The Call of the Child

I'm bored, she says. One week out of school, Christmas over, beautiful mild winter day outside and she says that she's bored. She got games, books, a ski tube, movies and music for Christmas but still she says, "I'm bored."

We adults hustle and bustle our way through life checking important tasks off of our "to do list" as we complete them. Do the laundry - check. Do the dishes - check. Get groceries - check. Shovel the walk, vacuum, chop kindling, take the garbage out, cook meals, clean up after cooking meals, tidy, mediate kiddie fights, drive everybody to their activities, shop....well, you get the idea.

What I wouldn't do to be bored right now!

Our Family Christmas {and last day of school}

Wordpecker jr. reporting our family Christmas eve {Christmas day}

Christmas Eve,

Usually we put out some snacks and deserts and then have some friends over and when they go home, we get dressed up and go to church, when we come back we get dressed up all cozy have more snacks and deserts then we would call up our friends and then we have fun talking and laughing and I would play with my friends till about 10:30pm or 11:00 pm. Then me and my brother would put out cookies and eggnog, carrots and celery out for "Santa and the reindeer."
Christmas day,

My brother and I will walk each other up then wake let my parents know were up {they are to} run down stairs and grab the stockings bring them up and open them up in mom and dads room then wake them up all the way and dad will ask for 10 more mins. and mom would get up after we keep telling them "get up please please please come on get up hurry up, meet you down stairs" mom would always be down behind use then dad about 5 mins. after {we would have to wait to open presents till dad got down, while we waited we would look at all the cool stuff in our stockings again} when dad got down we would pass out one present to everyone when the tree was bare at the bottom we would open some presents out of the packages and play while 'rents made breakfast. After breakfast we would get changed then go to Christmas with dads side of the family and when we got back we'd play with friends and our new toys.

{one thing is in our house the toys get packed under the bed or in the closet and get forgotten about after a couple months but we might remember them and look for them then play with them and they get packed away again}


On the last day of school before break we watched Mr. Bean's Holiday in french class then had a secret Santa I got lip gloss and chocolates. Then after recess we had English class / history/ drama went around the school and went caroling we sang Rudolph the red nose reindeer, silent night, jingle bells and we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year. When we got back we had just one activity in drama a invisible sculpting guessing game. In math class we had a math Olympics {we had a 30min's.}and I was with Elizabeth we were in 1 place then we got stumped on this one question then we finished 1min after time. {It was a really fun!!!}

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a good holiday and a happy new year.

a special message from,
Wordpecker jr.

Truffle Travesty

So here is how it happened...

I got home on Wednesday afternoon at about 5 pm. I heated up a can of beans for dinner (not kidding) and collected all of my ingredients. I got a little distracted with gift wrapping and realized at about 8 pm that I was running over schedule. I unwrapped my $13.00 worth of chocolate, poured my 35% cream and measured out 2 tbsp from my bottle of Grand Marnier. I heated the cream, added the chocolate, butter and liqueur. Following the directions, I placed the saucepan into the freezer to cool the mixture enough to work with. What? I have to wait one hour for it to harden? An hour? Are you kidding me? It's almost 9 pm!

At 10 pm, I removed the mixture from the freezer. Brandishing my melon baller, I began to scoop out balls of chocolate yummie-ness. Uh oh, I can't get it out of the melon baller. I have to scoop it out with a tiny little spoon. My vision of terrific truffles morphed into a reality of oblong abominations. Yikes!


"No problem," I think, "I can fix this." I read the instructions again -- place the truffles on a baking sheet and return to the freezer to harden. OK. I remove them after about 15 minutes later and try to shape them into perfectly round little balls only to find that they are melting into the palms of my hands. (I'm thinking that I should have made them with M&Ms.) I gently try to re-shape them with my fingertips while I melt the rest of my chocolate in a dish ready to cover these delightful little delicacies. I dunked one, two then three. I thought this part was going to be easier. It wasn't. The chocolate is much thicker than I thought it would be and it cools fast. I ended up having to throw out about 8 tbsp of chocolate and re-melt another batch to finish up. This task certainly didn't go as planned. The clock is racing past 10:30 pm and my eyes are starting to burn. I'm tired. I finished dunking the last of my truffles and put them into a container to finish setting.


At 11 pm I threw the dishes into the sink, soaked the chocolate stained dishcloths and headed to bed. I squirted some Spray & Wash on my sweater, dug chocolate out from beneath my fingernails and hopped into bed.


As I lay there trying to sleep, I added up my costs and figured that -- time included -- my truffles cost approximately $2.85 each. If the stain doesn't come out of my sweater, that will increase to about $3.43.


Next year I'm going to the drug store to buy Lindt Lindor Chocolate Truffles. In fact, I'll buy the biggest bag they sell and laugh all the way to the checkout! With or without a coupon, on or off sale, I'll laugh knowing that I paid WAY LESS than I did this year.

Here's the picture from the recipe.


Pretty don't you think?


