plant pots and gave 'em to the neighbours. With enough left over for our family of course! I just need to roll out what's left of the gingerbread and make another stollen. And pie. James said I have to make pie.

Christmas at E.J. Victor was interesting. As mentioned in my last post, for our "holiday lunch" we all (well, office employees) went out to a local buffet restaurant. The company also has an anual holiday drawing, where they pick out 6 furniture items in stock and "raffle" them off to employees. I didn't win anything, but it was fun to watch a couple of the others win. Their reactions were just hillarious! And, apparently, they don't mind if you turn around and sell the item. Most people don't, but one year one lady won a bed that wouldn't fit in her house, so she sold it. EJ Victor furniture sells for thousands of dollars! I imagine one could pay off Christmas credit card bills by selling one bed! ;-)

EJ Victor also gave us a $40 gift certificate to Ingles, a local grocery store, so I was able to get a turkey breast AND a roast beast. We'll be having lots of left-overs! :-)

Last Sunday James' gaming was cancelled so he was home and decided to decorate the house. He hacked up Christmas all over the place. Including George's crate! Here's some pics...(Photobucket has a new bulk uploader which is absolutely brilliant! It took about a quarter the time it usually does to upload these!)

Here's George's crate from the side (yes, it sits in our living room, taking up more space than the piano!)


And here's Bruno, sitting in front of it. He doesn't like crates, he's very suspicious of them!


This is the stuff on top of it, sorry its a bit blurry!


And here's our wee tree, next to the fish tank. Notice the stocking taped to the tank ;-)


'nother angle of the wee tree. We have a larger one, just no space to put it, what with piano and dog crate in there!


Yesterday was Yule of course, we didn't do much of anything to mark the day, other than exchange a couple of gifts. I posted about giving James the tiger already, and he did quite appreciate it. I found a small stuffed holiday tiger the other day at CVS drugstore, its white and goofy lookin' with a floppy green holiday hat on. I got to open 2 gifts. One he had found an old gift bag from a few Christmases ago (yes, we recycle!) that said "From Jack & Nixie" (his parents). That was a Kokopelli wind chime, which is apparently tuned to an old Navaho song. Kokopelli is my fave North American Spirit. Mischevious, and musical. What more could you want? ;-)

AND! TA DA! After we had gone and spent part of the afternoon battling crowds at Sam's Club (also James' idea!) and grocery shopping at Bi-Lo (a few items I couldn't find at Ingles) he told me to open another gift. We flipped a coin, and I opened the one from Bruno. My very own, remote controlled Dalek! It even says 5 phrases and its ray gun makes noise. You should have seen George running from it and trying to save herself from extermination! HA HA HA !!! Bruno just ran and hid in the den, as far away as caninely possible. He hasn't managed to figure out how to open the sliding door to the back yard yet. *snarf*

So, Christmas dinner will actually be turkey breast and lamb roast, because our foray to Bi-Lo resulted in me sayin' "hey, here's a lamb roast, lets try that!" Ingles didn't have part-skim ricotta, which I need for the stollen recipe, and was our downfall. We somehow ended up with a whole cart-load of food! After I'd already been grocery shopping on Friday evening! One main reason I don't take James with me, we get too much stuff! I don't think I'll need to shop now for about a month! EEK!  ¶ 10:09 AM 1 Comments

  More Bah Humbug! Friday for lunch we had our "Christmas Dinner" at work. We all went to a local restaurant called AJ's PrimeSirloin. Its a buffett restaurant, fairly cheap, and totally un-healthy greasy Southern fare. But it's close to both plants, and the boss-man was buyin' so who am I to pass up a free lunch? ;-)

While sitting eating however, I suddenly missed having holiday luncheons at the Board of Trade restaurant when I worked at J.D. Edwards in Toronto. They had some really awesome food on their menu I tell ya! The venison was particularly good. And we could linger a couple of hours, relax and enjoy the food and company, and have a glass of wine or beer with our meal. Not so here, no way, uh-uh!

There are a lot of things from back home that I miss, especially at this time of year. Like snow. Apparently Southern Ontario is expecting a record breaking snow accumulation this December, and the best I can hope for here is some cold drizzle. The last decade or so that I lived in Ontario we hardly ever got snow in December, and rarely had a white Christmas. Now that I'm gone, it seems to happen more often than not. *hmph*

I don't miss shovelling it, but I do miss playing in it, and I miss how pretty it is when its newly fallen and still clean and sparkly. I don't expect I'll ever see a significant snowfall here in Morganton. The most I've seen so far since I moved down here is maybe half an inch, which is usually gone by the end of the day. And yet everyone panics and empties the grocery stores of milk, eggs and bread at the sight of the first flakes! *snarf*

We had some really cold miserable rain yesterday, and of course we were out at a handfasting in Hickory. It started out as just a drizzle, but then turned later to pouring rain, just in time to drive home. The house was packed! and of course I'd forgotten my cloak in the car, which then had to be taken down the road to the community centre parking lot, so whenever I was outside to get away from the crush indoors, I froze. Luckily the ritual was indoors, but my it was crowded! There's just sooooooo many people with this bunch all the time, I always feel very overwhelmed and just want to go hide in a corner.

