Impossible Pie

I have no pictures to show you, but I tried a recipe that I just have to tell you all about. It's rather astounding! It's called Impossible Pie. I made it last night and couldn't believe that it worked. Here's the recipe:

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
4 eggs
1/2 cup flour
2 cups milk
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup coconut

Mix all ingredients together in a big bowl. Pour into a well greased 10" pie plate. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

That's it. You're done, and the result is a very yummy but not too sweet custard pie, with crust and filling and topping all done. I have no idea how it works, but it does! If you're like me and don't have a 10" pie plate, you can use a 9" plate but will have about 1/2-3/4 of a cup of the mixture left over.

Very funny...

It has been raining here in Toronto all week. Normally there's nothing I like better than a good rainstorm, especially if I'm curled up on my couch with a blanket, a cup of tea and either a good book or some yarn in my hands. But 6 solid days of it? Even my rain-loving soul was starting to get a little waterlogged.

So yesterday, I thought to myself that I would dearly love to see some sunshine. I even went so far as to make that wish my Facebook status.

Then, on my way home from work, just as I was getting off of the bus and opening my ever-present umbrella, the clouds rolled away and everything was suddenly brilliantly blue and sunshiny. In the middle of a torrential downpour.

You will never be able to convince me that God doesn't have a sense of humour.

Crafty updates...

Remember that yarn I told you I bought in Yarmouth? Well, I'm loving it. It's such an earthy yarn, if that makes sense (it's Briggs & Little Tuffy in forest green). And I'm really enjoying the making of my first pair of socks. Check out the progress I've made so far:

Not bad, if I do say so myself! I've just started making the heel and I'm rather excited that it's actually looking somewhat sock-ish :) Blogless Annie has been wonderfully helpful, answering all my knitting-related questions, since I'm very much a newbie knitter.

I also bought some yarn in Saint John while we were at the city market. My mum wanted me to make her a scarf, so she picked out the yarn and I brought it home with me. And here it is:

The pictures don't show it very well, but it's actually kind of sparkly. And it's wonderfully soft, at least partly because of the pattern, which is very open.

I'll tell you one thing, though. After winding these two skeins of yarn into balls, I've decided that I would really like to get ahold of one of these and one of these, in that order!

The Nameless Post

I've been trying to write this post all day, and it's not working out too well. I think I've finally figured out why.

I love reading other people's blogs - seeing what they have to say and think about various things. And many of the blogs that I read are very well done, written by very talented writers who have chosen this medium as their own for whatever reason, or by people who live what I consider extraordinary lives. They are witty and wonderful and highly entertaining.

I was trying to be like them, and I am not.

This blog will probably never have an overarching theme that makes it appealing to massive amounts of readers. I don't think I really want it to. And I have no aspirations of being a great writer, or even a not-so-great writer. I'm just not that ambitious :)

Instead, this is a little space where I get to blather on about whatever has tweaked my interest on any given day, or share something that has happened in my life, mundane or otherwise. I'm doing it for me, though I'm glad you're all coming along for the ride, loyal blog readers. You make the trip much more fun!

So on that note, I'm going to quit with the navel gazing and go do something a little more interesting.

I may even post about it later... ;o)

Life's a Beach :)

TC joined a beach volleyball rec league for the summer, so off we went last night to The Beaches, where they had set up 85 volleyball nets - all of which were in use! I've never seen that many people playing volleyball at the same time before. It was a lot of fun, despite the 40 degree heat and wicked humidity (next time, we take lots of water - some people forgot to bring any so we had to share ours). They played 7 games and won them all, while I cheered from the sidelines and crocheted half of a summer scarf for my mum (I'll try to remember to post a pic once it's done).

Afterwards it was off for ice cream, sweet potato fries, wings and calamari (ugh!) at a local pub, then home for a shower (you should have seen our feet!) and an attempt at sleep.

Life is good :)

Hello Oak Point!

I don't have as many pictures of the second half of our vacation, which we spent in New Brunswick with my parents. Well, that's not exactly true, it's just that most of the NB pics are of people, and I'm not willing to post recognizable pictures of people on here. But here's what I can show you :)

The front veranda of my parents' new house. We spent quite a bit of time out here, chatting, reading and looking at this...

