Personal Notes

Almost certainly Selena will post this to her face book, but I'm going to beat her this time and post it here for the few that visit here first! It's Michael Pollan talking about his new book, which is (or contains at least in part) a collection of "wisdom", folk and otherwise, about food. Here's some favorite quotes from me...

"If you're not hungry enough to eat an apple, you're probably not hungry."

"The whiter the bread, the sooner you're dead!"



Another interesting one:

"Sweeten your food yourself" (He observes that in most cases it'd be better for kids to give unsweetened cereal and tell them to put on all the sugar they want, because they can put many many spoons of sugar on the cereal and still have less sugar then many sugary cereals. Maybe not so applicable around here... but still an interesting observation. Ditto for making ice tea or lemonade... no sane person would themselves put in as much sugar as is found in popular commercial drinks of that sort.)

Gramma took the kids for a few days again, so Selena could get some quality studying time in before her final exam next week. But it looks like all this freedom has once again gone to her head, and off she goes, hitting the streets and rallying against the prorogued government. Well, what can do when the Samba Squad calls?

Well, everyone missed a fantastic New Year's Eve party here at our place. Yes, it was awesome. It was awesome that you missed it, I mean. I mean, it's awesome you were somewhere else that is not here. So, I just want to extend a heart felt thanks to all who did not participate. Thank you. And Happy New Year, also.

Besides us not having to take you on an delightful evening walk around the neighbourhood through the rain/snow (including the icy and unlit Wytchwood Park hill --- whee!), under our big umbrella, it also meant we didn't have to share our crisped-to-perfection traditional home-made new year's egg rolls with you. Horray! Selena also whipped up some hot and sour soup, which turned out quite nice (though a lot more of the hot than the sour).

Conscience is starting to suggest my tone may be coming across a wee bit on the selfish side? Furthermore, I'm just starting to feel terribly sorry for all you poor unfortunates that were not here for such an awesomeness (the likes of which you can probably not even imagine). But, this was the first holiday evening of any kind that Selena and I have gotten to enjoy just by ourselves since... since I can't even remember. It was too nice. It was too good. So I hope you can somehow forgive us for ignoring your knocks (we may have been out) and rejecting your rings (our phone line must have been down)?

There are a few egg rolls and soup left over. But you better get over here fast if you want some, because they won't last long! And the kids will be back soon...

We had an even busier than usual Christmas this year, largely due to my determination to connect with some extra relatives which had been out of the picture for a long time. (Ironically, I got hardly any pictures of these extras.) All told, we had a chunk 'o Christmas in seven different places over five or so days!

We started here at home on Christmas afternoon. We Quaker potlucked Christmas eve. We then headed to Ajax where we stayed over night. After Christmas morning breakfast and presents in Ajax, with Gramma (and a phone call to sing the Hippopotamus song to Auntie Anne), we headed out to Dundas to meet up with some odd Middleton's, we extremely rarely see (including one cousin I'd not yet ever met before, and a bathroom -- except for the seriously nostalgic drawing -- never seen before either), for Christmas dinner. We stayed over night in Hamilton and had a second Christmas morning there on Boxing day, with Grammie and Aunty Belle. In the afternoon we drove to Kitchener for a visit with Grampa. Coming back to Hamilton again to stay over night, the next day we congregated with Selena's family and family friends for a big Christmas brunch at the Suggitt's.

It was touch and go at times, but it all worked out quite nicely (I think). And it's continuing to work out nicely, now finally home again, just Selena and I. We left the kids, with their new toys, for a few days with Gramma. (And Grammie had them most of the week leading up to all this.)

So all is Merry until Happy New Year! (Here's all the xmas pics...)

I was lucky to be able (with Anne and Sandro, no less) to get to the little gallery space where Noel, and other local artists, were opening a new exhibit. My pictures linked here are not very good quality, but some may be interested to see some of the people and scenes... there's also some more examples of some of the art work here.