Complacency and Grocery Store Apathy

I haven't worked in over 6 months (minus a week I did some night shift cake making back in November).  My ultimate goal was to find a job, so that consumed my days.  Literally, it's all I thought about and all I did.  I felt like I lost touch of the social world.  Even though I co-mingled while doing daily tasks, that's about all the human interaction I had, besides skype-ing with friends back home.  


Sometime last week, I'm going to say Tuesday, whilst sitting on our golden 7 ft long couch, I came to the conclusion that I am....out of touch with the real world.  


So as of last week, I started a new job, I am a grocery store cashier.  Yes, I know, not my ideal job, but it's there and it's what it is.  Nothing like throwing my awkward, anti-social self into a busy, talking all the time sort of situation.  Where, I have to admit, I find it hard to relate to my co-workers, because they all know each other in some respect and because I'm new, I just stand there and sometimes laugh when they snicker with each other.  The 'Hi there, how are you today, would you need bags tonight?' every minute or so is completely robotic, that I now realize that I went from being total complacent and jumped right into apathy. 


I know, I know, this post sounds a little depressing. Alas!  This is what I need.  It's a simple step back into reality and even though I am probably not the friendliest looking person you'll encounter at the till, I will still bag your groceries and give you your change.  It's a job, what more can I ask?


Ok, I'm done!


Happy Hump Day

Without coffee...

I tend to drink lots of tea.  

That is all.


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I skipped out Thursday night dinners, simply because I forgot.  


I'm a terrible blogger, I know it.


And in that case, here's a three person band called 'The Ettes' that will rock your socks off, if you're ever so inclined to get your socks rocked off.  

I'll be the first to admit that I've gotten complacent about finding new music.  These guys have been featured in some tv shows and some movies, but in all honesty I looked them up when I saw the cover for Justin Townes Earle's new album. (The Ettes' drummer is on the front.)


And that's all...
Enjoy your Mondays!

Missing my homies

Never be ashamed of how cool you can be when you're young. 

When did it become so hard to make friends?  I can tell you, it's called adulthood.  It's lame.  


I want to go up to someone I think is cool and ask them to my birthday party.


I want to share my guilty music tastes and the things I make fun of with my buddies.


I don't want to be 27 anymore, I want to be 11 and excited for sleepovers.




Well, some things stay the same.


I still have the same friends dating back to Kindergarden, grade 2 and grade 9. 


We all still talk...some of them have kids, one of them lives in a different country.


On all accounts, I left everyone, they didn't leave me.  


I know my heart still has a big space for each one of them.


I'm not sure if I'll ever accept this older life, especially now, where my nostalgic thoughts take over my dreams. 


It makes me happy still, if during the day of stresses, regular life, changes in life, I still inadvertently think about the wonderful people that brought me to this point. 


Lots of love. 

Adventure and Hazelnuts

Sometimes when I'm walking around and realize that I've never been down the street that is under my feet, I start to feel explorative.

We've been in Victoria for 6 months now, I've been unemployed...I have had a lot of time to see the city on foot. 

The other day I went to pick up a cute little beach bbq from a nice lady's work in an area that I haven't yet been to.  Which was not far from where we currently live at all.

                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

                             [Super awesome spaceship BBQ!]

As I was walking home with the bbq, I came across an area that consisted of a small intersection and some beautiful buildings, right in the middle of regular residential houses.  Victoria is kind of quirky like that, there's all these little 'villages' that exist within the older residential areas.  I'll try one day to find them all and post some photos.  Maybe that is an adventure for Miss. Erin and I when she comes to visit!

Anyway, this was on Fernwood at Gladstone ave:

Later on I brought David with me to show him my 'find' and we picked up some tasty jerk pork and chicken from this Caribbean spot called 'Stir it up!'  They are an extremely nice, hospitable family in there and I suggest you go give them your business!

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And I just wanted to share a little bit of hazelnut love.

