houseboating 2012, if i had it my way

I was going to recap the house boating trip but as there are already a thousand pictures on facebook that tell a better and more complete story (as there are large holes in my memory bank from this weekend) I decided that I will look to the future instead.

Title: House Boating 2012
Subtitle: IF I had it My Way

Thursday morning we meet in Langley and there is a private jet waiting to take us (and the wake setter of course) to Sicamous. The flight over is short, only long enough to listen to whatever song LMAFO has out this summer and to do a round of shots. We arrive at Waterways and the aussis load all our shit onto the boat and take us immediately through the canal. We are pleased to find the rooms have all been upgraded to King Sized beds, each with their own en suite. The rooms are soundproof. Someone notices there are a couple of stow aways on the boat- no, its not Adam from Twin Anchors- the randoms turn out to be a Mute Midget Chef who moonlights as a fire dancer and a female Thai Masseuse. We decide to keep them. The no randoms rule has been eased up on this year.

An hour or so into the night John and Nick climb a tree and fall onto the midget as he's fire dancing, amazingly nobody is hurt and the partying continues well into the night. Nobody passes out early and, hence, nobody gets Tbagged. Greg cooks up fifty boxes of KD and gourmets it up with extra cheesy baked deliciousness. We all back chew it- all of the flavor, none of the calories.

We awake to MidgetMan cooking a gourmet breakfast of bacon, eggs, waffles and coffee. No hangovers, we're all feeling great. We spend the day tanning and drinking, boating and floating. The girls win a round of flip cups and then beer pong. Mini chef cooks up a feast for dinner, we don our theme costumes and the party's on. The hot tub gets foamed, the fire gets lit and all surrounding boats flock to our beach to partake in an insane round of Ultimate Strip Limbo. A bear comes out of the woods to join the party- he let's us dress him in tight and bright and eventually ends up passed out in the hot tub.

I don't want to spoil the whole trip, so I'll leave the third night as a total surprise. Let me assure you that the Thai Masseuse sees to it that House boating 2012 and everyone there has a Happy Ending.

Sponsor Me!

Guess who's doing a bike ride for charity? if you guessed me you're not an idiot-Congratulations! JohnnyZ asked if i wanted to do it and i said yes even though i wasn't sure and i was goign to back out and just donate money to HIS cause but then i felt like a loser so i decided i'd just saddle up and get'er done. I would like to fundraise some money for the Canadian Mental Health Association and would appreciate your donations. We're all a little bit crazy so i think this affects us all. Every little bit helps, but the big bits help more- duh! If John out-fundraises me i will be upset so, seriously, don't let me down. Go visit my fundraising page and see what it's all about. My Fundraising Page

Dinner in a Cup

Dinner-in-a-Cup, which shares similarities with Lunch-in-a-Glass and Breakfast-from-a-Blender, is the Meal of the Future. Forget pots and pans and stoves and ovens. A blender and a receptacle to drink out of is all you need! Note that a cup is not strictly necessary as the blender itself is fun to drink out of, but try to keep it on the down-low as people may judge you unfairly, they just don't understand.

Dinner-in-a-Cup is, essentially, a protein shake. (Note, I've steered myself away from saying "basically" as a segue as I read somewhere that some feel it has a condescending tone, so have jumped on the Essentially train- it sounds smarter but essentially has the same meaning!) Making dinner for one is a terrible feat and I only ever endure it so that Lunch Leftovers are created. There's nothing fun about slaving away on a dinner then sitting down to eat alone-especially when you are a terrible cook. Don't get me wrong, I love dinner foods, but these days I travel to various destinations to get them.

Infomercial; Dinner-in-a-cup is Great! I get home from the gym, take out the blender and throw in stuff, pour it in a cup and drink it back. Five minutes is all it takes and cleanup is a breeze!

My go to recipe: pour about a half a cup of milk in the blender, add a cup of frozen berries and a banana, a few table spoons of plain yogurt, a scoop of chocolate protein powder, a tablespoon of ground flax, a dash of cinnamon and blend away. I sometimes use banana and peanut butter, but it's rather indulgent and makes me feel guilty.