That's my grandmother's house in the foreground, and the mighty Saint John River behind it. It was pretty windy and beautifully sunny most of the time, and there were always sailboats and powerboats and seadoos out playing on the river, which was fun to watch.

This is the side view from the new house, with the old barn where my grampy used to keep his cows and their hay. Now they use it as a garage.

And the back yard, with the old hen house and dad's garden way up the hill by the truck (which I hope has really good brakes!). People here in Toronto wonder why I laugh when they talk about their big back yards :)

We made some scrumdiddlyupmtious strawberry jam while we were home. Well, sort of. "We" hulled the berries, and then Mum and Dad made the jam, but I still consider that a group effort. There are now 4 bottles of it in my pantry - yum yum!

TC took this picture of the table he set for the supper we had the night my brother and his girlfriend came to see us. Very summery!

That's it for NB pictures, folks. We did do some pretty fun stuff, but I just didn't think to take the camera. One day we went to the Saint John City Market, which is a must for me whenever I come home. I picked up some dulse, and Mum and I had tea and sweets at the Infusion Tea Room just north of the market while TC scoped out the local second-hand book stores.

We also got a chance to visit our friends SherrieG, Adam and little Mr. P, who happened to be vacationing near us - what are the odds of that?

All in all, it was a wonderful vacation. I'm so thankful we were able to go.

Only 155 more sleeps until we get to go back...

Hello Yarmouth!

At long last, here are the pictures from our vacation - or at least the Yarmouth half of it :) They aren't an exhaustive account of the trip, but they definitely hit most of the highlights!

One evening we went for a walk with our friends Blogless Annie and M. I love the fact that you don't really need sidewalks in rural Nova Scotia :)

Some pretty scenery:

Does anyone know what kind of flower this is? This one was standing all by itself in a sea of green just off a back road behind the in-laws' house. Isn't it gorgeous?

I like this picture because it shows how foggy it was that night. It was pretty foggy almost the entire time we were in Yarmouth, which was ever so appropriate :) This little stream bed was part of TC's tour of his childhood haunts.

Then we went on a treasure hunt, and found...

A peanut butter jar, shoved down inside the middle of a log in the middle of the woods behind the in-laws' house.

Apparently, people with GPS's run about the countryside with a set of co-ordinates for these caches, and once they find them they take a 'treasure' from the cache and put a new one in along witha little note. Pretty neat, I think! We didn't take anything, but we left a coffee coupon and a hair elastic and signed the little log book.

This is a lovely place to buy yarn and soap-making supplies in downtown Yarmouth, where I bought some gorgeous wool yarn and the needles to attempt knitting my first pair of socks (thanks for all your help Blogless Annie!), as well as some dirt cheap essential oils.

The rest of the time we spent out at 'the camp', which in Ontarian is called 'the cottage'. It's a beautiful spot...

TC went for a swim...and then a little visitor waddled up on the lawn...

What a cute little duck! After I took this picture, she came back with her 6 little ducklings - so cute! I didn't get any pictures of them, though.

Our last night in Yarmouth was the MIL's birthday, so we had a little shindig at the camp for her, which ended with some fireworks which we picked up a local grocery store.

Next stop: New Brunswick!

The Idiot Box indeed!

Heard on Breakfast Television this morning:

"Now, you have to be careful because fire can cause flame."

My question - What exactly were we expecting fire to cause?

Heard during a commercial for Fashion Television:

"Stilettos are like the new post-terrorism shoe."

?!?

Home Sweet Home

Hey everyone!

We're back from our trip down home, and we had a wonderful time :) I'll be posting some pictures and will tell you all about it soon, but I'm playing catch up right now. It's amazing how much work can pile up in a week!

Welcome to the Dark Side...

