I'm Gettin' Nothing for Christmas

IIIIII'MMMM BAAAAA-AAAACK!

Well ok, not on a very regular basis, but I'll try to keep up with everyone. How's that sound? Yeah yeah yeah, I hear you muttering "She'll try she says, sheesh, like what's that supposed to mean?" Well I'll tell you what that means, it means that I'm on dial-up which means very slow access to the internet. It also means that I'm busy with work especially considering the season and it means I'll be doing my best to come around and visit everybody on a regular basis. I hope that satisfies you nay sayers.

*sticks out tongue, laughs and does a happy dance singing, "I'm back, whoohooo, I'm back, yay me*

Please Bare With Me

I'm sorry to tell you that between work and packing to move I only get about an hour or so before work on the computer if I get up early enough. After that, once the move is complete I'll have dial-up internet access but hopefully more time.

Today is going to be an interesting day I'll tell you! I start work this morning at 8 and yet here I woke up at 5 for absolutely no good reason, I'll probably be working till shortly after lunch but will be back to work for 5 this evening working till 8. I've never worked an evening shift in the restaurant before and so don't know how to make any of the dinner antrees. Oh well, gotta learn something new every day, right!?! Trouble is I specialize in breakfast, more specifically omelettes and quiche, that's where I shine, funnily enough, I don't like either! 

Anyway, while I'm away at work today, the kid is going to puppy-sit Lucifer while he baby-sits her and Silv will be moving a bunch of the big stuff up to his place, (lawn mower, BBQ, that kind of stuff). Yep folks, I'm taking the plunge and moving in with Silv. Up till now we've had our own homes which suited us just fine. We are always together either at our country home (Silv's place) or at our town-house (my place), but we are both sick of the travelling between homes and town life so we're giving that up for a more relaxed country life. Yeah right, like country living will be more relaxed! Bigger yard to take care of, wood to collect all summer and fall for winter heat, snow to try to clean up all winter, no neighbors driving us nuts, (YAY!!!), no sounds of traffic all night and day, a BIG yard for this BIG dog to run around in, fresh air, nearest neighbor is a half mile away as the crow flies, space for a garden to be able to have fresh herbs and vegetables, and so it goes. Ok ok so it will be more relaxing, just a little more work!

So saying, I'm really looking forward to this move even if it does mean a 20 mile drive to work every day as opposed to 4 blocks, but the pro's definitely out-weigh the cons!

This Years Pumpkins

Ok so, the kid is getting to be as good as I am at carving. Yep, she carved all of those up above. Didn't take her long either! I however only did two and they are as follows. Take a wild guess at which one took me ten hours from start to finish!?! 

The witch you say? Well for that I'll laugh at you, just as you're laughing that I would waste 10 valuable hours on one pumpkin. Yes, The Green Man is the one that took me 10 whole bloody hours! I had some other templates I had wanted to do, but damn having spent so much time on one carving took all my interest in doing detailing out of me for the year. To be fair the 3 I showed you from last years carvings each took me longer, but that's because I designed the templates and I count that into the time spent as well. These I just took some templates from the net that I had found and went with them. So the time spent includes everything from hollowing out of the pumpkin all the way through the transfering of the pattern to the peeling and then the deep cutting. No, not one of my carvings (or Becca's) are all the way through the gourd, they are all just peeling areas and cutting different depths for brightness. 

To preserve our pumpkins so they last a little longer than normal, after carving we wash them with a bleach solution to kill off bacteria. Even our scalpels and knives are sterilized before we start. Then, once washed and patted dry, we coat them inside and out with vaseline so they don't dry out and end up "peeling" back in the carved areas, enlarging cuts that shouldn't be enlarged any further.  Another tip for future carving success is to never open the pumpkin at the top. If you look at the witch with the cauldron, you'll see a glow at the bottom of it. That's where I opened them up and hollowed them out from. The reason for this is simple, when you light up a pumpkin you heat it, that heat causes moisture to evaporate out of the pumpkin. What happens when water evaporates you ask, well it goes up into the atmosphere. If there are no cuts through the pumpkin at the top, the moisture has no place to go other than to run back down the inside getting reaborbed into the meat of the pumpkin, thereby helping it to last longer and not dry out so quickly.

Now that you know my carving secrets I hope to see you put them to use next year and show me your carvings!

Cheers, and I hope you all had a safe and wonderful night!

Coming Soon To A Blog Near You

 Well now that Halloweens over I'm not spending all my time carving pumpkins and decorating for Halloween. I still have to take some pictures of the pumpkins that Becca and I carved, but they will be posted up here soon. I hope you all had a safe and fun night!

Pumpkins, Templates and Photos

Well, those are the pumpkins of my kids that I carved last year, I suppose all that you need now is to see the pictures that I used to create the templates and if I can find them, the templates themselves. That however, could be quite difficult as they're on my computer which isn't working at the moment ergh! The pictures will be easy to find and add here, I have them saved to disk, it's just the templates that are a problem. If I'm lucky I may just find them in an e-mail that I had sent off to Kat shortly after carving the pumpkins originally! Keep your fingers crossed Ladies and Germs, the game is now afoot! ;)

Well unfortunately I can't find the templates, like I said, I know where they are on my computer, but that doesn't do me any good here. BUT I do have the actual pictures that I used, without further adu, I present the original school photos of my kidlets!

Now I suppose, all you need to do is look from the  carved pumpkin and back to the pic and decide for yourselves  what kind of a job I did. I must admit,  pumpkin carving is one of my favorite obsessions...lol.

Just Another Award! :D Updated!!!!

Well well well, it seems that the Cat Lady from How to Become A Cat Lady...Without The Cats has deemed it appropriate to pass on an award to me. Guess that means that I'll have to go by the rules and find 5 more people to pass it on to from here. Not only that, but I need to find 5 things that I am obsessive about apparently! That's going to be tough, but hey, I'm always up for a challenge ;)

Thankfully those are the only conditions to this award so here I sit at the library trying to come up with 5 things that I obsess over. Like I said, not easy to do, but I'll try!

