Loss

We live in a row house. This means that people live on either side of us sharing walls with us. It's not like the student apartments that I've lived in, where you can hear your neighbour talking on the phone and can decipher what they're saying. We rarely hear our neighbours, only when they are banging on the wall that we share to put up a picture or something. Last night was a little different.

I finished up the page I was working on for my scrapbook and went downstairs to see what Tim was up to. I was in the kitchen getting a drink and noticed that there were flashing lights outside. This isn't that abnormal because there are a lot of ploughs around and trucks with lights on them from the mine. I looked anyway and I saw a police car and an ambulance parked in front of our neighbours house. Tim came in to have a look and said something along the lines of "oh no, something must have happened to Charlie". I didn't know this but our neighbour Charlie has been sick for some time and pretty much bed ridden since the new year. He's retired and has a few grown-up kids (who have kids of their own). Tim works with his son and that's how he knew all about his illness.

We stuck around, saw that paramedics get the stretcher from the back of the ambulance and then we heard it. The distinct sound of grief, sobbing. We decided to pray at that moment, for the family, for Charlie, for the paramedics. We sang some songs, we cried because we knew that Charlie's time was up. Even though we didn't really know him we always chatted if we were going in our houses at the same time. We helped clear their driveway of snow. We saw their little granddaughter visit everyday and their children come and go. And we saw Charlie being carried out of his house on the stretcher, covered from head to toe in a blanket and none of the family join him in the ambulance. We heard a woman weep for her loss.

I think about his wife. They take away her husband and she is left alone, in the house that she has shared with him, where they raised their children. I think about all the things that must remind her of him; his pick-up with the little toy moose head on the cab, the smell of his clothes, the empty bed beside her. I couldn't imagine loosing Tim, I don't know if I would survive. He's my best friend, the one person in the world who knows everything about me. The one I plan to have babies with and travel the world. Everything would remind me of him, our lives are completely intertwined. I thank God everyday that he has given me such a wonderful companion and I pray that we will have many more years together.

It's strange witnessing someones loss, hearing their cries, and feeling their helplessness. Honestly I never want to experience that again, yet I know I have to because it's a part of our mortal lives. I just pray for the strength, the wisdom, and the words to say when that day comes.

Whole Wheat Bread - Jennifer Wright version

I love baking bread and here is one of the recipes I have used the most because it almost always turns out perfectly. Jennifer Wright gave me a loaf one day while we were living in Wolfville. Tim and I finished the loaf that day so I decided to get the recipe. Thanks Jen!

In a small bowl mix 1c. lukewarm water and 1tsp. sugar. Over the mixture sprinkle 1Tbs yeast. Let stand for 10 minutes until the yeast has risen to the surface.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, mix the following together until the solids are dissolved:
2c Hot water
1/2c sugar
1Tbs salt
1/2c oil, melted butter or margarine

When Yeast mixture is ready stir it then add it to the large bowl. Next, add 5c whole wheat flour (mixing after each cup). By the 5th cup I am mixing with my hands.

When flour is absorbed add 2c of all-purpose flour. (I normally add 1 and then add the other one in very slowly, I may not use it all). Add more all-purpose flour while you knead if you need it. Knead for 5 to 10 minutes until the dough is nice and elasticy. If too dry add more water, if too wet add more flour.

When finished kneading put dough back in bowl and cover it with a clean towel. Place in a warm spot to rise (can put in the oven at a low temperature with the door open, I like to put in oven, heat it up to 170, leave the door closed and then turn the oven off when it's pre-heated). Let the dough rise for 1-2 hours until doubles in size (about 2 hours for me).

After the dough has risen punch it down and knead it a couple of times to get the air bubbles out. Divide in 3 parts and shape each one into a loaf. Place loaves into 3 greased loaf pans, cover with towel, and let rise for about another hour.

Bake at 350 for approx 30 minutes until the tops are brown. Take the loaves immediately out of the pans. If the bottoms are brown and you hear a hollow sound when you tap on them the bread is ready. Let cool on a cooling rack. Enjoy your delicious bread.

