Fall Fair at Fort Edmonton and Catching Up

Hello my friends,
I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while - things have been pretty busy here! My work at the Library is going very well and I'm really enjoying my job.
Fall is in full swing here, easily noticeable by the high of +13 degrees today. The wind has been crazy; we had a wind storm three days ago and the wind is still going strong.

A few weeks ago, Jeremie and I went to Fort Edmonton for their Fall Fair. It was a glorious sunny day with a cool breeze. Jeremie and I got to watch soap making, spinning, live musicians, historical demonstrations and were able to participate in free classes such as "Wheat Weaving." It was so much fun! Below are a few of the many pictures I took while we were there:

(He was kind enough to pose for me mid-song.)

(This lady was in the middle of making bannock. )

(A live black-powder gun demonstration - which scared the heck out of everyone when it was fired. )

A few days later, Jeremie and I visited a corn maze with friends. It was huge! We made the mistake (on purpose) to go at night. We were wandering around a huge corn-maze in the pitch black and all we had was the light from my cell-phone, as our flashlight decided just then to die on us.

This farm, however was not just a maze. It had a petting zoo, a boutique, a BBQ, little classes on how to make corn-husk dolls, and a haunted house!

This was at the corn maze, the poem reads:

"Peter, Peter, Pumpkin eater, had a wife but couldn't keep her.

So he stuck her in a pumpkin shell, and there he kept her very well."

Jeremie and I picked up this bird feeder today. I wanted to get something for the birds that stayed here over the winter, which are especially harsh here in Alberta.

It's right outside the kitchen window, so we can watch the birdies closely, and so it can drive the cat crazy. :D

Well, that's it for my quick catch-up! I will try to post again soon!

God Bless,

~ Jenny

Picnic Time

Jeremie and I had a lovely picnic today in Hawrelak Park. It warm, but with a cooling breeze and very quiet - no busy, crazy families today!
We went to the grocery store and bought our favourite picnic food: Kaiser Buns, Cheese, Ham and Potato Salad; we brought grapes and apple sauce from home
A big old comforter was spread out and a couch pillow finished the set-up.
With us came books, my sketch-book and a writing tablet.
It's funny how we always bring so much to "amuse" ourselves with, but all we end up doing is lounging and chatting.
Before we knew it, two hours had flown by; so we packed up our gear, threw it in the car and went for a nice walk.

It was so nice sitting by water again, even if it is just a large pond. The sound is always so soothing and I would have fallen asleep lying there in the sun, had I not felt a tickling on my face and had to fight a long piece of grass out of Jeremie's teasing hands.

It was a very nice day indeed. I wish I had remembered my camera, but this post will have to do for now.

- Jenny

My Art Room

I have successfully turned ugly room into a fairly nice crafting room. It has since become my place of refuge and peace. When its messy, crazy and loud in the rest of the house I find myself holing up here and relaxing.
Here is a picture of my desk - well, technically table. My sister-in-law and her husband recently bought a very cool retro looking table, so mine was no longer needed.


I have my sewing machine, my books and pencil crayons all ready!


This is my bookshelf that currently wasn't being used either. I have here an unfinished sock monkey, an unfinished sock goblin and Mr. Bunkins, who unfortunately cannot be seen from behind the sock goblin.
My little stereo is lovely for playing music while I work or listening to books on tape.


My mother would be so proud! I folded and organized all my material. Previously it was all either in a plastic bin or plastic garbage bags! This is definitely an organized step up!


I have recently (very recently) taken up water-color painting. I bought this small palette of paints and two brushes to add to my already existing collection of brushes. I have a new found and deep respect for watercolor artists. It is unbelievably difficult! And I would be the first to tell about my own horrible ability concerning any art with colour. I have always been a strict black-and-white girl. But I wanted to try something new.