As I type I am drinking back my dinner and have to say- the walnut addition in today's blend was an unusual choice that won't be repeated as I've choked at least twice already.

Dinner in a cup- because utensils and chewing are for suckers ;)

View my Avocodo-Banana-Berry-Smoothie blog recipe here.

Thou whoreson Zed, thou unnecessary letter!

I spend a fair bit of time talking to Americans and try not to give it away that I am Made in Canada, however I sometimes sell myself out.  I have to spell out letters occasionally and am always thrown into a panic when 'z' comes up. The dreaded letter "z" as it's come to be. I even went so far as to write it down next to my computer for easy reference. Today, my first instinct when i came across Z was to say ZEE so i (wrongly) assumed it was my Canadian-go-to and picked ZED instead. I was met with confused silence. I threw out a fake cough and started again this time pronouncing it Zee much to my caller's relief.

I decided the way to combat this problem was to do some research, then decided to make it a twofer and blog about it as well. I am always shocked, amazed and pleased at how there is always a website with the exact answer I need. Bill Casselman is like a Canadian-word spokesman or something. He has a page dedicated to the difference between zed and zee, apparently i am not the ONLY person who is concerned with this. He is officially on my list of Awesome Individuals -don't worry one day you might make it there too! (PS, his website is http://www.billcasselman.com/). Here's what he has to say:

Because it entered French from Latin as zeta, it became zède in modern French, zeta in modern Spanish and Italian, and zed in English. The Romans borrowed the letter from the Greeks where it is zeta.

Zed was not uttered affectionately from the lips of every English speaker. Hundreds of years after it entered our alphabet, certain literary types were still bitching about it. “Thou whoreson Zed, thou unnecessary letter!” yells Kent to Oswald during their slanging fight in Act 2 of Shakespeare’s King Lear.

In the first great dictionary of English in 1755 (there were other, lesser word lists printed earlier), Dr. Johnson opined “Z . . . zed, more commonly izzard or uzzard.” The names izzard and uzzard have not totally melted in the obscuring fog of history. Check this 1947 opinion from the Court of Appeals of Kentucky: “If this contract is valid, its provisions are all binding and effective from A to Izzard.” From A to izzard is a folk expression now rare or vanished that implies inclusivity.

In 1828 Noah Webster, the mighty American wielder of word clout, guaranteed that zee would predominate in the United States. In Webster’s magisterial American Dictionary of the English Language he stated: “Z... It is pronounced zee.”

The Concise Oxford Companion states, “The modification of zed ... to zee appears to have been by analogy with bee, dee, vee, etc.” Lye’s New Spelling Book (1677) was the first to list “zee” as a correct pronunciation.

I love that excerpt for a few reasons, first the Shakespeare quote is hilarious- whoreson, what an unusually fantastic thing to yell at a letter! Also, "from A to Izzard" is a great little all inclusive saying that i am going to adopt into my phrase collection. Moving on- so basically, people changed the pronunciation of zee to make it a better rhyming letter and to spite the British. Canadians know that singing the alphabet song is rather embarrassing when we have to sing... Y and Zed, now you know your ABCs next time won't you sing with ME! ME? that doesn't rhyme with Zed. Terrible song! We need to Canadianize it so we don't sound like idiots. Maybe it should be Sing with Fred or Sing in your head or maybe we should scrap the Zed from our alphabet. Not like we use it very often, there's about 3 words i can think of that we would have to come up with a new spelling for. I feel like it'd be a fun project. What should we change Zoo and Zebra to? Foo and Febra? I like. I will send my suggestions to Merriam Webster and get the ball rolling.

I tried to find some amusing pictures of "Z" but the results consisted mainly of Jay-Z and Dragonball-Z and i felt neither with appropriate for this blog, so I'm using a large pink font in lieu.  

Prunus domestica

I came across an article in a health food magazine someone brings to work...acutally, to be honest i didn't really "come across" it... My vietnamese accountant put it under my nose and ordered me to read it. First, I turned up my nose and made a stink face at the idea of eating prunes. Never in my life has my mouth met a prune. I am very sheltered. 