I suppose that first off I obsess over books, I love to read and spend a good deal of time doing so. For that matter you should see my spare bedroom! I've turned it into a library and must have close to 5oo books in there (if you count all the Condensed Reader's Digest novels). Aside from the books written in German and some of the history books along with the set of Encyclopedia's I think I've read them all. Seeing as I can't read nor understand any language other than English, chances are pretty good I'll never read the German books!

If reading is my first obsession, then playing Sudoku and Jigoku have to be my second. I don't know if you've heard of those puzzles (probably have), but I find them a great deal of fun. In fact, I enjoy Sudoku so much that I've bought the board game and play against my kid on a regular basis! For those not in the know, Jigoku is much like Sudoku and is played the same way only you don't get any numbers to start off with. All you get are greater and less than symbols and it can be a great challenge!

Hmmm, I guess by going by my own blog, my third obsession has to be gardening! If you don't believe me on that one, just go through my blog and look at all my posts about my flower beds...lol.

Fourthly, I'll choose my kids as one of my obsessions. Yeah I spoil the one that lives with me horribly and the other two, well lets just say that they lack for nothing! I do love the "little" darling's to death, even when I could gladly strangle them for their pms-ing and fighting, but I think that's every mother's perogitive, isn't it?

Oh boy, now for my fifth obsession, what on earth could that one be!?! Oh, I know, how about being creative? Either here in my blog, in comments to others or when drawing, playing with clay or carving pumpkins! Yep, that's a good obsession to admit to! In all of these options for this particular obsession blogging and pumpkin carving have got to be at the top of the list. I do believe that I will do a post showing you pictures of both my kids and the pumpkinds that I turned them into last year. I think that will best explain and give example to my obsession. I find it incredibly satisfying to find a picture that I like and first turn it into a template and then go further and turn that template into a pumpkin carving. When it works, it sure is Wonderful!!!!

Now for my 5 recipients of this award, who shall they be, who shall they be? Well, this is something I'll have to think about, but for now I'm almost out of time here at the library! So I will give this post an update the next time I manage to get around here! I'm only allowed 1 hour/day and the library is closed on Sunday's and Monday's, not only that but it will be a few more days before I get another day off work so you may just need to wait a week before I have a chance to update this post! My most humble of appologies on that!

Ok, it's now Thursday morning and I do believe that I've got my updates ready! Yay me...lol! Sorry for the long wait, but today is my day off and I've comandeered Silv's computer while he sleeps :D 

Now the much anticipated 5 recipients, in no particular order:

Nanodance from Callithump Thunderblog!

And then there's Probablydontlikeyou from I Probably Don't Like You, but don't take it seriously.

We can't forget about Mango Girl now can we? Nope, not even a little bit, so here's the link to her of at Ramblings from Mango Girl!

Poppy from Poppy's Dream Fields always has something of interest to read as well. Between her and her mom Minka over at Stirring My Thoughts, I'm actually learning a bit about Europe :)

Congratulations all of you, I can't wait to find out what your obsessions are!

At Long Last!

I know it's been a while since I've visited most of you, ok fine, any of you, but I'll be around sometime today or Saturday!

Anyway, on to the reason of this post :)

I had promised that today is the day that you will all learn the winner of my contest to name my homemade granola. Well, I couldn't come up with just one winner, so one person gets the honor of naming the granola and the other has named the trail mix version! Yep, you heard correctly, I've chosen to give this award to two people!

Reforming Geek from Confessions of a Reforming Geek has won the award for naming my granola "Blue Skye's Harvest Granola. Thank you Reffie for your entries and patience in recieving your award!

Etta Rose from Sanity on Edge is the winner for her entry "Skye Crunch" for the trail mix!

Thank you all for your participation and suggestions! There were a lot of good ones to choose from, and some that were just fun to read. I have to admit, it was a really tough choice, thanks again :)

Here's your award to grab Ladies!

You Have This Week Only, Get Your Name In Now!

So far we have a few contestants for naming my homemade Granola! If you click on this link you can still put in a name for the granola yourself and win not only a lovely award made by Swallow, but also a sample of my granola. So hurry up and get your suggestions in because you only have till the 19th. Winner will be posted on October 1st!

Oh yes, I had better give you that link there is also a link with the pic on the right hand of this page it's the award you'll win), it's here at A Contest? Oh yes, a contest!

What Starts With "F" And Ends With "K"?

A first-grade teacher, Ms. Brooks, was having trouble with one of her students. The teacher asked, "Harry, what's your problem?"

Harry answered, "I'm too smart for the 1st grade. My sister is in the 3rd grade and I'm smarter than she is! I think I should be in the 3rd grade too!"

Ms. Brooks had had enough. She took Harry to the principal's office.

While Harry waited in the outer office, the teacher explained to the principal what the situation was. The principal told Ms. Brooks he would give the boy a test. If he failed to answer any of his questions he was to go back to the 1st grade and behave. She agreed.

Harry was brought in and the conditions were explained to him and he agreed to take the test.

Principal: "What is 3 x 3?"
Harry: "9".

Principal: "What is 6 x 6?"
Harry: "36".

And so it went with every question the principal thought a 3rd grader should know.

The principal looks at Ms. Brooks and tells her, "I think Harry can go to the 3rd grade."

Ms. Brooks says to the principal, "Let me ask him some questions."

The principal and Harry both agreed.

Ms. Brooks asks, "What does a cow have four of that I have only two of?"
Harry, after a moment: "Legs."

Ms. Brooks: "What is in your pants that you have but I do not have?"
The principal wondered, why would she ask such a question!
Harry replied: "Pockets."

Ms. Brooks: "What does a dog do that a man steps into?"
Harry: "Pants"

Ms. Brooks: What's starts with a C, ends with a T, is hairy, oval, delicious and contains thin, whitish liquid?
Harry: "Coconut."

The principal sat forward with his mouth hanging open.

Ms. Brooks: "What goes in hard and pink then comes out soft and sticky?"

The principal's eyes opened really wide and before he could stop the answer.

Harry: "Bubble gum"

Ms. Brooks: "What does a man do standing up, a woman does sitting down 
and a dog does on three legs?"
Harry: "Shake hands."