This is my first pitiful attempt. I seriously considered not to post this as it hurts the pride more then I'm willing to admit, but it's good to see your development. If you're wondering what that writing is in the top-right hand corner; it's notes. Notes to myself. Here's my first entry:

"My first attempt. Pretty horrible, feeling discouraged.
Jeremie says I need more practice. Maybe."

This is my second attempt. A landscape scene. It still makes me cringe.

My third attempt. Finally some encouragement! I tried my hand at some flowers.

I decided then that maybe I should stick to Flowers for the time being. I did these two and was pretty happy with the result. They didn't look like blobs and that was good enough for me! :)

I did this one today - and it was crazily difficult despite the easy-looking composition. The background I'm not happy with, but I like the shading on the building and the foliage.

Jeremie has been my biggest supporter. Even when I wanted to throw the sketchbook out the window and just admit defeat, he's been so encouraging and helpful. Reminding me to just practice, and how no matter how critical I am of my artwork, he always seems to find so much in it to compliment me on. <3

We'll see if I can keep up the trend of slowly getting better with each piece of artwork. In the meantime I'm reading every watercolour book I can get my hands on, and just remembering to stay encouraged.

- Jenny

Tale Of The Missing Wallet and Heritage Day '09

Last week was Heritage Days in Edmonton. 5 days where you can walk around one of our parks and visit the entire world (more or less) by visiting the booths and vendors all run by people representing that country.
Despite being a rainy, cloudy day, it was the most fun I've had yet at any of Edmonton's many fairs.
Here's Jeremie and I sitting outside of the Eritrean booth.

We walked around all day and was thrilled when the sun decided to make an appearance. We ate ethnic food and drink. Did a bit of shopping and watched the many presentations that day.
Here the women of Lao are dancing. It was all very cool.

However one of the most interesting and amazing presentations was the Dragon dancing. It was spectacular. The aerobics and stunts these young children can do are mind boggling.

Their show lasted a good 20 minutes. When it was over, the boys under the dragon were sweating buckets - I don't blame them!

The dragons themselves were completely adorable, and did everything from wink, flutter their ears and wag their tails!

Not only did they preform, but they did it all standing on small poles and stilts!

Here I believe we were in Africa, but it may have been the Congo. I told Jeremie we should get one of those masks to hang on the wall, but he said they "creeped him out". Lol! I wanted the Zebra one. It's almost right in the middle on the left, with the strips and little ears.

So the day went by wonderfully until we got home and Emilie and I decided to get a Starbucks iced tea. I went to pay and I felt my stomach drop to my toes.
My wallet wasn't there! I have a pretty deep purse, one of those sling/bag types and I just about dumped my purse in the Starbucks to find it.
Emilie was kind enough to pay for my drink and encouraged me by insisting it must be in the car. I ran back to the car and dug under all the seats - Jeremie (who was waiting there) asked me wide-eyed what was wrong.
Almost crying now I told him I lost my wallet.

This was monumental for me. I've never lost my keys, my purse, my cell phone and definitely not my wallet. Needless to say, I did when I generally do, and freaked out.

But I called my bank and cancelled my credit card and debit right away. As it was a holiday I couldn't phone the police or call the Registration office.
This was a big loss, not only did my drivers licence and health card reside there, but my SIN card and birth certificate was in there as well.
The chances of my wallet being returned if a good Samaritan found were even slimmer as the address on my license was my old address, previous to Edmonton.

I knew it'd take months to get all ID back not to mention the mound of paper work I'd have to fill out.
That night I had a nightmare about my lost wallet, and I woke up relieved, then had that horrible sinking feeling again.

I slouched to the computer and checked my email. An interesting email appeared from the youth pastor of my former church.

"Jen - I got a weird phone call from a lady who needs to get in touch with you immediately. ..It could be about your wallet??" He gave me the name and phone number.

Holding my breath I dialed it right away and was soon was talking to a nice woman who said that yes she did have my wallet.
I could have kissed this woman - I did a happy dance while writing down her address and had a fit of hysterical laughter that brought most of the house questioning my sanity.