I read the article entitled Prunes- The Orginal Superfood. It took me about two paragraphs to jump on the prune bandwagon. The health benefits are astounding. I went out that night and hit the bulk section and got me some organic prunes. I'm not usually one to buy organic, but the article mentioned there is significantly more benefits to eating organic in this case- so i did. Call me a sucker, whatever. I'M PRUNETASTIC!

My first taste of prune came later that night. I bit into it a little warily, but was pleasantly surprised. Tastes like a raisin my mouth said to my brain. A GIANT RAISIN! They are chewy and sweet and have a weird, but fun texture. So far i have only ate a few at a time as a snack with some nuts to add crunch and balance out the sugar.

I have been talking about prunes all week to anyone that will listen- some have been eating prunes for decades, others make the Eww face when i mention them. I get it, everyone relates prunes to old people and poop. Not a very tasty conotation. I didn't even know that they were dried plums until Nik mentioned it to me when she was looking for them at the grocery store. Dried plum? hmm, that's not gross at all. Plums are delicious, dried plums are almost better as they are easily storeable and transportable. Yes, a superfood indeed.

"Where did this unwarranted levity start? We don't balk at raisins, snicker at dried figs nor grin at dried apricots. Why laugh at prunes? We'll hurt their feelings." -Unknown.

I dare you. go eat some prunes. DO IT. do it now!

FUN FRIDAY FACTS:

• The scientific name for plums and prunes is Prunus domestica.
• Prunes are nutritious fruits that are extremely fun to eat since they have a sweet, deep taste and a sticky, chewy texture. Prunes are actually dried plums, more specifically the dried version of European plums, including the Agen variety.
• Prunes contains contains a lot of fibers and sorbitol a stool loosening sugar. Prunes helps to slow aging process of the brain and body. Helps in cases of anemia. Prunes are excellent for increasing one's vitality. It helps in normal blood circulation. It is a good remedy for sore throat. It can help prevent cancer because of its high betacarotene content.

the ultimate twofer.

I'd like to tell you about my Thursday night twofer. But first I feel like I must explain Twofer or else you might miss the point. I wasn't sure how to define it as it's a fake word, so I hit google for some research. Nothing but cold hard factoids for this blog.

My first find was a widely trusted source, especially for trendy words and phrases. Here's what Urban Dictionary has to say: A Twofer is when you get two things for the effort, price, time, or space of one.
I feel like one source isn't enough for such crucial information, and I don't want my bibliography to look too scarce so I checked out a site that's a little more serious, and has a bit more clout. TheFreeDictionary.com reports that Twofer is an informal noun and defines it as: An offer, a deal, or an arrangement in which a single expense yields a dual return.
OK, now that I feel like we are now on the same page, let's move on to the point of my story. A couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon a recipe for Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies. BINGO! Twofer, i thought to myself. A cookie within a cookie, oh my god! Both the recipe title and accompanying pictures were enticing, however I decided to pass on it as I had oatmeal raisin cookies on my baking agenda.

This recipe haunted me for the next two weeks. I thought about it every time i thought about cookies (hourly) and each time i was at the grocery store. Finally I gave in and picked up the necessary ingredients. I decided yesterday that it was time to get project OSCCC underway. Today is Performance Evaluation day at work so I reckon everyone will appreciate a cookie (or two).

There is nothing much to say about the recipe itself, it's more about the assembly process. Essentially you take two scoops of cookie dough and smush it around an oreo. As per my usual insaneness I spent way too much time in front of the oven watching the first batch cook. I sit in anxiously hoping the cookies won't spread into each other. Nothing kills me more than cookies that touch when baking, i think that's a leftover fear from when I used to hate my food touching on my plate. My fears are not realized, the spread is minimal. The cookies come out nice and high and you can just tell that there's something magical about them. But until you bite or cut one in half the magicalness stays a secret. Of course I had to taste test and they are scandalously and deliciously delightful. I will have to put a sign up near the plate at work warning everyone that they are a Diet Wrecker. Five bucks says they're all gone by lunch time.