We also had pot-luck Yule feast (I made a punch with vodka, pomegrante juice, and Cranberry Sierra Mist pop, it was very yummy!) and played Dirty Santa game. We used to play this at JDE Christmas parties, but we didn't call it that. I think we called it Secret Santa. Anyhoo, its when everyone brings a wrapped unlabled gift, we all pick numbers and then we can either choose a gift to unwrap or steal someone else's. I got a nice Chinese tea mug, with a dragon on it and a lid, with some loose leaf Jasmine tea, and James got a 2008 Herbal Almanac book. This may come in handy for our garden next planting season.

We got home about 11pm, and the dogs were about desperate to get out to pee! And despite the time and the rain, they really really wanted to go for a walk but we were just too tired and worn out from the party. Maybe they'll get an extra long walk today, if James ever gets out of bed. It sounds really windy out there now though, I may need a toque. The rain has stopped though, and its sunny. Perhaps this is the Winter Winds clearing the way for the Solstice next weekend.

By the way, for James' Yule gift, I adopted him a tiger :-) Check out these links from MSN You can donate money in someone's name, or in honour of, and send that person an e-card or print out a card that tells them a donation has been made. You can choose tigers, lemurs, gorillas, African Savannah, or donate a goat to an impoverished family. I will get James a little stuffed tiger, and put the card with it, and he'll also get the e-card on Yule.

Really, we just have so much "stuff" and not much room for more. Tigers are his totem animal, and they're nearly all gone from the world. I know he'd appreciate to help save them. A few years ago my sister and brother in law adopted a polar bear for me at Christmas, and it was the best gift I ever got! If you've got someone on your list who you just don't what to get, if they're a charitable person, perhaps they'd like something in a warm Orangutan...? ;-)

Just one more week to go, and it'll all be over for another year. Maybe next year we can go home.  ¶ 10:20 AM 1 Comments

  Candy makin' fiend... Yesterday I vended my Watkins wares at a Vendor showcase in Winston-Salem. During the week, I decided in order to show off a couple of the holiday special Watkins extracts, I'd make some candies from scratch.

Honestly, its not as hard as I thought it would be, however I did learn one thing. Do Not Use a Rubber Spatula To Stir The Hot Candy mixture! You end up with bits of rubber in your caramels! I had to make another batch. And stir it with a wooden spoon. *snarf*

I made some Irish Cream flavoured caramels, and Anise flavoured hard candies. They both took about half an hour to mix and stir to reach the correct temperature (very important to have a candy thermometer!) and then about an hour and a half or so each to wrap all the candies in waxed paper. Very time consuming that bit. But well worth it IMO. They're very yummy :-)

The vendor showcase unfortunately was not all that well attended, but the other vendors were good folks, and we all exchanged information and catalogues, and in some cases money for goods. I got a nice smelly bar of soap from the Body Works lady, a bag of home made dog cookies from another, an activity book for my nephew from the Discovery Toys lady, and a few wee Smidges from the Tupperware lady. Oh, and a half case of energy drink from the Vemma folks. Very tasty that stuff, not like what you get in convenience stores at all.

A few people purchased some of my Watkins items, but I still came home with more than I would have liked. I guess I'll be well stocked in a few items for this year. Still. bleah...there's really only so many bottles of extract a household of 2 needs yanno! ;-) And I've no idea what I'll do with 2 containers of Country Gravy mix. Neither James or I like it. hmmm...maybe I will donate it to the local food bank.

Anyhoo, here's the recipes for the candies. I'm quite certain they can both be altered for whatever flavours you have on hand. I've thought of making honey lemon candies and cinnamon candies, and chocolate caramels, and and and...one has lots of time to ponder new recipes when one is standing stirring the pot for half an hour at a time. ;-)

Crystal Cut Candy

Ingredients
2 cups/500 mL sugar
1/2 cup/125 mL light corn syrup
1/2 cup/125 mL water
2–3 tsp/10–15 mL Anise Extract
Dash salt
Few drops red food color

Directions
Combine sugar, syrup, water and salt. Bring to a boil over mudium heat. Cook to hard crack stage or 290°F/145°C on candy thermometer. Add food color and extract and allow to set for a few seconds before stirring. Mix well and pour into 8x8x2-inch/20x20x5-cm pan that has been sprayed with Watkins Cooking Spray. Let stand a few minutes until slightly cooled and a film forms over the top. Score candy into “puffs” 3/4 inch/20 mm square using a metal spatula or pancake turner (because candy is cooler at edges, start scoring at the outside and work toward the center). Press a line across pan 3/4 inch/20 mm from edge. Be careful not to break the film. Repeat around pan, intersecting lines at corners to form squares.If lines do not hold shape, candy is not cool enough. Retrace lines, pressing spatula deeper but not breaking film, until spatula can be pressed to bottom of pan on all sides. Cool thoroughly and break into squares. Store loosely covered in a cool, dry place. Makes approximately 100 candies.


