Now with 100% more stove!

So last week I left off bemoaning my lack of stove.

Here's the replacement!

It's everything I hoped it would be.  And there's even a (not so) Hidden Mickey in there as well.

The less said about Week 2 of Elf 4 Health the better, I never got it together last week at all.  This week shall be better though!

Without stove for the week

Friday evening I got home from work, did a fantastic workout and, once done, turned on the oven to make our traditional Friday Frozen Pizza dinner.  Then, upstairs to shower (it was that good of a workout) and just as I was about to step under the water I heard a loud POP! (and I may have seen a flash of light...but that could also have been my imagination). 

So, half dressed, I go and check it out.  It didn't actually explode, but tripped the breaker.  Odd.  Flipped the breaker back to on and then the stove started beeping like when you turned the timer on. 

But I hadn't done that.

It was cycling through it's test program (I presume) and would. not. stop. beeping.

Off, goes the breaker to stop the noise and then I realize that we're without oven (and range...since OMG! the beeping!) until either a) hubby fixes the damn thing, or b) we buy a new one.

Saturday we do some research and fixable, but no guarantee it will work.  So I'm the proud owner of a new convection range.

However,

It won't be at my house until Thursday.  That's a lot of days without "proper" cooking.

So far we've:

 - Ordered pizza

 - Went to a friends house for dinner

 - Made Thai curry in the crock-pot (with microwaved rice)

 - BBQ'd in the snow.

Not sure what's on the menu today and tomorrow.

Entertaining

Took it easy today because we had people over to watch UFC 101 last night. I always think that we don't do any entertaining, when we actually have people over about every other week. But it's almost always very laid back; BBQ steaks or burgers, hanging out in the kitchen, maybe watching a sporting event or movie.

I made bacon wrapped jalapenos from Pioneer Woman and they were a hit. I could have easily made two or three times the amount and they would have been gone.

But how could anything with bacon be bad?

We had fun, spent most of the time chatting in the kitchen, as always, and then watched the show in the basement because we've realized our furniture is not big enough for more than three adults at a time.

Got to sleep in a bit this morning and then went and raided the garden for more potatoes, carrots, beets, beans and spinach.

Now just watching a Poirot movie while finishing up laundry. Then bed.

Fun times, fun times.

Soooo Tired

I feel like Tired Taz today. It's hot here and even though we installed A/C last year (the majority of people in the city don't have it because we only get a few weeks of really hot weather) it's still tough to sleep at night.

Tonight will be clean up, laundry and packing for the flight tomorrow. Adam hasn't buggered off (yet) like he normally does the night before we go away. There are occasions where we're not totally on the same page and it causes mild frustration; getting ready for vacation is one of them. So this time I told him if he was playing ball tonight (Thursday) then he had to be packed and ready to go by Wednesday (yesterday).

So I will have help getting ready. Yay!

Printed off all of our tickets and stuff, one less thing to worry about tomorrow.

Must call my mom and make sure she can drop us off at the airport. We'll spend a good ten minutes trying to figure out what time she should be at our house. As a family growing up the only person who could make an actual decision was my sister. We haven't improved much since then.

Must find someone to water our plant (singular) while we're gone.

Locate passports

Make sure Air Canada hasn't gone on strike

and the most important thing;

Download some books for the oodles of free time I'll have. With a four year old.

Yeah. Right.

The Sound of Blissful Silence

Saturday morning the husband and the boy went away. For the whole day AND night.

It was wonderful.

And it only took the promise of a parade with candy to get the four year old to go.

I got groceries without having to worry about the two of them adding stuff to the cart.

I cleaned the bottom floor of the house (can't expect too much on my one day off) and made myself homemade chicken fingers for lunch...and did the laundry (I accomplished a lot, whoda thunk it?)

Went shopping with my mom and sister.

Came home and the house was in the exact same state it was in when I left. It was blissful.

Made salsa and guac for dinner, with a nice glass of chardonnay, and read the entire evening.

Like until midnight.

Woke up to peace and quiet and a still clean house. Ate breakfast and got ready at my leisure, then went to see the husband play ball. While it rained.

Except for the rain it was a real nice weekend.

Tan

My Garden, such as it is.

(Just a little Alberta background)

Calgary's climate is semi-arid and is in Zone 3a for Plant Hardiness. We get about 169 frost free days a year, 115 of them are consecutive from end of May to mid September.

Unless it was this year when we got frost and snow well into June. And because I'm lazy I didn't even bother with bedding out plants or my plans for raised boxes in my garden area.



See the area between the garage and the fence? We don't use it for anything, it gets a ton of sunlight and would be perfect for a garden.

Next year.

This is the only plant that we have.



Got this tomato plant at Wal-Mart and it took off better than any we've had before. Of course, we're watering it properly and put it into a right sized pot so it doesn't keep tipping over (took a few tries for us to figure that out).

It's got a bunch of flowers and ten or so tiny little tomatoes. Don't know when they'll be ripe, but it's exciting to see something growing :)

Until next time,

Tania