I'm confident that they were made by Stepford Wives in a state of the art kitchen at 10:30 am on a Saturday morning. Damn those Stepford Wives and the Kraft Kitchens marketing machine. Damn them all!


4 more sleeps!

Christmas Baking

I managed to get most of my baking done on the weekend. I made:

Crunchy bars (12 o'clock covered in chocolate and pecans) You would never believe that these are made with saltines. They taste like Skor bars.

Shortbread with cranberries and pistachios (2 o'clock round cookies). I made these with whole wheat flour and the least amount of butter I could to keep the cookie from falling apart. They turned out quite well. Pretty and yummy!

• Candy Cane Bark (4 o'clock squarish things) made with white chocolate and smashed up candy canes. I don't like either of these ingredients, but they look nice in my gift baskets so I feel compelled to make them every year.


• White cranberry biscotti (7 o'clock biscotti-shaped cookies). These are by far my favourite treat. I will take half of the batch, dip one end of each slice in dark chocolate and then package them up in baggies. They look so pretty in a gift basket. I experiment with many different biscotti recipes and try to have a batch on hand. They go great with a cup of coffee or tea.


• Chocolate Candy Cane cookies (9 o'clock candy-cane shaped cookies). These things are chocolate cookies made with a package of cream cheese. It's the first year I've made them and I had quite a time getting the correct consistency for a cookie. My daughter drizzled white chocolate and topped them with candy cane pieces. I have to confess, they look better than they taste.

I also made cookie fudge (way too rich to eat) which is like giving the gift of sugar shock. I'm worried that these things are going to fall apart when I put them in gift baskets so I'll have to warn the recipients. No photo sorry. Just picture chocolate fudge with chunks of Oreo cookie sticking out.

I still have to make truffles and fruit balls. I've never made the truffles before but I'm looking forward to trying. I bought a bottle of Grand Marnier to add to the recipe (and a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream for the cook :) so I think they will be quite decadent. If they turn out I'll take photos and post them. If they don't, I'll steal a photo and take the credit anyway (tee hee).

I would love to post more photos but it takes somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes to upload over this connection. I absolutely HAVE to show you all the snow we're getting though. Amazing!

6 more sleeps gang!

11 More Sleeps

What a week it's been! Our customers at work are all preparing for the Christmas Holidays so they're beginning to stock up. This week was a record week for the comany's history. We roasted over 3200 lbs of coffee. Our record-breaking day was Tuesday when we roasted nearly half of that. Tuesday was nuts! I arrived a little before 8 am and started entering orders right away. I broke at 2 pm for a half an hour and then went back at it until 7 pm. I finished the shipping manifest at 7:30 and crawled out the door at 8:00 p.m. Whew! The production team stayed until 9:00 pm getting orders ready and were back in early the next morning. They do good work!

I checked on the status of my online Christmas order Monday night. I learned that one of the gifts for the kids will arrive on December 28th. Not good. I also discovered that I had ordered a gift that I already bought. It will arrive on the 18th. Hmmmm. I'll have to send that one back. Most of my items will arrive on December 21st which is, in my opinion, cutting it very close. I mean what if I find out on the 21st that the order is delayed? I felt so good placing that order on December 10th too. Maybe I was too smug in congratulating myself for getting my shopping done early.

I am going to get my ingredients for Christmas baskets today so that I can finish my baking tomorrow. I've decided on double chocolate candy cane cookies, cranberry biscotti, cookie bark, crunchy bars and truffles with orange liqueur. That reminds me, I have to add candy canes to my shopping list. I'll bake them all, wrap them in little baggies and drop them into my Christmas baskets. I like baking a lot. It relaxes me! I prefer to bake for other people, though, because I don't eat stuff like this. I couldn't! I'd weigh a tonne! I'll sample each batch to make sure I'm not sending out something inedible to my friends, but all but a very few pieces will leave the door by the time I'm done.

I'll take pictures of my goodies and my baskets and try to post them but I'm not making any guarantees. This connection has a maximum speed of 45.2 kbps. It might be faster to mail you some!

10 more shopping days 'til Christmas!

Parent-Teacher Interview

Just a short post tonight. I've been working on a letter for the organization I volunteer with and it went much later than I had planned.

Parent Teacher Interviews Tonight! Yee-haw!

I met with Reid's teachers. Two young guys barely out of school themselves I think. I heard how brilliantly Reid performed during class debates. Heard how he quickly processed information, formed responses (with no jot notes) and influenced opinions. Yup! He's bright. The flip side of that coin is that he doesn't try really hard. Reid would rather get his work done fast than get his work done well. My daughter Ally would rather get her work done perfectly than get it done fast. You won't find two more different children living in the same house.

Reid gets his quizzes done quickly by providing one-word answers that the teacher cannot use to measure his knowledge of the subject matter. Ally doesn't complete all of her quizzes because she takes extra time to formulate her answers and write them neatly into the space provided.

