Keith Urban

Here is a little funny interchange for your friday pleasure.

Athena: When I grow up, I am going to marry Keith Urban.

Mommy: You can't marry Keith Urban. He is already married.

Athena: Then I am going to marry a farmer.

Mommy: Well, we live in Delisle so you will meet a lot of farmers.

Athena: And you can come an visit me. I will have chickens and cows and pigs and goats and little lambs.

Mommy: Oh, that will be nice.

Athena: But... I am NOT going to cook them.

Perfection

When Paul is out of town, as he often is, supper is pretty casual around here.

Last night this was our dinner.

Yum! Toasted tomato sandwich with bacon. Grilled perfection.

Day in the Kitchen

Whew! What a day. Productive too.

We went from this:

To this:

And this:

And to add just a bit more work, I also did this:

Excellent outcome!

Athena added "I feel almost like a grown up when I do things like this."

She helped adding ingredients. She kneaded dough, rolled pie crusts.

She was pleased with the results too.

Her little jammy smile told the story well.

Fresh buns are awesome with butter and crab apple jelly.

PS I don't like unsalted butter.

Confession

If you don't know me well, you may not know that I am a "green" person. I even vote for political parties that have the "greenest" campaign. I use reusable shopping bags, cloth napkins (thanks Jen), earth friendly body and cleaning products. I reduce, reuse, recycle.

There are, however, some eco-friendly things that I DO NOT LIKE. Not one bit. The list may surprise you.

#1 I do not like low flow shower heads. In fact we have a booster pump on our water system

because the teeny tiny town we live in doesn't give us the pressure we need.

#2 I do not like my front load High Efficiency washing machine. Yes it uses one third less water,

but I don't think it gets my clothes as clean as my old machine. No, it decidedly does not.

#3 I do not like the new 'low flow' toilets. The water doesn't swirl around and rinse the bowl

and one ends up peeing right on the porcelain. True.

#4 I don't really even like recycling, but I do it anyway. I don't like peeling the label off of the

canned tomatoes, rinsing, flattening, sorting and most of all going to the recycle depot.

I do really like my new windows(no cracks or steam and I can see right outside). I like my High Efficiency furnace with the humidifier. I like burning wood for heat in the winter and in the spring and fall too. I like my garburator (food waste disposal for you American readers), although the jury is still out on whether that is good or not. Last but not least I love my eco friendly cleaning, laundry and body products. In fact, that is an idea for another post.

So there you have it. The secret is out. Miss nature loving, outdoorsy, back to basics, "green" girl confesses. Now I think I'll go sort the recycle.

The Gift

Over the years Paul has given me some wonderful gifts. The ones that stand out to me are not what you would think.

I have received jewellery, fancy schmancy kitchen stuff, flowers, chocolates. All the usual suspects.

Some of my best gifts have been binoculars, organic wheat flour, (way back when it wasn't in vogue) a handmade bird house from a second hand shop from far far away and a old farmhouse radio.

This gift he just gave me was right up there with the others. He stopped on his way back from a business trip, dressed in business attire, alongside a farmer's field and collected the necessary ingredients. He came home, assembled it and led me to the front yard to see it. I couldn't be happier with the result.

It turned out just perfect, don't you think?