Navel gazing and immature.....

but funny!

Janice (a Hutchy cousin) had this on her blog.

So, in case you want to play, google the phrase "arlene likes to" (though you would insert YOUR name instead of mine) in quotation marks.* A surprising amount of stuff pops up! Funny stuff.

Ya, kind of juvenile but I do get like that....


So, here's what "arlene likes to" do!

Arlene likes to sit by the door and watch us. ...

arlene likes to read books.

Arlene likes to spend her time sewing and reading.

Arlene likes to watch her "stories" ..

Arlene likes to do anything that has nothing to do with fitness, like hanging out with her husband, children and friends. ...

Arlene likes to Quip, "In the face of adversity, grate things happen!"

Arlene likes to garden in the nude.

Arlene likes to lend an ear.

Arlene likes to display an obnoxious tendency to make everybody else look uneducated next to her. And besides, she’s wrong. .

Arlene likes to keep some extra buck ready to use;

Arlene likes to entertain friends and. family,

Arlene likes to make this dip in advance in a plastic pie plate with a lid (like Tupperware®).

Arlene likes to live intensely

ARLENE likes to flirt too!!!

Arlene likes to travel

Arlene likes to think she's the better gardener. .



Some of these are me to a "T". LOL Which ones, you ask? You tell me. (NO, I do NOT garden in the nude! Sheesh! And a PLASTIC pie plate??? You gotta be kidding!)

So, go ahead and try it...I know you want to! Better yet, post it on your blog, and leave a comment here.

*Note...mine was OK, but maybe make sure you use a computer with a filter for icky stuff.

When life gives you lemons...

Have Christmas!

If you look over Vanessa's shoulder you will see a lot of suspicious white stuff falling from the sky.... and staying.

Yes, it is in fact May, not December, but we had a HUGE dump of snow here on Friday night while we were having dinner at Nialle and Nessa's. HUGE.

Claude had just arrived from Ottawa, Robin and Jun from touring the very HOT portions of the globe, and Paige from balmy Calgary. They were rather ...uh...surprised.

When we left Wetaskiwin, the snow was so thick and heavy on the road and on the windshields that we could hardly see the road. Mark refused to drive one bit further than my house, so we pulled out the sleeping bags, blew up some air mattresses and put everyone up for the night. It felt just like Christmas when I was a kid! Which got me thinking....

It turns out that Claude realized that this is a family he could indeed fit into very nicely! Christmas isn't in a day on the calender, it's in the heart! What fun to wake up to Christmas music, Christmas breakfast and Christmas gifts!!

Wow!

I got a sewing machine!!! And it's JUST like the one in my basement studio!!! I also got a very nice, moist towelette from Korean airlines, and some sea shells and foreign currency...AND a blender pen like Paige uses in her art projects!

Zoot got a can of tuna. That Santa always comes through.

I think Claude got a vintage bumper sticker to go on his brand spanking new Porsche.

What did Robin and Jun get?

Ooooohhh, it's no-name Spam for Brit boy (they eat it there; even though it says RIGHT ON THE CAN, in the list of ingredients, that it contains cow hearts. Yum).
Robin got her all time favorite, dilled green bean pickles.

Paige must have been really good....

because she got Shel Silverstien's "Where the Sidewalk Ends" book of poetry.

Levi got chocolate, Josh got some styro-foam...JUST LIKE what he's been building models from...

Look at this!

I just got this beautiful postcard in the mail. It was painted by Karyn, as she travels through the US on a holiday with her Jim. Wow!

Karyn, you did a brilliant job! I'm so happy to see you using your talent...and I'm proud to see you using this new medium. The painting is really good...especially the mountain in the middle...it really gives me a sense of the place. I'll treasure it.

Thank you!!

At least the Robins are happy.

It's a rainy and cool day, the robins are singing, the worms are in danger, and so it was perfect for baking.
We had Pat over for tea, and baked some muffins to go along...they were scrumptious! Even though I didn't follow the recipe.

I have a compulsion to tweak...just a wee bit, enough to make them mine.

This is the recipe in it's original state:

Banana Almond Muffins

1 1/2 cups flour
3 Tbsp wheat germ
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup toasted, chopped almonds


2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
2 mashed, ripe bananas (1 cup)

2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Heat oven to 400 F.

Sift first 6 ingredients. In bowl, blend next 3. Stir wet and dry ingredients together just till moistened. Scoop it into greased muffin pans, (I use paper liners) and mix the last two ingredients to sprinkle over top of unbaked muffins. Bake 20 minutes.


Well, in my version I replaced 1/4 cup of the white flour with ground flax seed, and replaced all the wheat germ with the flax as well. I didn't have enough banana to equal one cup so I substituted apple sauce for the 1/4 cup banana I was short. I added about a tsp of almond extract. I upped the quantity of almonds by a bit, and didn't measure the topping ingredients at all, just mixed lots of cinnamon with about an equal amount of sugar.
Mmm-mmmm. They smelled divine, and tasted wonderful, with a nice flecky interior from the flax.

Good rainy day treat!

Thanks for the idea to post the recipe Kathleen, yours sound great too!


We also had another Robin fly in this week! I'm so happy that my niece Robin is home from her globe hopping. She's been gone for about a year and a half. She traveled all over south east Asia, and ended up in Australia working for the last six months or so...and she met a boy, and brought him home with her!
Jun is a Brit, and he too was traveling and working Down Under. They were here for a late dinner on their way to Slave Lake after a hard trip halfway 'round the globe that lasted about three days. They arrived here a day earlier than they left Thailand, and Jun said he felt like it was a day he's really not live over again!

Jun immediately won my heart as he felt enough at home here to ask to borrow some books. I think he took Plato's "Symposium", and "Life of Pi".

I love Book People! Robin borrowed a couple too..."7 Habits" by Stephen Covey, and Peal's "How To Win Friends and Influence People".
I really have a problem with that book, ("How to Win Friends..", not "7 Habits") as the whole premise is to manipulate others to gain what you want. Jun's read it, and agreed, it is Machiavellian, and he said that the whole point is that it did work, so from a sales standpoint, it is a classic.

I find it really disturbing that the book is considered a classic with a lot of Christians I know. In my opinion it goes against every true intention of Christ's example of laying down our life for others, for their sake, not ours.

It's great to have Robin close, and I know she'll find lots to keep her busy while she hangs out at Mom and Dad's.