Reid is great at science, but he hasn't done enough work to convince the teacher that he knows his lessons. Similarly, he wastes time in music class looking for his book or cleaning his trombone when he should be practicing. His teacher told him tonight -- Reid, you must not accept mediocrity when you are capable of so much more.

Wise words I will repeat often in the next few months/years.

What about Ally? No interview required at this time. Yesssss!

In Danger of Dorky

I am coming to the slow realization that I may be a dork. I should come with my own little warning (like my car mirror) -- Object may appear dorky when in the company of others.

I don't know if it's a phase. I hope it's a phase. Lately it seems as though my life is overflowing with these painfully long moments where I feel like an awkward kid in a room full of grown ups. It happens at work more often than not, though that's likely because I don't often socialize when I'm off the clock. I describe myself as an introvert though I think I'm in danger of being the neighbourhood's crazy shut-in. Are they still called hermits?

Keep in mind that most of my customers are either driven entrepreneurs of the Type A variety or wide-minded hippies in search of organic health food instead of buying poisoned groceries. I'm way too apathetic to be an entrepreneur or a conspiracy theorist. I am more of a free-spirit; more easy-going; laid back in a way that Laz-Y-Boy only wishes it could be. See the way I flaunt my complete disregard for grammar and punctuation? It's my Blog, I'll do what I want. Maybe I just notice it more when I'm at work because I find it so difficult to identify with my customers.

I was born in a time when Doris Day's anthem Que Sera Sera established a tone of apathy for an entire generation. Whatever will be, will be. We've since shortened that to .... whatever. What do you want for dinner? Whatever. What do you want to do with your life? Whatever. What do you think about spontaneous human combustion? Whatever. OK, well that last one is an exaggeration because I have definite opinions about SHC, but you get the idea. Whatever! Nothing that happens to me today will so damage me that I will not rise again tomorrow (save being hit by a bus). I will outlive my mistakes and survive my embarrasments. Whatever!

Why is it then that I feel so damn out of place? Really. My boss and I talked about having someone visit our customer locations to help boost sales. I conceded that while I have an outgoing phone personality, I am a dork in person. If you don't believe me, put me in a room full of people that I barely know (without a drink in my hand) and see how I fall apart. Onlookers would believe that my first language is not English. People unfortunate enough to find themselves in a conversation with me will never find a longer list of short answers. You could extract my tooth easier than my position on religion in public schools. I think I could even put Dale Carnegie on edge.

I'm going to move forward with the notion that this is a phase. I think that I can overcome "dorky." I think that I can even overcome it with little or no effort. I think "dorky" might be a state of mind fed by niggling self-doubt. I bet that with a little rest, maybe a full-body massage, a haircut and a pedicure, I might be able to leave "dorky" behind.

Hopefully in a month or two I look back at this post and think "What the heck were you thinking?"

Then there was light!

I bought Christmas lights on Saturday. They are the new LED lights that save energy and last up to 200,000 hours. They are lovely and shimmery and they are called "Icy white." They look a little bit blue against the snow. They are perfect, I love them! I'm really getting into the spirit of the season. Maybe it's all the snow.

I read all of the instructions, filed the guarantee and put the boxes away in safe spot so that I can properly repackage the lights when the holidays are over. The Energy Savings Comparison Chart tells me that I have made a wise choice.

To light 600 LED lights for 30 days (at 6 hours per day) I will only spend a measly 45 cents. Compare this to a string of 600 incandescent mini lights which cost $6.00 for the same period. Compared again to 600 C6 incandescent lights for $13.35 or C7 incandescent lights for $31.30. I know for a fact that I own a string of mini incandescent lights but I have no idea what a C6 or C7 is so maybe I do, or maybe I don't have 'em.

I bought the string of mini incandescent lights for $.99 at a Boxing Day Sale. My new LED lights cost $19.99 each. I bought 4 sets. Throw in tax and I'm in to these lights for $90.20 though that includes a gallon of windshield washer fluid. Let's round down to $87.98. Hmmmm. Four dollars and change versus $87.98. Guess I have to capitalize on the good-will feeling I get from buying a "green" product.

The box on my new LED lights says that they are virtually unbreakable and that the bulbs last up to 200,000 hours. Let's hope this is more accurate that the long-lasting CFL bulbs. I saw a segment on the news last week where our Environment Minister held a press meeting at the local Home Depot. He made a big show out of depositing a CFL bulb into a special recycling bin. You can't just send these bulbs out to the landfill. It suddenly struck me that these things are supposed to last 20 years -- way longer than traditional incandescent bulbs. How is it then that we are now already educating the public about recycling 20-year lightbulbs that have only celebrated their...what?...third, fourth, fifth birthday? Hey Environment Minister, while you were at Home Depot, you should have dropped a battery into the recycle bin. People are throwing them out with household waste and have been for years and years!

I think that there is probably a sharp-minded fifth grader out there that can tell me how long I need to use each set of lights my bulbs until the cost to operate them PLUS the cost to purchase them equals out.

Hey kids, whaddya say, feel like earning some extra credit?