Chocolate Hazelnut Pudding

1/2 cup sugar

2 Tbsp cornstarch

1 Tbsp cocoa powder

Pinch of Salt

3/4 cup milk

3/4 coconut milk

4 ounces of chocolate (I used 62% dark)

1 egg yolk

1 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temp.

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup roasted hazelnuts

Toast hazelnuts at 400F for 10 mins or so. Let them cool a little and just rub them in your hands or tea towel to get the skins off. Set aside.

Sift cornstarch and cocoa powder together and put sugar into a medium saucepan.

Make a hazelnut 'butter' by food processing 3/4 cup of the hazelnuts until they are almost smooth and creamy. Have that ready with your chopped chocolate and soft butter.

Combine yolk with the two milks.  Put saucepan with dry ingredients over medium heat. Slowly whisk the milk/egg mixture into the saucepan, keep stirring.

Stir until it starts to thicken and comes to a low boil. Let it boil for 6 'steamboat' seconds and take it off the heat.  Stir in the chopped chocolate, butter and hazelnut 'butter' until everything is smooth and homogenous. 

Portion however you like and refrigerate until set and cool. 

I just kept some of the roasted hazelnuts for garnish and whipped some cream to go on top! Yummy!

Cheers! and good eats!

Thursday Dinners

The computer went and came back unfixed, useless.  Oh well, I promise that won't let any keys go off on a tangent of their own.  


My first business is that every Thursday from now until I stop to exist (or this blog) I will post something that I ate on Thursday.  It doesn't sound that exciting I know, but if the entire blog was of stuff I was eating, that would be pretty boring too.


Why Thursdays?  Well, tonight in particular, I was happy with our dinner.  Any other Thursday dinner, as David and I agreed upon, are generally more of the food we are excited to make and eat.  (Right now I am being extremely ticketed by the grammar police, and really, I don't care) 

Tonight was a little soft pork chop, spaghetti carbonara, with eggplant and zucchini.  I made a pane casereccio which means 'country bread' today with rosemary, lemon and goat cheese and it went excellently with our food! We are both inspired by the simplicity of cooking that comes from Italy (we plan to head over there next year for a little while to soak it all in, but that's another story).  

Carbonara, what you make think of it, is not a creamy pasta with bacon and peas.  It's sauce is simply...pasta water and an egg white.  (Making sure that the egg doesn't scramble and the water is just about reduced down)  It's rich but delicate and absolutely satisfying. 


Another thing I will update on is that Detective the cat is fine.  His vet visit was a not exciting adventure, but a worthy one.  Apparently he has cat acne (and worms, yeah, our cat is gross).  Cat acne?!  Not like an oily teenage face, more like plugged glands that get irritated. He's OK!

Ok, I'm all done.  Let me know if any of you that are reading this if you want something else for me to post.  I almost bake daily and if you need any tips, let me know. 


Ciao!

Today is a big day...for the cat and the computer. 

My post will be short, since the computer's keyboard had a stroke sometime ago without telling us, so now the whole right side sometimes doesn't work or the back slash just starts typing\\\\\\\ <----- perfect exa\mle\\\\\\\\\\\. So it has to go get 'serviced'. 

I'll just leave it at that. 

I'm taking the cat to the cat clinic today because he has a weird scabby lump under his chin and it sometimes likes to get gnarly on his bottom lip.  I always giggle when I think of cat lips. 

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See!  Sometimes the back slash actually helps when it goes snakey! (not in particular)

Well, this is all I can write for now.  I could really let the keyboard do it's thing and you could read an entire paragraph of random symbols.  But I won't. 

Breakfast!

Instilled at an early age, I was told breakfast was important because it started the day off on the right track.  I knew that, because if I just grabbed a banana and ran to the bus, I was hungry by the time first class started (high school).  If I actually took the time to eat some fruit and oatmeal, I wouldn't be hungry until lunch.  I preferred it that way and I still do now. 