The principal was trembling.
Ms. Brooks: "What word starts with an 'F' and ends in 'K' that means a lot of heat and excitement?"
Harry: "Firetruck"

The principal breathed a sigh of relief and told the teacher, "Put Harry in the fifth-grade, I got the last seven questions wrong......"

Two Pairs Make 4 Pears? Or Is It 2 Pears Makes 4?

Silv and I were cruising through some recipe's and found one we would really like to try. Unfortunately I can't find it at the moment! Doesn't really matter for the purpose of this post considering that I am not writing about the recipe but rather about the ensuing conversation.

You see the main ingredients were Brie cheese (one of my fav's) and the ever so lovely fruit, the Pear!

Now Silv seems to have a problem with the name of this fruit as it's not a pair of anything. When you have just the one it's a 'single' (or so he claims). He also asked me, "Skye, if you have 2 Pears does that really mean you have 4? Really, "says he,"everyone knows that when you have 2 pairs of anything you have 4 of any 1 thing! And therefore 2 Pears should be 4 singles!"

And on he went about how Pears were so thoroughly mis-named. You truly haven't heard someone talk about a topic of any sort until you've heard Silv or someone much like him, go into a long disertation on the topic. That is exactly what he did here. I really wish that I had recorded him so that I could transcribe it for you now, but as it is, I've forgotten 90% of what he had said. 

A Pear?

Or is that 2 Pears?

A Contest? Oh Yes, A Contest!

Oh my, here I am sitting with a nice glass of wine eating a fresh french baguette and writing a post. Somehow there is something wrong with this picture, but oh my my my this tastes delicious!

Any-who’s-it on with the post! I have a need, a great need, that I hope you, my readers, can fulfill. Well ok, at least one of you at any rate :D

My need you ask? It’s simple, I need a name for my granola. My plan is to start making granola next year and sell it at the local farmer’s market along with at a few others perhaps. BUT I need a name for it and I can’t come up with one. That’s where you, my readers, come in. You see, I’m going to hold a bit of a contest. The person who comes up with the best name for my granola gets this award along with the prestige of knowing that they came up with the best name. Maybe if I feel so generous I’ll even throw in a present of some of said granola.

Oh yes, how remiss of me! I overheard someone whispering “How are we supposed to come up with a name if we don’t know the ingredients?” Don’t deny it, I know I heard someone say it, I just can’t place the voice! heheheee

The ingredients tend to vary depending on what I can get a hold of in regards to dried fruits, but generally this is what I toss in:

Old fashioned rolled oats
Coconut
Almonds
Walnuts
Hazelnuts
Honey
Oil
Raisins 
Cranberries

These are the dried fruits I add extra when I can find them at a reasonable price:

Banana Chips
Pineapple
Papaya
Mango
Peaches
Apricots
Dates
Apples

And these nuts get tossed in when I want something a little different (either some or all, depends):

Sunflower seeds
Peanuts
Cashews
Pecans
Brazil nuts
Oh hell, anything I can find that looks tasty really…lol.

Now sometimes I take a part of the first part of the recipe and make a granola bar type of thing which I then proceed to break up into small bite size chunks. From there, I take just the nuts and dried fruits in a large abundance and add some M&M’s to make a nice salty but a still sweet trail mix kind of a snack food. I’m thinking of making that for selling as well. All in all, this granola recipe makes about a one month supply of breakfast cereal for the kid and me and costs roughly around $30 (Canadian) to make, not bad when you think about the health food benefits compared to the crap you buy in the store. The closest I can compare it to health and ingredient wise would be Quaker Harvest Crunch Cereal, but this has oh so much more in it and tastes much better besides! 

So, the more help I can get the better! Thanks to all who try to help me out with this, I’ll be leaving the competition open for at least 2 weeks and then I’ll probably end up taking as long to decide on which name I like the best, hopefully not that long though!

Ok, I just looked at the calendar, the competition itself will be kept open till September 19th and the winning entry will be posted on October 1st. I will do my utmost best to keep to that schedule, but chances are that if I find a name that I really love upon first sight, I’ll stick to that one but can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to hold my tongue for that week and a half, I've never been that good at keeping my own secrets. Other's secrets, yes, my own, not so much…lol.

I Love The English Language...

...truly I do, which is why I've studied it so faithfully. Now you may be asking, what is this all about? Well, I'll tell you. English has to be one of the most confusing languages, there are so many different things about the language such as same spellings with different pronunciations and meanings, and same pronunciations with different spellings and meanings, not to mention same spelling, same pronunciation, different meaning. See what I mean, if not why don't you try this on for size?

He brought his bow to the bow of the ship and proceeded to bow to the captain. That was when he noticed the pine bough being swung at his head!

Then there is always the rule about "I" before "E" except after "C" and in words such as neighbor and weigh. What about words such as Rottweiler, or weird? There's no "c" in either of those words, nor is there the "gh" that is in neighbor and weigh.

Speaking of the "gh" causes another bit of confusion with it sometimes being silent and sometimes sounding like an "f". For example we've got words like enough, sounds like an "f”, BUT then there are words like neighbor and weigh (to use the same examples as before). Confusing, don't you think?

And if that's not confusing enough for you, here are a few more confusing examples:

Through
Though
Trough

All start with "t" all end in "ough" but not once is that combination pronounced the same.

What else is there about the English Language that we can find to be confusing?

How about this? There was a tear in my eye when I saw the tear in my dress!

Or this? I read a book that I was told was a really good read about the different shades of red.

Then there's this: Where did you wear that?

Or this: I hear there is a good restaurant around here.

This one is from Munchkin: He was vain about his veins popping out when he was working out, and also vain about what he thought of as his most superior looking weather vane.

Want some more confusion? I will not try to untie that knot going 100 naught’s!

Then there are the "f" sounds with the "ph" spelling such as photograph. Are you getting confused yet?

Here's a post that goes beyond spelling things phonetically, I hope you can all read it by the end. I have a question though, why isn't the word phonics and all it's compatriots spelled phonetically? If they were, they'd be spelled with the "f" instead of "ph" don't ya think?

And if you truly want to be confused by correctly spelled but improperly used words, check out this post Eye Halve a Spelling Chequer.