We normally freeze some of it or give it away so we're not tempted to eat it all right away. We don't eat a lot of bread anymore so it's not such a big deal. Even if you've never made bread by hand before you should try out this recipe. It only failed me when I tried to make bread with 3 bumps and when I left it to rise for 4 hours.....for some reason it didn't rise properly in the pans. Try it though, making your own bread is so much cheaper then buying bread and tastes so much better!

Valentine's Day

I had an especially wonderful Valentine's day this year.

But first... When I was younger I hated V-day, mostly because I never had anyone to do anything special for me. For me it was a day of sadness and loneliness. When I got a bit older I became more cynical; thinking that it was a day created by Hallmark to boost sales during the traditional mid-winter frugality of consumers.

Now that I have someone to love and someone to love me I am a little more in support of this day. However; it's not only a day for lovers, it's a day for friends and for telling people that God showed us the ultimate act of love by giving us salvation through Jesus. Check out this awesome Valentine idea at Kate's Kitchen.

Even though I like the day now, I don't want to put ridicules expectations on Tim to do something fantastic for me (and then me having to think of something for him as well). He knows I don't want roses (way too expensive and they just die...) or fancy meals out (we don't have $100 to spend on one meal for two, what a waste). So what did he do?

I worked on Saturday from 9-12 and then 1-4. During my lunch break I taught skating. So I didn't see him much. My afternoon was spent with 10 kids running around the library participating in my "Valentine's Cyber Scavenger Hunt". It was a lot of fun and a great success! After work I dropped into the local Blush store and picked up a little something and went home. When I got home Tim had cleaned everything, all the dishes were done and everything! He was busy in the kitchen so I went up stairs and cleaned up a bit (myself and my pile of clothes that had accumulated on the floor in our bedroom). He called me down for supper and had prepared a candle lit feast of Chicken Cordon Bleu with mashed potatoes garnished with fresh parsley (from our potted parsley) and fresh green beans. It was absolutely delicious. I didn't take a picture because I didn't want to ruin the moment. He had even made maple sponge cake with vanilla frozen yogurt for dessert. I was really impressed! I have been making most of the meals lately because of my work schedule and it was so nice to have a break and eat something delicious.

We then had a time of prayer, a really powerful time where God really spoke some things into our lives. It was really refreshing.

And that is where I will stop... even though the evening didn't end there!

I am so happy that God provided me with such an awesome guy, honestly I had my doubts that guys like this even existed when I was younger. I am so glad I waited for the perfect one for me. Papa's plan is the ultimate and definitely worth waiting for!

Now it's your turn, did you do anything special for Valentine's Day?

Friday Lunches

Every Friday my house is open to hungry high school students. We live really close to the high school and so I figured that I might as well use that to my advantage. I really enjoy having people over and the youth need to eat lunch so I figured why not combine the two?

I have made spaghetti, chili, pizza, and today I made an assortment of casseroles. The most I've had come over so far is 9 (I think) and the least was 3...that was today. So now I have a ridiculous amount of food... At least I have a husband who likes to eat! I have every Friday off so I normally spend the morning cooking and cleaning and then relax for the afternoon (after clean-up). It's pretty nice! I love doing this because I have the opportunity to get to know the youth better and I hope that one day they will feel comfortable enough to bring their friends.

So, thanks Pat Allison for inspiring me to reach out to others through what I have and what I love doing. You are an inspiration to so many of us Allisonians!

Lesson Learned

I guess I learned my lesson of not to copy from MS word and past into my blog. The formatting gets all messed up and the program gets angry. So much for the easy way out!