PS, the recipe came from this lovely blog called Picky Palate, here's the link: http://picky-palate.com/2011/01/06/oreo-stuffed-chocolate-chip-cookies/

Lost.ampersand.Found

Once upon a time there was a girl. This girl misplaced her ipod in the summer of 2010. She searched high and low; she scoured her penthouse, car and all of her belongings. She asked (some would say accused would be more apt term) all her family members, friends and even co-workers to no avail. She thought it would turn up sooner or later, pushed it out of her head and moved on.

Christmas time rolls around and Santa brings her an iPod shuffle. A sigh of relief she breaths. One long, unproductive month later, she finally downloads some songs onto her ipod and goes for a run. FANTASTIC! She wears it in the condo, plugs it in through her car adapter while she's driving and uses it for running. Every once in a while she gets pangs of jealousy at other's ipods who have screens and stop watches. She tries not to even think about their on-the-go playlist options and video capabilities. Occasionally she is hit with pangs of longing for her legendary playlists that were carefully cultivated. But as I mentioned, she moved on.

One super rainy Monday in her new life- Life after PodLoss- she is about to leave the office when a call comes in that she has to take. She borrows a co-workers computer and deals with the call. She grabs her stuff to leave and heads to the gym. After her first round of the circuit she grabs her water and goes to check her phone. "Hrmph, it's missing," she mumbles to herself. She realizes she's left it on her desk at work. She spends the next round on the circuit weighing the pros and cons of going back to work to get her phone. She finishes up and decides to do another check through her purse. The vastness of this purse definitely requires one to do more than 1 check. She begins again, taking everything out, searching carefully. Nothing. Hmm. The secret side pouch? Nah... Then she thinks, "What the heck," and reaches her hand in and feels something! A tampon - sad face - Hmm, a bit more scrounging and O. M. G! Her hand touches something electronic, she pulls it out. At first glimpse her heart literally stops in her chest. It's electric blue! Can it be? The long lost ipod!? It is! It is! Her mind flashes through all life's new possibilities, the playlists, the stop watching. It's a new day!

Damnit. The rejoicing ends abruptly. "Where the heck's my blackberry?!" She goes back to the office and retrieves her phone and all is right with the world.

Now that's winning! Duh:)

headBORED.

It's been a while since I've done any renovations. I believe the last reno was project Wallpaper, which turned into project- wallpaper-lighting-cabinet refinishing-tile regrouting. After a few months of recuperation I feel like I'm ready for another round of Projects Gone Wrong. Not that I go into a project trying to f it up. just happens.

The bane of my existence at the moment is my bedroom. It has so much potential to be a lovely little space but i have failed miserably in accomplishing that. i chose a lovely light gray for the walls and have a great bedding set that's white with black flowers. (sans bed skirt unfortunately).

however, the rest of the furniture and its arrangement as well as lack of headboard and wall hangings have finally gotten to me. It's t-shirt time! if you're not a jersey shore fan that just means it's time to get'er going and get'er done.

The main project (so far) is going to be a new headboard. I have a wooden headboard (the same one as on King of the Hill) that i could just use as is or perhaps re-stain to something more of my liking. It's a medium wood color that i think i would like better white washed. What i REALLY want to do though is upholster and tuft. An original Shelly Upholstered Tufted Super Duper Headboard.

I spent an obscene amount of time googling images and how-to articles in order to get an idea of the process. It's fairly straight forward. Here are the headboard pictures i collected, it's a fairly random assortment, but there's something about each one i like.  

Any input is certainly welcome. I have no idea how i'm going to pick the fabric or shape and size. I love white and will probably default to a large white headboard, but just think how amazing a plush teal suede headboard would be! Watson and i need your help.

30 Minute Hit.

I've been rather absent in bloggerville lately and would like to fake apologize for that.

