The lay-about and the troublemaker...

This is the layabout....

...and this is the troublemaker...

Simple pleasures.....

In this very busy life of mine there a few jobs that I take true pleasure from but which were a real chore to me in my past life...

Really basic things like cooking a simple meal... I used to like cooking fancier meals and found simple everyday meals a bit humdrum but now that I cook for a living I look forward to simple meals. We had such a meal last night, a stir fry of leftover steak, some mushrooms, zucchini and red pepper in a black bean sauce with rice. It was really lovely!

Monday ramblings...

...as the owner/operator of Magpie's Diner,almost every minute of my day it spent on the business...why oh why did I ever complain about my EASY work at home job.

You would think that working on my feet all day I would be able to loose weight or at least not gain any weight...but you would be wrong. After two years of hard work all I have to show is weight gain and really sore feet, willpower is not working for me so I'm thinking of starting PGX...thoughts?  

I went to the doctor about my foot, he thinks it's a weird form of planters fasciitis so he put me on prednisone, a strong anti-inflammatory steroid, worked wonders on my back, tennis elbow, and all sorts of pain and aches but my foot although not as sore, still hurts, so back I go on Tuesday.

I know that exercise is key but with my sore feet I can't get out walking, and if I do a 90 year old can walk faster...and exercise is key and must fit it into my daily schedule. There are only two types of exercise I can think of that will not hurt, swimming and biking. I'm not a good swimmer but I figure that if I jump into the deep end, dog paddle out a few meters, I'll work so hard at staying afloat that I should get as much exercise from not drowning as I would from swimming laps. After about 30 minutes of trying to stay afloat I can make my way to the stationary bike...just love the thought of biking to nowhere...

Of course my diet plays a huge part in all this...well lack of diet...I used to eat lots of veggies and fruit...now I survive on cold fries, tomato ends, bread crusts and broken eggs...yum!

So time for a change...as I write this I'm just finishing a donut and coffee with cream...in my old life I ate the occasional donut and drank my coffee black...so my first change, no donuts and back to black...

Then ... I will stock the fridge with lots of fruits and veggies, right now my cupboards and fridge are empty except for dog food, cat food and olives (for my martinis)...

Start exercising...I know I should start today but I work from 11am to 9pm...so I'll go to the gym tomorrow...after I buy new runners, a bathing suit and some new shorts, ugh!

Well one thing at a time...Happy Monday everyone!

A doll for Mia...

This is my first attempt at making a Waldorf type doll, I followed the instructions here. Waldorf dolls are usually made with all natural materials, mostly cotton and wool. But I decided to make this at the last minute for my granddaughter's birthday so I used what I had on hand...now that the doll is finished I know I should have used wool. I used polyfill stuffing for the body but cotton and wool for the head which makes the doll top heavy...

These dolls are very cute, very huggable and Mia loved it...many more are on the way Mia..

Waiting to board...

...the ferry to Powell River and it's cold outside, -7 with a brisk wind...my face is frozen as I try to catch the waves pounding the shore.

Happy Birthday...

Mia did not want to wear her birthday hat but Seiko felt very stylish with it....

Genetically modified food...

Did you know that the PLU code on your fruit and veggies can tell you how they were grown? It's really very simple...

Click on the following link for the full story  http://www.plantea.com/genetically-modified-foods.htm


...and I also copied it below...

Talking Fruit How to de-code the information on those little stickers By Marion Owen, Fearless Weeder for PlanTea, Inc. and Co-author of Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul While unpacking groceries, you pull out the bag of apples and decide to eat one then and there. You take it over to the sink, wash it off and -- with some effort -- peel off the little sticker. Pausing to look more closely at the sticker you wonder, "What do those numbers mean?" As much as we may dislike them, the stickers or labels attached to fruit do more than speed up the scanning process at the checkout stand. The PLU code, or price lookup number printed on the sticker, tells you how the fruit was grown. As reported by Maria Gallagher, in the June 26, 2002 issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer, by reading the PLU code, you can tell if the fruit was genetically modified, organically grown or produced with chemical fertilizers, fungicides, or herbicides. Here's how it works: For conventionally grown fruit, (grown with chemicals inputs), the PLU code on the sticker consists of four numbers. Organically grown fruit has a five-numeral PLU prefaced by the number 9. Genetically engineered (GM) fruit has a five-numeral PLU prefaced by the number 8. For example, A conventionally grown banana would be: 4011 An organic banana would be: 94011 A genetically engineered (GE or GMO) banana would be: 84011 The numeric system was developed by the Produce Electronic Identification Board, an affiliate of the Produce Marketing Association, a Newark, Delaware-based trade group for the produce industry. As of October 2001, the board had assigned more than 1,200 PLUs for individual produce items. Incidentally, the adhesive used to attach the stickers is considered food-grade, but the stickers themselves aren't edible. Do you REALLY know what's in your dinner? Today, 7 out of every 10 items on grocery stores shelves contain ingredients that have been genetically modified. In other words, scientists are using new technology to transfer the genes of one species to another, and these altered foods are in the market stream. And yet many scientists have concerns about the safety -- to people, wildlife and the environment -- of this process. That's why consumers in Asia and Europe are demanding that their food be free of genetically modified ingredients.

A gift of snow

It doesn't snow in my part of the world all that much...and if it does...the snow quickly turns to rain because most of the time the weather warms up when the clouds move in.

Not today... the snow fell, the clouds moved out, the sun moved in, the cold temps remained and the snow did not melt, well not all of it, a real gift.

The bathroom can wait...

I have a day off today and cleaning the bathroom is on the ...things to do... list. But guess what? After days of rain I woke to a clear and sunny day. The bathroom will still be there tomorrow dirt and all but my friends the sunshine might not be...so I'm playing hooky today and going for a long walk.

Vancouver Island snow covered peaks in the distance with Savary Island to the right.

Glorious!