Sunday Night Dinner

Tim and I are pretty relaxed about our 'Sunday food rituals'. Many people here have a large Sunday dinner (at lunch time) but we're not really into that. We normally have a light lunch and a normal supper. Today we decided it was finally time to make lentil burgers again. I found this recipe for lentil burgers a while back online, I don't even know what website it came from. I was given a bunch of brown lentils and I was trying to find uses for them since lentils aren't something we grew up with. We did some prep Saturday because they are pretty labour intensive but definitely worth it. Yesterday we cooked the lentils, potatoes and grated the carrots. I also made some pitas (recipe from Kate's Kitchen) to use as buns. I thought I would share these delicious recipes with you with pictures just in case you desire to try them out.

Whole Wheat Pitas

3 cups flour (1ww, 2white)

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 Tablespoon sugar or honey

1 packet instant yeast (or, if from bulk, 2 1/4 teaspoons yeast)

1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups water, roughly at room temperature

2 tablespoons olive oil,

vegetable oil, butter, or shortening

If you are using active dry yeast, follow the instructions on the jar to active it. Otherwise, mix the yeast in with the flour, salt, and sugar. Add the olive oil and 1 1/4 cup water and stir together with a wooden spoon. All of the ingredients should form a ball. If some of the flour will not stick to the ball, add more water (I had to add an extra 1/4 cup).If to wet and sticky add more flour.

Once all of the ingredients form a ball, knead the dough for approximately 10 minutes (or until your hands get tired). If you are using an electric mixer, mix it at low speed for 10 minutes.(I can't afford one of those fancy smanchy things...)

When you are done kneading the dough, place it in a bowl that has been lightly greased. Form a ball out of the dough and place it into the bowl, rolling the ball of dough around in the bowl so that it has a light coat of oil on all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel and set aside to rise until it has doubled in size, approximately 90 minutes.

When it has doubled in size, punch the dough down to release some of the trapped gases and divide it into 8 (or more) pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, cover the balls with a damp kitchen towel, and let them rest for 20 minutes.

While the dough is resting, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. If you have a baking stone, put it in the oven to preheat as well. If you do not have a baking stone, turn a cookie sheet upside down and place it on the middle rack of the oven while you are preheating the oven. This will be the surface on which you bake your pitas.

After the dough has relaxed for 20 minutes, spread a light coating of flour on a work surface and place one of the balls of dough there. Sprinkle a little bit of flour on top of the dough and use a rolling pin or your hands to stretch and flatten the dough. You should be able to roll it out to between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick. If the dough does not stretch sufficiently you can cover it with the damp towel and let it rest 5 to 10 minutes before trying again.

Open the oven and place as many pitas as you can fit on the hot baking surface. They should be baked through and puffy after 3 minutes (I bake mine for more like 6 or 7 minutes, until they are puffy). If you want your pitas to be crispy and brown you can bake them for an additional 3 to 5 minutes, my general rule is to wait for them to puff up. This batch was a little disappointing because they didn't puff as much, I think the dough was a little too wet. My first batch was awesome, they poofed up nicely. Oh well, they're still yummy.

Now for the lentil burgers:

2 cups Brown Lentils - cooked (a little less than 1 cup dry)

1 large onion - finely chopped

2 small carrots - grated

1 garlic clove - minced

1/2 cup freshly made bread crumbs (just process fresh bread

in a food processor)

1 large potato (boiled and mashed)

1 teaspoon Cumin powder

1 teaspoon Coriander powder

2 tablespoons Soy Sauce

Ground Black Pepper to taste

Chilli flakes (depending on how hot you like it)



Method

1. Heat oil in a pan. Add the onion and garlic. Cook for a

few minutes till the onions turn golden brown. Add spices,

cumin and coriander powder and cook for a minute. Remove

from heat and let it cool.

2. In a large bowl, put the onion mix, grated carrots,

lentils, potato and bread crumbs. Mix well.

3. Add the soy sauce, black pepper, chili flakes and salt.

Mince the lentils so that they will bind with the rest of

the mixture.

