Just for fun!

I enjoy a good, hearty laugh from time to time. I think laughter is an important part of our overall health and mental well-being. So, on that note, I have a little treat for you.

I'll be the first to admit that I have a horrible singing voice and I also enjoy making up my own words to songs when I don't know what the heck the singer is saying. For instance, Pete Townsend's song, "let my love open the door" was once sung as, "you might have opened the door" by yours truly, until my husband (the Pete Townsend fan that he is) made it his mission to correct me.

I do not watch television. I do not enjoy watching shows like American Idol or Canadian Idol but I do occasionally enjoy a good laugh at someone elses expense.

When watching this video clip just remember that the performer is attempting to sing in English.



To my fellow Canadians: Happy Thanksgiving !

I'm it!

I've just been tagged by the very talented, jewelry designer, Charlene of "Adding a Little Colour to Life."

The rules:

1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Here's the dirt on me:
1. I'm a night owl. I do my most creative thinking late at night, usually after midnight.
2. Long fingernails and toenails on people is a BIG pet peeve of mine.
3. I think I've got the widest hips of anyone I know. It makes buying jeans extremely difficult.
4. I can go for weeks without listening to music. Then one day, a song will pop into my head and I will become obsessed with that song until I listen to it half a dozen times.
5. I like hiding behind doors and jumping out and scaring my husband when he least suspects it.
6. I have an extremely acute sense of smell to the point where I will get a headache from scented products or other foul odours like sewage or rotting garbage.
7. My favourite film genre is horror movies. I watch them all year round and not just during Halloween season. I prefer movies about hauntings and the supernatural as opposed to slasher flicks.

I'm tagging:
Kickpleat of "The Small Joys"
Laurie of "Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska"
Lindyloo of "Yeah, that Vegan Shit"
Megan of "Raised on Sunshine"
Kalliope of "ich Kalliope"
Dawn of "Vanilla Sugar"
Fiber of "28 Cooks"

before and after

Before ...

and after...

After a series of setbacks with scheduling a hair appointment, waiting over 2 weeks for the appointment to arrive, being 20 minutes late for the appointment, having the Aveda salon send me home for being late (can you believe that?), and re-scheduling for the very next day, only to have the salon call me a couple of hours earlier and tell me they will have to re-schedule due to a an issue with the student appointed to cut my hair - sigh !

I gave up on Aveda and went to a girlfriend's trusted hair salon...And, I actually got an appointment on the same day!! The haircut itself lasted a mere half hour compared to the hour and half that I normally am required to sit in a chair when an Aveda student cuts my hair.

So...f-ck Aveda and hooray for me!! I was inspired to write that from one of kickpleat's (Everybody Likes Sandwiches and The Small Joys) fab greeting cards found on Etsy!!

Anyway, I will no longer be clogging up the bathtub drain with grotesque amounts of long hair. Hip hip hurray! Hear that husband? You will no longer have to fish out huge wads of wet hair from the tub drain. Nor will you find hairy dust bunnies around the house when you use the Swiffer duster. And you won't find a curly strand of my hair in the Greek salad either...actually, that's not entirely true...the hair just happened to be on the plate and then the salad was placed on top!

The best thing about having short hair is less time required to fuss with it. Also, less shampoo and conditioner and styling products are required, which means "save your money" (think ING banking commercial).

Finally, I have spotted the cutest cloche hat on Etsy which I truly need to get in order to keep my head warmer in the winter months. So, here's to nice haircuts and nice cute hats!!

My New Kitchen Buddy: Double Action Potato Masher

I purchased this potato masher a few months ago but had not used it until this weekend. The most obvious reason being that mash potatoes is just not a summer time food. This evening however, I was in the process of making tofu chili and had just emptied the contents of two cans of plum tomatoes into the pot. I decided to use my potato masher to mash up the whole tomatoes, rather than dice them up beforehand.

This kitchen tool worked like a charm. The 'dual action' mashes both the tomatoes on the bottom of the pot as well as any tomatoes floating around in the liquid. Awesome!!

With Canadian Thanksgiving just around the corner, this masher would be perfect for making sweet potato mash or garlic mash potatoes!

Best Features:

• stainless steel for easy clean up
• can withstand high temperatures
• comfortable handle
  
• minimal use of force required; great for people with arthritis or carpal tunnel syndrome
• can be used for mashing tomatoes, potatoes, boiled eggs, tofu, bananas and cooked carrots
  

Custom orders

Two bracelets, hot of the pliers, ready to be worn on someone's wrist. These two bracelets are actually custom made for a client. The client wanted a "gaudy" bracelet with a little bit of vintage thrown in. One for her, the other for her sister. The client has seen photos of both bracelets and is very pleased with the results.

I have also acquired a new selection of Fall/Winter inspired beads and will be creating some new pieces for my Etsy shop. Coming soon!

Short & Sweet. To cut...or, not to cut...?

Pass the tofu

I'm sure that many of you have heard about the listeria outbreak here in Ontario and in British Columbia related to contaminated meat products from the Canadian manufacturing plant Maple Leaf Foods. According to the latest report there are twelve confirmed deaths related to listeriosis and many others victims that have been reported ill.

I no longer eat red meat or poultry. I have not eaten beef in over 5 years. I became severely ill eating beef on 2 separate occasions and decided to remove it from my diet. A little over a year ago I also gave up on chicken for no other reason than the disgust I felt one day when I was handling raw chicken. Overnight, I erased all red meat from my diet. My protein sources are now derived from foods such as tofu, tempeh, veggie burgers, okara burgers, beans and legumes, some varieties of fish/seafood, eggs and cheese.

I am continually re-assessing my food choices. I no longer drink milk because of a whey intolerance I have developed. I have my cereal with almond milk or rice milk and occasionally soy milk. I'm not saying that my food choices are flawless. (I still store food leftovers in plastic containers in the fridge and freezer). The purpose of this post is NOT to insist that people stop eating meat. My point is that we need to examine what we eat and why we eat it. And in doing so, are there different (read: new) ways of approaching our food consumption? Will we still be eating the same kinds of foods in 15 years from now? Will we become a new generation of hunters and gatherers?

Why am I telling you about this? Because this is the end of food as we know it. Every so often we will hear a story in the news about E. coli found in spinach, and earlier this summer we heard about tomatoes contaminated with Salmonella. I know people that stopped eating tomatoes at that particular time only to start consuming them again a week later. How careful do we need to be?

Nobody knows when a contaminated food epidemic will strike. This is serious stuff. It is scary. Can you imagine what will happen if our drinking water became contaminated with a lethal contagion? Everybody drinks water. We need it to survive. Remember Walkerton?

Sorry to sound so morose and Armageddon about this but I happen to enjoy food. I want to be able to eat food without having to worry about Salmonella on my tomatoes.

For now, I will continue to be on guard and develop an obsessive approach to washing fruit and some veggies...with a natural soap and/or a vinegar and water mixture.

I read the book "The End of Food" about a year ago and I highly recommend it to those who are seriously concerned about their health and redefining their food choices. You will never see food the same way again. I didn't.

What are some of the things you are doing to protect yourself and your family from unsanitary/suspicious food products?