I'm going to let you all in on a secret - I have a rather well-developed passive agressive streak which likes to manifest itself whenever complete strangers do something that annoys me. Like this morning on my way to work. The first part of my commute takes place on a bus, and today it was full enough that I was standing in the back corner, hanging onto a pole and reading the highly amusing fine print at the bottom of a car advertisement. If you've ever ridden public transit, you've probably seen those people who, when the bus draws near to its destination, feel compelled to move toward the door at least 5 minutes before so that they're the first ones off. Normally this doesn't bother me, though I do laugh to myself at their pointless hurry (do those extra 10 seconds really matter?).

Well today I did not laugh as the man who was sitting in the back corner decided he needed to be one of those people. The problem was that the bus was rather crowded, so in standing up he had to step on my feet and shove me ahead of him, but there was nowhere to go after that because of all the people. So he stood there, basically on top of me, chomping at the bit to get ahead of everyone and out the door (all of this is taking place, of course, before we had even come to a stop). And I probably wouldn't have gotten annoyed if he had just mumbled an apology, but that didn't happen, so up reared the passive agressive streak.

As we pulled up to the last stop for the bus, I reached out and hung onto the poles on both sides of the bus under the guise of keeping my balance and then stood in such a way that I managed to effectively block Mr. Get-out-of-my-way-I'm-in-a-hurry in behind me. I then politely allowed everyone standing or sitting in front of me to precede me out of the bus, making him the last person to exit.

Does that make me evil?

Scarily accurate...

What Your Fridge Says About You

You like to be surrounded by things you love. You aren't exactly greedy, but you can be materialistic at times. You tend to be a fairly thrifty person. You splurge occasionally, but you're mostly a saver. You don't tend to be a very adventurous person, but you do surprise everyone now and then. You have a bit of a wild side. You are responsible, together, and mature. You act like an adult, even when you don't feel like it. You are likely to be married - and very busy.

What Do the Contents of Your Refrigerator Say About You?

Movie vs. Book?

As you may have noticed, my new Book du Jour is the Maltese Falcon, and can I just say that I'm thoroughly enjoying it? I love the description of the main character, private eye Sam Spade, who "looked rather pleasantly like a blond satan." I guess the casting execs decided that a "blond satan" wouldn't sell very well as a hero in the movie version, which starred Humphrey Bogart.

Which made me think of all the other book/movie combinations and the differences that exist between the two mediums. How many of the changes that are made when the books are turned into movies are actually necessary? Would the Wizard of Oz have been less successful if Dorothy's slippers had been made of silver instead of ruby? Or the Lord of the Rings if Frodo had been 40-ish?

But then, some movies have actually improved on the books they were based on, such as the Princess Bride (My apologies to any fans of the book, but having all the characters die or be captured at the end is just plain wrong!). Others, of course, have done the opposite and ruined the story (i.e. the Golden Compass - fabulous book, horrible movie!).

I recognize some changes are necessary, since there is indeed a significant difference in what can be done with a 2-hour movie and a 350-page book, but I'm always a little leery of going to see a movie if I've already read the book. There have been far more failures than successes as far as I'm concerned.

Happy Canada Day!

Or rather, happy belated Canada Day! I hope you all had a wonderful one (at least those of you who live in Canada). Ours was pretty ideal. We had some friends over for brunch and then went out in the beautiful sunshine to practice some volleyball. TC has joined a rec league, so he and another player wanted to brush up on their skills. I ended up participating and managed to give myself six bruises and a sunburn - good fun! Then we spent the rest of the day napping, relaxing and reading. It really doesn't get much better than that!

The view from my parents' house

Now that Canada Day has come and gone, I've given myself permission to start thinking about our trip home, which is now a mere 3 sleeps away. I can hardly wait! Even TC is excited, and he generally doesn't let himself get excited about things :) I'm so looking forward to visiting everybody, and finally being able to see my parents' new house. Seriously, it messes with my head that I can't picture where my parents live. When I talk to my mom or dad on the phone, I can picture them sitting in a particular chair but that chair is always surrounded by empty black space. But not for much longer!

Another thing I'm really looking forward to? Open green spaces, with nothing surrounding me but grass, trees and wildflowers. And the ocean, with its salty spray and the smell of seaweed. Being enveloped in the quietness of nature that is better than silence.

3 more sleeps.