4. Form flat patties and put aside.

Cooking options

1. Heat very little bit of oil in a flat pan and then cook the patty on each side until its crispy.

(I normally do this method, be careful though, the burgers are very delicate and likely to fall apart)

2. Preheat oven. And place patties on a baking sheet and cook for about 30mins, depending on the

heating capacity of the oven. Make sure to flip midway to cook the other side.

The Finished Product! We had a delicious meal and we still have 10 burgers left over! If you feel like going meatless for a meal try this recipe out, you wont be disappointed.

Picasa

Oh...and the reason I am posting all of these picture collages is because I am learning how to use a photo editing program called Picasa for my job and I am practicing different techniques with my photos. It's a pretty good program, very user friendly. I am going to be teaching a session on it at the end of the month so I have to become pretty comfortable with it by then. If you want to download it for free then go to: picasa.google.com

Cross Country Skiing

Sunday afternoon Tim and I decided to join our Australian friends (and Tim's boss) Doug and Ros for some cross country skiing. They have been going pretty regularly since the season opened so we were a little nervous because of our inexperience. It was only $18 each for the rental of equipment and a day pass (I thought that was pretty good) so we got geared up and hit the trail. We met our other friends Kim and Damian there (Kim had never done it before and Damian grew up here and was pretty experienced) and after figuring out how to attach the boots to the skis we were off. Ros stayed behind in the Chalet with baby jasper and would join us later. We tried the 401 trail first a nice flat and wide trail and it's even lit at night! It was going pretty well, I got off of the groomed part and almost fell...but I recovered alright. Tim fell a couple of times (it was his first time) but we made it alright.

We went into the chalet for a bit and then the guys wanted to do the trail around the lake. Kim had a huge blister and had to go home but I was feeling alright, a little stiff, but okay and the other guys were game. So we set off around the lake. It was beautiful, but it was also a 6km trail. About half way my muscles were aching but I was leading the pack so I felt that I had to keep up the pace for the guys who were right behind me. There were a bunch of up and down hill parts...down hill was fun (I only fell once) but up hill was pretty tough. I was concentrating pretty hard on keeping the pace and getting it done as fast as I could I didn't look around much so I missed some pretty scenery but it was still fun.

We finally finished the trail and I was informed that we did about 11-12km that afternoon... I don't get much physical exercise so this is quite a lot at once. I was dead tired, we ended up going to church for the evening service but I fell asleep a couple of times... Monday I could barely move, Tuesday I was still sore, and today I can still feel it. It's not just my legs either; it was my arms and abs too. I learned my lesson though: don't try to go as fast as the guys who are in much better shape then you, and don't ski for 12 km in one afternoon.

It was a lot of fun though and I'm sure we're going to do it again.

Tonight I teach my skating class, which is becoming more painful and I seem to have much less patience then I did at the beginning. It's harder too because I'm at work until 4:30ish, skating is at 5:30-6:15 and I have to go right back to work. So I don't have a lot of time to relax and eat and see Tim. Tim curls on Wednesdays from 8-10ish and there is an adult skate from 8:45-9:45 so I may go straight back to the arena after work and then pick up Tim at 10. I don't know yet, it depends on how I'm feeling. I need to get more physically active though because I have gained a lot of weight since moving here and I need to do something about it! Tim and I have been trying to make up weekly menus for ourselves so that we're not temped to have quick (and often very unhealthy) meals or eat out. More on that in another post though.

Keep Fit and Have Fun!

Our Saturday trip to the dump. Check out my facebook profile for a detailed description of what happened!

Sunrise

The winter sunrise over Wabush lake from our living room window is beautiful. Even though it's really cold here for most of the winter with weeks in January reaching -50 + with the wind chill it's really beautiful and sunny. We have a lot less snow than is normal (so I've been told) but supposedly more will come when it warms up a bit. We went cross country skiing on Sunday afternoon because it was warmer (-25) and had a wonderful time. I am still recovering from it though, I guess 10km was a little much for my first time... I will post some photos when I get them off my camera.

Post 1

So I think that I'm going to try blogging again. We'll see how it goes...