Let me introduce my new hobby: 30 Minute Hit. It's a women's drop-in boxing/kick boxing circuit gym not far from my house. Here's the gist, you go around the circuit spending two minutes at each station with a fifteen second break in between. The guys who run the gym, lets call them S and L are always there helping slash yelling at us. it's essentially like having a personal trainer. i asked S the other day if anyone ever hits him, he said no, he's too cute to hit. often he throws out comments about my skills like, 'that wouldn't hurt a baby'. rather insulting, but certainly true. damn babies are indestructible. L has a European accent and is, therefore, way scarier than S. How about i give you a run down on the stations? I am going to shellify the names and perhaps make things up, but you'll get the gist. Yes, i said gist twice in one paragraph, and fyi it took me three spelling tries to get it right. Hang tight, i will google it and provide it's origin later in blog.

Station 1- Sir Skips-a-lot. two minutes of skipping, your choice on the method. i usually do a two foot jump at a rapid pace but often switch it up to Running Man and/or One Foot Fancy. One time i did the whole two minutes without messing up.

Station twosies: one-two punch. left hand, right hand combo. Usually fifteen second intervals of regular speed followed by a 'double up'- which is to go as fast as you can, but not as hard. make sure you push off the balls of your feet but don't pivot.

3- fantastic front kick. this can be switched up to a side kick or a back kick. my shitty hip flexers make the side kick nearly impossible, but my back kick is decent when i manage to get my aim right. the louder your kick sounds the cooler you are.

Number 4 is an Abs station. there is a ball there that often gets used. I've done sit ups, plank holds, straddle ball raises and elastic ab twists at this station. every time i go something new is thrown at me here.

Station 5 and we're back to punches. this one is a hook. left right hook with a double up every 15 seconds. i often get dizzy here.

Six is the kick bag. you kick the bag. i am terrible at this station. i am working on sucking less. i have to try really hard not to think so hard at this station or my kicks get worse. essentially you want to whip your leg around to connect your shin with the bag. S often tells me to kick like I'm chopping down a tree. Work in Progress.

Next is abs again. i usually flop to the floor in hopes i can get away with some crunches using a medicine ball. often i get instructed to do something way more exhausting than that. yesterday were seated crunches with the ball between my knees. i spent all two minutes whimpering like a loser.

8 is uppercuts. this is the station that i hurt my left wrist on. if you don't punch straight on you can do major damage to yourself. technique is everything..Directions: get in fighter stance, bend knees, come up with your left and hit the pad with the inside of your palm facing directly to you. hitting the bag on an angle will cause pain as well. the right hand, same thing, bend knees and as you are coming up use your momentum to hit with. this one makes me feel like Rocky.

Kicks again. an instep kick- this is how you would break your attacker's knee. You can also knee the pad here. my technique needs work.

Next we hit the floor and often do hip raises using the ball- this really works the back of the legs. Other times i do squats with the ball behind my back holding a weight in my hands.

11, we are on the floor and doing turtle kicks against a bag. fast and hard please.

Number 12 is a mishmash station depending how i feel slash what i am instructed to do.

LAST, lucky 13. this is where you meet Bob. He is the guy you get to punch, torso only. the pattern and frequency of your punches is up to your discretion. often i get told 'minimum of 4 hits' or, if I'm not sweating enough, to double up. I usually cheat at this station and i don't know why. maybe because it's the last one. maybe because i suck at life.

then, if you are smart, you go home. Normally, I [not smart] do the circuit again for a second time. 

As promised, here is a bit on GIST for you. I have to say i expected more of an interesting origin and/or even alternate, unexpected definitions, but was let down.

Definition: the main point or part : essence Origin: Anglo-French, it lies, from gisir to lie, ultimately from Latin jacēre — more at adjacent. First Known Use: circa 1711.

FYI, the next word in the dictionary is "git"! for shits and giggles, here's that definition as well: a foolish or worthless person. Synonyms: berk [British], booby, charlie (also charley) [British], cuckoo, ding-a-ling, dingbat, ding-dong, dipstick, doofus [slang], featherhead, fool [British], goose, half-wit, jackass, lunatic, mooncalf, nincompoop, ninny, ninnyhammer, nit [chiefly British], nitwit, nut, nutcase, simp, simpleton, turkey, yo-yo

i had a lepracon

Dear Friends,

Happy St Patty's Day!

May the beer go down smoothly...

and hopefully not come up again at a later time!

Love, Miss Watson.