Here is some more phonetic fun for you to enjoy! Yes a couple of these posts are rather old, one is from my blog of the alter ego and another fairly recent. I just hope that you enjoy them all  :D

That's all I have for today, but just so you know, I had all this nonsense running through my head and just had to share it will all of you. Hope I didn't confuse you too much.

Scribble's Everywhere!

It seems that all my scribbling has paid off yet again! The Fantabulous Quirkyloon has seen fit to give me another award to add to my collection on the right side of this page. Apparently though, this award has a few rules and regulations one of them being that I have to now find 5 more recipients and pass it on to them. Now who should I pick? Hmmmmmm, that's a tough one, I guess I'll be cruising through my list of bloggers I follow and see just whom I have yet to pass an award to. Then again, I may just decide to give a person or two this award even if I've given them one before already. After all, I've given out a few and don't really know to whom I've all passed on awards and meme's. Oh well, them's the breaks I suppose :D

Without further ado I shall now let you in on all the rules and reg's. The thing is though, that I'm going to cheat to do this, I'm just doing a quick copy & paste from Quirky's blog. Why should I go to all the work of typing it all out when she's already done such a great job of it!?! So I'm lazy, who cares! I've had a long day at work and don't feel like doing a lot of typing ok!?! Yep, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it :D

*Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.

*Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.

*Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to this Post, Mr. Linky which explains The Award.

*Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List. That way, we'll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!

Now to find my list of 5, who shall it be, who shall it be?

Oh, I know, yep yep yep I do I do, and in no particular order, here be the newest recipients of this most prestigious award!

Kathcom, over at Magick Sandwich

Jenn Thorson from Of Cabbages and Kings

Otin, The Wizard

ThinkinFYou is another one of my choosing.

And last, but certainly not least, I give you Dizzblnd over at Soggy-Doggy-Bloggy

I hope you all enjoy this little award!

Eye halve a spelling chequer

I have a spelling checker.
It came with my pea sea.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when I rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

Bee fore a veiling checker's Hour
spelling mite decline,
And if we're lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flair,
Their are no fault's with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a ware.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word's fare as hear.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should be proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw's are knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays,
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting too pleas.

-- Sauce Unknown  

Ok, so it's been a real long time since I've posted anything new. Well today I'm posting a bunch of pictures that I've taken over the last couple of years. I got the inspiration from Flydragon with her pic of her favorite spot to sit. These pictures are of my favorite views from Silv's place. 

You can't tell very well from this pic, but that is a log cabin! Perhaps I'll be able to find some better pictures to put up in another post, but for now this shot of Silv's home will have to do. With any amount of luck, this will be my home as well before the snow flies, not just my second home. First though, we have to dig up some space for all my flowers to be transfered to. That will be a bit of a chore seeing as Silv has a lot of flower beds already, but I'm so looking forward to it!

Here I'm overlooking the pond that's in the next picture. I'm sitting at the west end of the pond, and as you can see from the next view, I've taken that pic from half way down the pond looking west. In that pic, you can't see the tree that I was sitting in because I've aleady walked about half a mile trying to find the end of the pond. One of these day's I'll actually walk the whole length just to see exactly how big it is, but not today.

In case you're wondering, this pond is about a quarter mile down in the valley below Silv's house. At the bottom of the valley is the Pembina River which flows right through Silv's southern most part of property and is just a few meter's north of the U.S. border.

See these butterfly's? I took that pic on the front steps of Silv's house. Yes, he built the steps from stones and did an absolutely marvelous job of it! I know I didn't do the butterfly's any justice with this pic, but hey, I'm no photographer...lol. Those butterfly's are called Painted Lady's and are really much more beautiful in real life, not to mention when shot in focus as opposed to being so blurry like this! They're just a small sampling of the wildlife out at Silv's. I keep trying to get a shot of the Woodchuck's that live in his wood pile, but they're clever little buggers and disappear at the first sign of a camera. I swear they believe I'll steal their souls by taking their picture's!

These last 4 pics are of almost the same place looking out over Silv's front yard. Somewhere down there is that pond that I showed you up above. The first 2 are with the river fog and it sure makes you feel like you can just walk out onto the fog and keep going straight out all the way across the valley and into the states. Some day's it feels so majical that you can almost see dragons swooping and soaring in and out of the fog :)

By the way, it really doesn't make much sense to me, but the magority of these pics were taken with black and white film and yet have some color to them. If you can explain to me the reason for color on black and white, it'll be much appreciated! 

How Do You Feel About Dogs?

The other day, Silv and I went for a walk with Lucifer. In case you don’t know, Lucifer is an oversized Doberman. He weighs in at roughly 145 lbs. and is 30 some inches at the shoulder. A normal Doberman measures in at about 28 inches, so you can see that he is somewhat big for his breed!

Anyway, we decided to go to the vendor. I had Silv wait outside with Luke while I went in and picked up some beer. Standing there waiting my turn, I couldn’t help but overhear one side of a conversation the guy in front of me was having on his cell. 

“You f*&^’n whore, you’ll be ready when I get there!”

“No, you’re going to get your ass off the couch, get dressed and be ready!”

“What did I just say? You will be ready when I get there, I want to leave a.s.a.p.!”

“I’m telling you Bitch, you will be ready. I’ll be there in 10 minutes!”

“You g damned f’n slut, you’ll be ready or I’ll leave you behind!”

Anyway, you get the drift of his side of the convo. I have to admit I totally wanted to deck this guy! Unfortunately before I could get a chance to, he left and it was my turn to order and pay up.

I was going to tell Silv about what I overheard, but he was laughing too hard. Apparently when this guy left the vendor he saw Luke. What Silv heard of the guys phone convo went like this.

“Big dog, ve-ve-ve-very big dog, big Big BIG dog. Oh, very big dog. Oh my, very big Dog!” and so it went till he got in his truck and overhearing conversation was no longer possible.

I couldn’t help but laugh as I told Silv how he was talking to whom I can only assume is his girlfriend. Here he is giving her shit and grief only to become tongue-tied over a dog that is just standing there. Luke hadn’t growled, barked or even risen his hackles. He had just been standing there with his typical stupid-assed grin and this guy lost it. The girl on the other end of the convo must have been seriously wondering what this tough guy was so scared of. First to be yelled at the way she was and then to just hear stuttering and stammering like that, yep, I’d wonder too! 