Irish Cream Caramels

Ingredients
2 cups/500 mL whipping cream
1 cup/250 mL granulated sugar
1/2 cup/125 mL light corn syrup
2 tsp/10 mL butter or margarine
1 tsp/5 mL Irish Cream Extract
1 tsp/5 mL Vanilla
1/3 cup/80 mL chopped walnuts (I didn't put walnuts in mine. I don't like walnuts and can't figure out why anyone would want to ruin a perfectly good caramel by putting a nut in it!)

Directions
Combine cream, sugar, syrup and butter in large heavy saucepan. Using a candy thermometer, heat to 245°F/125°C, stirring constantly. Remove from heat at once. Stir in extracts; pour into buttered 8 x 8 x 2-inch/20 x 20 x 5-cm pan. Cool just until firm. Loosen candy around edges with a knife; invert on cutting surface. Cut into 1-inch/25-mm squares with a sharp knife. Cool completely and wrap each in waxed paper. Store in a cool place.

Note: These caramels keep well, and may be made several weeks in advance.  ¶ 11:47 AM 0 Comments

  T'is the season to go shopping Yesterday afternoon we took a drive up the mountain to go shopping in Arden at World Market. We stupidly got directions from mapquest, and got horribly lost in the middle of nowhere. I guess Arden just isn't completed in the mapquest database.

After wasting about a quarter tank of gas, we finally stopped to ask directions and a nice lady in the Ingles gas station told us how to find it.

When we finally found the store and got in there, I intermittenly loved and hated it. Loved it because I was finding so much yummy international junk foods but most of the stuff on the shelves didn't have price tags on them, it was annoying! We ended up spending way more money than I wanted to, but we've got enough munchies to last a week or two. ;-)

We also got a few holiday gifts. They not only sell junk foods, but beers from around the world, so we picked up a few bottles (at $5 each!) for our holiday dinner. And they also have some nice trinkets, knick-knacks and gee-gaws that we'll have to go back for sometime.

I wanted to get some Christmas crackers, but they were $12.99 per package, and I thought that was a bit too much. Maybe we'll go back closer to the holiday and see if they get reduced in price to clear out. For those who don't know what a Christmas cracker is, it is NOT something you put cheese or peanut butter on and eat, it's a kind of party favour, that you pull apart and it's got a cap in it so it "cracks" when you pull it. Each has a paper hat, a toy and usually a riddle or trivia of some sort.


My Mum had some really awesome ones last year, with some really good toys in them. A few years ago I had bought some Harry Potter ones, and the paper hats were big pointy wizard hat types. James said no way would his family wear the hats, but they did! And they had fun with them too!

After our shopping excursion we stopped at a restaurant called Black Forest and had some yummy German food and beer. I had goulash for starters and James had the potato pancakes. For our entrees I had the smoked pork, and James had sauerbratten. The wait staff was awesome, so friendly and happy. Unlike most that we've run into who seem to be annoyed that they have to actually talk to customers in order to get their orders, and who just figure they're entitled to a tip because they showed up to work. :-p

We were so stuffed we couldn't do much of anything after we got home. Except fan the air, because I'm tellin' ya, that sauerkraut is potent stuff! peeeyeww! LOL

But of course we had to munch on the gingerbread and Tim Tams that we picked up at World Market! I couldn't believe they actually have Tim Tams (labelled Arnott's here of course, not Tim Tams, but I knew what to look for!) I'm not kidding when I say we got lots of junk! There's also a bag of German pfefferneusse, a bag of Belgian wafers, a box of 3 different types of scone mixes, 2 boxes of Scottish chocloate coated ginger shortbreads, 2 sacks of Belgian choclate coins (its just not Christmas without chocolate coins!), a package of Jaffa cakes, a huge bag of Hawaiian potato chips, a jar of Devon cream (to go with the scones), a couple of little tree decorations (stuffed bear and stuffed moose) and I'm sure a few other things that I can't remember at the mo.

It's probably a good thing that the store is more than an hour drive away! ;-) The lady who helped us find our way around the store (she was so incredibly helpful, she found us a buggy, found the Arnott's and then she also saw us waiting in line for check out and she went and opened another station just so we wouldn't have to wait!) she was amazed that we'd drive an hour just to go shopping. It was well worth the trip though.

Now I'm sitting here resisting the urge to go eat all of it! I think I shall have to leave the house for a while to remove myself from temptation!

TTFN  ¶ 11:05 AM 1 Comments