Yesterday, we found a cheap waffle iron.  It surely doesn't make the most perfect waffle...but it does it's job and it's a tasty job at that!

Sometimes I think by the time I'm 30 I might need a bypass of sort....

Sometimes I worry about each of our habits and love for comfort foods...

Most of the time, I ignore it and enjoy every last bit of it!

On the weekends, David and I try to make breakfasts together. I tend to make myself one spectacular breakfast a week (sometimes two times a week) and send a photo to David while he's at work.  I make him jealous.  

So we make the effort to do breakfast a solid on Saturday and Sundays. 

The pancakes were from a few weeks ago.  I'm just showing how fatty, delicious and simple a weekend breakfast can be!  The cinnamon buns were a product of an intense craving when I woke up at 5:30am one day, ta da!  

I hope each one of you enjoyed some sort of breakfast somewhere and have a wonderful Sunday!

Bye for now.

Well...hello there.

I came across this picture today from last summer.  The apartment got UNBEARABLY hot sometime in August, where clothes were optional...I don't blame the cat for taking cool refuge in a planter full of dirt.  'Creating you own wilting jungle paradise' with Detective the Cat.

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I have to admit.....

I hate losing at things.  I didn't realize how much of a competitive person I actually am...until a game of chess today.  

David and I like to play board games...I generally school him at Scrabble, but strategy games...let's just say, not my thing.  

So this chess game, reaching the end for me and my king, I felt like a 5 year old losing at checkers or 'go fish', I imagined myself flipping the board over and stomping out of the room.  Luckily, my almost 27 year old self managed to maintain composure.  

Self realization #bazillion:  I am very competitive...who would have thought?  Not me..obviously. 

Bascially inside...I was This guy on a rock.

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There's this rule with Victoria drivers to be completely oblivious to a crossing pedestrian.  

They don't stop at the stop signs, even though they see you approaching to cross, they will just pull right in your way.  Doesn't matter if they can proceed or not on their turn or not.  This has caused not one but THREE kicks to the drivers side door because of 'just about to be hit' post aggression.  

A word of advice as well, when I or David kicks your door next time you clip either one of us with the side of your car, don't call us mother fuckers and wing out your cell phone to report OUR bad behavior the police.  

Next time, maybe I will allow myself to get hit by one of you absent minded island drivers and we will see who will be in a little bit of trouble with the big bad law man.  DINKS!

Rant...done.  

Speaking of dinks...this oddly shaped candy has absolutely no resemblance to one...no?

It's fried rice time!  Goodnight!

Apparently, my attention span waned substantially over the past 6 months.  Some things....actually, quite a few things have changed since August of last year.  

Back on the coast.

hmmmm....


September: *News that David and I will be moving to Florida (long story)
*David asking me to marry him...(whoa)
* Leaving Vancouver, selling most of our things, packing up (all of our belongings went to Florida [insert unhappy face] )
*Left Vancouver for prairie living until Florida


October:  *David doesn't make it Florida, prairie living with my family for a month
*Enjoying the Alberta Fall trying to figure out where we were going.
*Meantime, painted a garage, harvested Apples,  restored a 1940's vanity.
*Decision made!  Moving to Victoria.
*Middle of October, made it to the Island....


Those two months were the craziest, emotional (since my parents thought I was leaving to America, and then we didn't) and longest months...ever!  


Needless to say, coming back to the coast and re establishing ourselves in a different city has been a bumpy road, but I think we will be happy here....for a little bit at least!

Here's what a squirrel looks like when it get's smooshed by a car.

I'm using a belt sander!

Finished vanity..well almost.

Ok, so the squirrel was in the alley on our last day in Vancouver, and that's the only picture I could find. I like it.

Since being in Victoria, I have a lot of time to read.  This is the book I am currently into, I suggest that you read it, if you're into the whole cooking mumbo jumbo.

Blood Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton

Bye for now!