These first 5 pictures were taken 2 years ago when Silv first adopted Luke, the following 2 were taken just an hour or so ago. Now keep in mind that I'm 5' 4" tall.

Take this following picture for example. Here he is standing on the normal level on the ground as opposed to standing on the compost heap as he is in the pic above as well as in the pic 2 down from this one. 

Remember how high he was standing at the fence just a pic or two ago? Same fence, same ground level, obviously he's not standing to his full potential here!

Unfortunately with these last 2 pics that Silv just took, Luke wouldn't co-operate and stand up. He decided that the only way his pic was going to be taken was if he was lying down!

Life Imitating Cartoons, hmmm shouldn't that be the other way around!?!

Thursday at work I had been doing the prep work for the kitchen. You see some days I do prep and some I do the cooking, well Thursday just happened to be a prep day for me. My whole prep area is roughly 14' x 30' with a stainless steel table taking up most of the space in the center, it's 4' x 10', a closet that runs the length of the table on one side and the doors to the walk-in fridge and freezers on the other side of the table. Oh yeah, both sides also have shelving along the walls where there isn't closet or cooler doors! At the end of the table are two prep sinks that were being worked on with a 3 foot space and then another counter running perpendicular to where I work for all the dirty pots and pans and such and this has another 3 large sinks plus a garbarator which is where I do all the large dishes that the dishwasher doesn't do over at his end of the kitchen. (The dishwasher only washes the busbins and the restaurant dishes, none of the stuff that the cooks dirty, that's the prep's job). At the end of this set of sinks is the delivery door where everyone keeps throwing their empty boxes and bags of garbage! Anyway one of the taps for my prep sinks was leaking so our maintanance guy was back there working on it while I was busy cutting veggies and stuff.

Now this tap has been leaking as long as I've worked there. Oh the maintanance guy (MG) has "fixed" it before, but the leak has never truly been stopped. So here's MG busily working away on the sink constantly in my way, oh well, that's life in a busy kitchen, everyone is always in everyone elses way. While MG was busy working on the sink, the dishwasher (DW) was busy cleaning up empty boxes from in front of the delivery door. There was a huge stack that he had to break down and take to the dumpters, along with garbage that the waitresses have thrown there and that DW has collected from all the different areas of the kitchen. MG and DW were chatting up a storm about absolutely nothing (well ok, it was DW doing all the talking) and across the table from me one of the waitresses was busy portioning out salad dressings so that it would be quick and easy for them to just grab a dressing and a dinner salad and serve it without having to wait forever! So, in my small working space I have MG, DW and a waitress along with myself, pretty crowded, but workable. Especially considering that all but MG are 5'4 or smaller and none of us 3 weigh in at more than 125 lbs with DW being the smallest of the 3. Yep, he's 4 years older than I am and built like a jockey with the brain of a 6 or 7 year old. He is one strange duck I must tell you! 

Now to fully appreciate where I'm going with all this info about work you also need to know approximately what MG looks like. He's close to 6 feet tall and has to be around 180 to190 lbs and fairly fit, he's not exactly jockey material like DW is!

Back to the story. Here's DW busily talking up a storm and breaking up boxes when he gets to one that is ever so slightly stubborn and doesn't want to come apart. He's pulling and tearing at the box and getting rather frustrated as he has a tendancy of doing. Finally DW just gets right mad and punches into the center of the box ripping a whole in the cardboard. Looking over at MG, he says "MG, it sure pays to have a lot of muscle like us, huh!?!"

I look at MG, look back at DW, back to MG, back again to DW and the waitress walks away saying, "Skye, don't say it, just don't go there!" and she closes herself up in the pantry and you can hear her laughing up a storm! I wasn't trying to be funny nor a smartass, I was just looking at MG and DW and seeing the old Bugs Bunny cartoon of the bulldog Spike and his little yappy sidekick Chester, where they see a cat. Spike figures he'll take care of this cat, but it's a panther and it scares him, the yappy sidekick only sees Sylvester and well, you know the story. It's not the taking care of the cat part that I'm thinking of here, it's the beginning of the skit where Chester gets slapped to the side and told to shut-up because he's bothering Spike, only to keep coming back for more. 

You can see where I'm going here, right!?! The difference in size between MG and DW is much the same as the difference between Spike and his loyal yappy sidekick, attitudes/behaviour pretty much match up as well! When DW said "...it sure pays to have musles like us..." I kept a straight face with pretty much nothing for expression, all I did was bounce my eyes back and forth between the two. MG was looking at me with a smirk on his face when the waitress started to laugh so loudly, he got what I was thinking! But DW, not so much, when he was done with the boxes and had everything organized, he actually asked me what that was all about! He seriously did not understand why the waitress had to leave without finishing what she was doing, in order to break up laughing like that!

Trouble is, when you have to explain a joke, it's just not funny anymore. And really, I had no interest in explaining a joke to someone who throws temper tantrums at the drop of a hat, especially considering he himself was the joke!

Every Win Something?

Normally when you win something it comes to you free, right? Ok, so play along with me here for a moment and all will come clear.

You see, I keep getting these calls from automated telemarketers for everything from paying too much interest on my credit cards to the warranty on my car running out. Yesterday the automated call was ever so slightly different. I've had this call before so I knew what was coming so I decided to have fun with it. This time I wasn't being told how I could save money, I was told I won a trip for 4, all expenses paid to Barbados! Yes, an all expenses paid vacation! Wow, lucky me!

Uh huh, not so much, you see, I've listened to the rest of this spiel before! Someone who shops at Macy's, Eaton's, Sears or some other such store entered my name for this competition. Yep, sure they did, first I don't know anyone who shops at any of these types of stores, second none of these stores exist in this little hick town I live in, so I know that wasn't true! As this automated telemarketer was saying her thing, I started making comments and I asked a question and that's when it happened!

Before I get into the question that I asked, let me ask you how rude does a person need to be in order to get an automated telemarketer to hang up on you? Let me remind you, this telemarketer is AUTOMATED, that means that it's a recording! You didn't think you could be rude enough to have a recording hang up on YOU did you? Well, it's possible, and this is how it's done. See, you have to listen to their nonsense at least once to fully know what it is they are trying to get from you, then the next time you call, you play!

Yeah yeah yeah, I know it's automated what's the point in playing? Well guess what!?! Even automated calls have real live operators listening in just waiting to pounce as soon as you press the right number! Oh yes they do, don't tell me I'm full of it! How do you think that an automation can hang up on you if there weren't someone listening in, hmmmmmmm?

Anyway, I'm rambling so back to my point. Yesterday I got this call that I had won a trip to Barbados, all expenses paid no less! The thing of it is though, what I learned having previously listened to this rabble was that this trip I supposedly won was going to cost me $99.99 per person, plus I'd have to drive down to New York City in order to claim my prize. Nice free trip, huh!?!

So my question to this automation was "Yep, a FREE trip to Barbados and all it was going to cost me was a 2 day drive, the hotel bill for staying the night on the way there, $99.99 per person and then whatever costs were incurred while in New York before I can even claim my prize, right?" Well, that's what I WAS going to ask, but the line went dead when I got to the "and all it's going to cost me part". Apparently the person listening in wasn't too happy that I was aware that in order to collect this "prize" I had to pay a small fortune! I hadn't even mentioned that I'd have to get a passport for myself along with whoever I was going to take along!

So, do you think I was rude? I don't think so, I think I was just having fun. It's my right as a citizen to be able to have fun even at the expense of an automation :D I do so enjoy seeing just how long one of these automated calls takes before it hangs up on me. I have to admit sometimes I can't be rude enough, sometimes, just sometimes, I'm the one who ends up doing the hanging up as the person listening in must be enjoying the joke more than me! 

Cream Soup and Char

Quirky challenged me to write a re-do of Green Eggs and Ham, and well, I accepted her challenge! She's already posted hers earlier today and did a wonderful job of it, I suggest you go and check out what she's writ! Unfortunately mine doesn't rhyme anywhere near so nicely as hers does, but in my defense, it's incredibly hard to incorporate the food items on our menu with a Dr. Seuss rhyme...lol. By the way, tell Quirky I sent you if you haven't been there yet :D

Green Eggs and Ham, changed to Cream Soup and Char

By Dr. Seuss and transposed to work for work by Skye :D

I are Skye 
I are Skye 
Skye I are 

That Skye-I-are!
That Skye-I-are!
I do not like
that Skye-I-are! 

Do you like
Cream soup and Char?

I do not like them,
Skye-I-are.
I do not like
Cream soup and Char.

Baked Onion Soup,
Sirloin Steak?

Teriyaki Chicken 
Caesar?
Jambalaya,
Quesadilla?
I do not like them,
Skye-I-are.

Would you like them
in a house?
Would you like them
with a mouse?

I do not like them 
in a house.
I do not like them 
with a mouse.
I do not like Cream soup and Char.
I do not like them, Skye-I-are.

Would you, could you
In a car?
Eat them! Eat them!
Here they are.

You may like them.
You will see.
You may like them
in a tree!

I would not, could not in a tree.
Not in a car! You let me be.

A Wrap! A Wrap!
A Wrap! A Wrap!
Could you, would you,
Eat a Wrap?

Won’t eat that crap! Not in a tree!
Not in a car! Skye! Let me be!

Say!
In the dark?
We keep it dark!
Would you, could you, in the dark?

I would not, could not,
in the dark.

Would you, could you, in the rain?

I would not, could not,
in the rain.
You do not like
Cream soup and Char?

I do not
like them,
Skye-I-are.

I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them ANYWHERE!

I do not like
Cream soup
and Char!

I do not like them,
Skye-I-are.

You do not like them.
So you say.
Try them! Try them!
And you may.
Try them and you may, I say.

Skye!
If you will let me be,
I will try them.
You will see.

Say!
I like Cream soups and Char!
I do! I like them, Skye-I-are!
Perhaps I’d like Baked Onion Soup,
Sirloin Steak, Teriyaki Chicken Caesar,
Jambalaya, Quesadilla!

And I will eat them in the rain.
And in the dark. And on a train.
And in a car. And in a tree.
They are so good, so good, you see!

And I will eat them here and there.
Say! I will eat them ANYWHERE!

I do so like
Cream soups and Char!
Thank you!
Thank you,
Skye-I-are!

Wakey Wakey Silv!

Ok, so today is my b-day and Silv was absolutely clueless! Hmmm, perhaps I should tell you the story from the beginning.

The first thing I do on a morning that I’m not working, is check my e-mail. Silv had been up for a while already and I had gotten my coffee and first cigarette of the day when I logged on to check the mail. First message of the day came from Quirky, not a b-day message as she didn’t know, but just a note about her challenge to me in regards to Dr. Seuss posts. I’ll be putting that one up later today. The other message was a “Happy Birthday from MSWorld!”

So I say’s to Silv, I say’s “Aww, ain’t that sweet, MSWorld sent me a birthday message.”

And he says, “Isn’t that nice.”

Nothin’ else, no Happy Birthday Skye, no nothin’ nada, zip, zilch, no acknowledgement on it at all! Now that really doesn’t bother me, I couldn’t care less about birthdays, but I waited for the light to come on anyway. Well, it didn’t!

Almost 2 hours later, Becca comes in (she and I had been sleeping under the stars last night by the fire), and she asked me when I came in. I told her that it had been at midnight last night because the ground was hurting these old bones of mine.

Then she asked me, get this “Are you ready for your presents?”

And Silv says, “Presents? Is it your birthday? Oh, it is your birthday! Happy Birthday!”

And I say’s, “It only took you 2 hours to clue in Silv, you’re such a Maroon! Why do you think that MSWorld sent me a Happy Birthday Wish?” I was laughing the whole time I said this of course :D

And he say’s, “It just totally went over my head, just whooooosh, right over. It never dawned on me that you’d get a birthday wish because it’s your birthday!”

And so Becca gave me a card that she made out of foamy art supply stuff, some beads, specifically leaves, a rose, a butterfly and a ladybug, and topped it off with a heart sticker. No words, just a nice scene of flowers, bushes and trees. She also made me a bookmark using a large star bead tied to a friendship bracelet with heart beads tied in at the bottom. She made this in all my favorite colors! Last but not least, she made me a Morocco Drum, so I used it right away and played the “Happy Birthday to me” song. It really was sweet of her, she always makes me my gifts and cards. 

And still we laughed at Silv for not remembering my birthday. Granted, the only birthday we ever really celebrate is Becca’s, but she’s been talking about mine non-stop for the last week now, and Silv just never clued in. 

To be honest, this has got to be the funniest birthday morning I have ever enjoyed!

How Much Water Do You Drink?

I don’t remember how the topic came up, but quite some time ago I was chatting with a co-worker about drinking water. I told her that I generally drink 4 to 6 cups a day, and these aren’t small cups either, they’re big-ass beer mugs! She asked me how I could drink so much water, and I’m thinkin’ it’s not really all that much when it comes right down to it. I drink coffee in the mornings and then drink water the rest of the day. Unless of course Silv and I buy some beer, scotch or wine, then I drink that along with the water.

Anyway, she’s telling me that her doctor wants her to start drinking more water as well. She was having some kind of problem and having more fluids would help relieve that problem. She told me though that she just couldn’t bring herself to drink that much water.

I’m wondering what the heck was her problem? I had already seen her drink 3 cups of water just that morning while I had only put back 2 cups of coffee! She asked me how I managed to drink so much water in any given day and if that didn’t make me sit on the pot all day long, because it sure made her do so!

4 to 6 cups of water made her sit on the pot all day? Why? I didn’t get it, I just didn’t understand why she couldn’t drink that amount of water. She told me that she even had her alarm set to wake her during the night so she could drink more water. I’m like WHAT, that’s just insane!

Finally I got down to the crux of the matter and damn did I laugh! When I got myself under some semblance of control I explained during bursts of laughter and giggles, that she wasn’t supposed to drink fourTEE-six glasses of water but four TO six. She didn’t quite see the humor as I did, but she did give me a sheepish look and fessed up to having been drinking 23 glasses a day. Jesus I laughed till I cried and then I laughed some more. She wasn’t very happy with me laughing so much, but I just couldn’t help it. 

She quit work and moved to Alberta shortly after that, I don’t know if it was because of how embarrassed she was or if it really was because she met some guy on the internet, either way, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her since. Probably better that way as I’d never let her live this down :D

Well everything but the Lily's in the North Garden are done blooming now, and they've only just got buds on them! So saying there will be a pic of them when they open up :) Just so you know, all my pics should be clickable for enlarging should you be interested!

The rest of these are more pics of the flowers in the south beds as well as my mint patch which I hadn't taken pictures of up till now. The patch doesn't look so pretty at the moment, after taking the pic Silv when and cut them all down. Whoohoo, now I have fresh mint leaves for tea, yay, I do love fresh mint tea!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I have gnomes running around my gardens. Trouble is, as soon as they realize you're looking at them, they freeze. I've never been able to get an actual action shot of them, oh well, perhaps next time *shrugs shoulders*

Last year I only had one bloom on my peonies bush, lucky me, this year I have two! Sorry for the blurry photos though guys, don't know what's wrong with me to take such icky pic's :(

Ah Poppies, lovely flowers. Not a perennial, true, but they sure do reseed themselves from year to year! This one just decided to come up in this bed on it's own this year. Up till now I've only had them along my fence line further south than this particular bed is. Soon I'll have some pics of the actual Poppy Bed which also has some Virginia Creeper in it.

Yep, that's my rain barrel peeking out from behind the Lily's alright! As for the Lily's, well, I know, I took the pic after the first blooms were already done. But no worries, I still have 2 or 3 other kinds of Lily's that need to bloom, they're all budding now, so it shouldn't take much longer for them!

Ah yes, the Day Lily's, a new bloom every day. Sadly they only last a day, but at least there's always at least one fresh bloom all summer long! Yep, another little Gnome, kinda cute though, don't ya think?

Have you ever seen Geraniums like this? I never have prior to my mom's having given them to me. They bloom all summer and are really quite pretty. Trouble is, these things don't quit, I mean, once they start blooming, they take over the whole yard! I have 2 that I want to keep, they lie on either side of the Poppy Bed, this one is to the left and to the left of it is the mint patch. To the right of the other one, is the corner bed where there are a bunch of Day Lily's that have bloomed today for the first time as well as the Peonies and some Irises that haven't bloomed yet. Oh yes, I can't forget all the Pansies aka Johnny Jump-Up's that are in that corner bed along with being in the bed up against the south wall of my house!

It's Time!

Not only have I finally decided who I want to give this award to, but I've also figured out exactly why it's to be given. I follow a fair number of blogs and a lot of those same people follow me, but that's not why I'm giving them this award. I'm giving it because of their honesty and candidness for their comments here, in other peoples blogs as well as in their own posts and comments to those who respond to their posts. Does any of that make sense? I hope so!

Anyway, I'm giving this award with the same rules that Etta Rose posted when she gave this to me. And that is, you can give it to whomever you want, but you don't have to give it to anyone if you don't want to! All I ask is that you accept the award in the spirit it is given, and that is the spirit of friendship and respect!

Here is my list of recipients:

Tracy over at Rambling Thoughts of the Neverending Mind

Brit over at Blunt Delivery

Minka at Stirring My Thoughts

Quirkyloon at Musings of a Quirkyloon

Bee from Bee's Musings

Poppy over there at Poppy's Dream Fields

and once again Debbie from Debbie Does Drivel (Warped)

And there you have it ladies and germs, boy's and girls of all ages, an award you can either keep to yourself or  pass on and share with others! I hope all these links work, if not I'll be fixing them as soon as I get back home :)

Sorry It Took Longer Than Expected Tracy! My Eight Things

Eight Things I Am Looking Forward To:

1. Seeing what a Hen-‘n’-Chick plant looks like in full bloom.
2. Every day that I have off from work.
3. Every trip to the beach.
4. Getting a new car.
5. Weeding in my garden.
6. Lilac’s being done with blooming! (I hate flower allergies!)
7. Geddingk ober dis code ind by dose! (translation, getting over this cold in my nose)
8. Becca letting me do stuff without constant interruption! (somehow I think that will be a very long time coming!)

Eight Things I Did Yesterday:

1. Walked to work at 5 am.
2. Made Cream of Broccoli Soup at work, YUCK!!!
3. Enjoyed Canada Day.
4. Walked to the beach after work.
5. Bought Nacho’s with hot cheese sauce for the first time in years to snack on while at the beach.
6. Stayed up till 10 pm! Now that’s a feat for me since starting work!
7. Visited with my sister-in-law while at the beach, haven’t seen her nor talked to her since before Christmas last year.
8. Made friends with a Pit Bull named Max!

Eight Things I Wish I Could Do:

1. Speak a second language and a third to be honest, Becca is learning French in school, but around here German would be an asset!
2. Buy a car.
3. Focus on actually practicing my drawing.
4. Go camping!
5. Earn more money.
6. Roller Blade!
7. Mold clay and have it do what I want it to, there again, practice makes perfect. I just need to actually do it!
8. Win the lottery so that I can afford the things I need and want in life!

Eight Shows I Watch On TV:

1. House
2. Wipe Out
3. CSI
4. Mental
5. Law and Order
6. Bones
7. Criminal Minds
8. NCIS

These are the eight people I "Tag"...

1. Quirky from Musings of a Quirky Loon.

2. Flydragon over at A Little of This, A Little of That

3. Donna down on Carnwaths Corner

4. Debbie with all her Drivel

5. Sue from Farvel Cargo

6. Jenn Thorson over at Of Cabbages and Kings

7. EttaRose at Sanity on Edge

8. Brazen from This Brazen Teacher

...and this is your assignment should you wish to take it:

Write up your list of "Eight Things" and post them in your blog at your earliest convienience.

Well folks, I’ve finally done it! I’ve finally fulfilled my *Eight Things* list that I received from Tracy over at Rambling Thoughts of the Neverending Mind. She gave me this mission to fill way way back on April 16th. About time I finished the mission, don’t ya think!?!

Trouble is, I still have to go and figure out who I want to go giving that Sage Award from Etta to, I’ll think about that one a wee bit longer, but hopefully it won’t take as long as this has!

I'm So Lucky!

Look what was given to me by Quirkyloon and Etta Rose, they're such sweet girls to think of me! :)

And guess what, this one from Quirky has no strings attatched, I don't pass it on, Yayyyyyy! Only the Zombie-rific Quirky who designed the award gets to hand it out to people she finds to be Zombie worthy, and I'm one of them, I feel so special now :D

Oh yeah, you're probably wondering what this ever so lovely award looks like, aren't you!?! Well here it is, feast your eyes on this puppy!

Etta thought I deserved this Sage Award for being a good follower of her blog, now how sweet is that!?!

Her rules? I can give it out to however many followers I want to! Now that makes picking hard as an award isn't too special if you give it to all your followers, but who do you leave out? Hmmmm this is a conundrum, I think I'll have to take some time thinking about this! After all, all my followers are special, they all add a little something whenever they comment!

How Hard Can It Be?

A few months ago I had bought a 2 kg box of Ready-Cut Macaroni. At some point I opened the box up to cook up a batch of homemade mac and cheese. Fine, no problem there. A couple of days later, Silv decides that he's hungry for some mac and cheese, so he goes to get out the box of macaroni. Well heaven forbid that the guy would actually open the box from the opened end! He had to flip the box upside down and open up the sealed end! Surpringly there wasn't a mess from it, but rest assured there sure as hell was the next time I went to cook up some macaroni! Jezis F'n H Christ, macaroni everywhere! Thats when I found out that Silv had opened the box after I had, oh the insanity of it. 

So, I went upstairs and got my glue gun and re-glued the box's bottom end back together. Problem solved, right!?! Wrong! 2 days later, he thinks I must have gone and gotten a new box or something because he opens it from the freshly sealed bottom end again! I told him, and told him, and done did tell him again that he was to pour the macaroni from the top of the box! But could he listen? Nooooo, of course he couldn't. This time though, I came home to a mess of raw macaroni all over my counter. The bloody bum couldn't even be bothered to clean up his mess!

No, I was not dumb enough to re-glue the box for a second time. I just decided then and there to take a plastic container and put the macaroni into it. I'm just glad he was able to understand that the lid on that container had an easy opening pouring spout, because god forbid what would happen if he were to cut it open!

At some point during this whole macaroni fiasco, he had needed some saran wrap to put something away. I had a new box, bad mistake! Instead of opening it the way it's supposed to be opened, he opened the small end and slid the whole roll out! Then he had the gall to ask me where the cutter on the box was hiding and how the hell was he supposed to be able to use it!?! Oh the shame of having a genius in the house who can't open a box correctly to save his life!

Anyway, what got me remembering that, was yesterday I bought a new box of aluminum foil. Silv needed some for the supper he was making, but because the box was still sealed shut, he brought it to me! Yes, he must have learned something from the above episodes, because instead of opening the box the wrong way, he actually brought it to me to open. What a relief! So once again, I gave him a lesson in the proper ettiquette of box opening. Perhaps he learned something, perhaps not, but at least he's learned that if he can't figure it out, he better bring it to the Woman Who Knows ;)

More Flowers

I'm sure you're all getting sick of my pictures of my flower beds, but too bad, I love my flowers and I'm going to share them with you in the only way I can :P. Just kidding, I really hope you enjoy these as much as I do. I just have one question, have any of you ever seen a Hen-'n'-Chick that grows tall like this? I never have, these have never done this before and I'm curious to find out why this one's doing it now. I have quite a few of them lining the front of this particular garden, and it's just the one with the one young that's growing in this manner, really interesting I must say!

I call this a Brocolli plant because that's what it reminds me of, but I really don't know it's proper name. Around the first frost in fall, the little green buds on the top of each branch will turn a lovely crimson. It's name is something like Autumn Sunset or some such, but my memory doesn't serve me too well unfortunately!