An hour later I was on my way to the house with a bunch of flowers as a "thank you." Jeremie and I were greeted by a lovely older Mexican couple who invited us in and gave me a good talking-to about not having all my ID in one wallet.
They apparently had looked for an hour for me, online, the yellow-pages and my ID. They had found my youth pastors photography card and rang him. And he knew how to contact me.

Truly the power of prayer!

- Jenny

Cookin' Time

Today is my day off - so I have time to make a good dinner tonight. I'll be making Chicken with a sauce I got from the blog: "Mennonite Girls Can Cook" It's simply called "Yummy Sauce for Chicken," and it sure looks like it!

I've also been creeping all over http://www.allrecipes.com/ again. I keep forgetting that it's such a great site. I found this recipe for Creamy Rice Pudding which will be dessert tonight.

I also made, from that site a Triple Threat Fruit Smoothie. I used all fresh fruit: Kiwi's, bananas, blueberries, then added orange juice, ice and vanilla yogurt.
No sweetener added, just all the fruity-goodness.

I made two large glasses and put them in the fridge, the top covered with Saran-wrap. I wanted Jeremie to have a nice shot of fruit for the morning, which worked out well. Except that the fruit and the juice separated. Once stirred it was fine, but it definitely wasn't as sweet and fresh as when I made it the night before.
Is it possible to keep smoothies overnight and have them nice and fresh??

In other news I got some fun stuff from the library. I was able to borrow "Hell's Kitchen Season 1" for Jeremie, he just loves that show.

And for me, I got "Project Runway" - unlike America's Next Top Model, this has nothing to do with catty, prissy models.
It's all about the poor designers that have to work with them.

A group of 12 designers, ranging in age from 22 to 45, are given challenges to complete and at the end of the challenge have to show their clothing on the cat-walk in front of judges. (using models of course.)
These people are amazingly talented - creating a wedding dress in two days, a new outfit for Banana Republic in one day, or a bathing suit in just 5 hours!
The skill astounds me, and it's so great to watch.

So I'll be cooking and watching fashion today! Good day to me. :D

- Jenny

Getting Organized - A Lovely Day Off

Today I was lucky enough to have the day off and get myself organized.
I was relaxing and enjoying the quiet morning when I realized I had not prepared anything for dinner - or had anything planned.
Quickly I strode to the freezer and glanced at the clock. Only noon - Good I have lots of time. Hubs wasn't expected home until 5:30 - so most of the afternoon was free for me to make a scrumptious dinner - If I had the ingredients.
My face fell when I saw the two pounds of hamburger meat chilling. I had just made meatloaf a few days ago, and didn't feel like making another loaf.
I thought and thought, before finally remembering I had a honest-to-goodness live recipe book with all the answers just a phone call away!

"Mom?. . . I have two pounds of ground beef. What should I make?"

"Well you just did Shepherds pie right?" Darn! I did too! "What about meatloaf?"

"I made that just a few days ago!" I said dismayed.

From the background noise I heard my sister yell: "Meatballs!"

I thought for a moment and realized I had pasta and sauce, I supposed I could throw in a few meatballs to spice it up.

"What about Sweet and Sour Meatballs on rice?"

"Perfect! But how do I make it?"

We figured it all out, and apparently I had the recipe in my Company's Coming Crock-Pot Recipe book.
Bizarrely I even had the cranberry sauce in the cupboard - a left over from Thanksgiving it seemed.
Everything went smoothly until it told me to broil the meatballs before placing them in the sauce in the crock-pot.
I called up mom again.

"Jen - there's three ways to make meatballs: Broil them, Bake them or Boil them. Boiling being the quickest."

Since it was now 2:00 and the crock pot recipe called for 4 -6 hours of cooking time, quick sounded pretty good.
I carefully placed my meatballs in the boiling water, my expectant face furrowing when I saw all the floating bits of onion and meat.

AHHH! They're falling apart!! It was a big deal! I was on a time limit here! I didn't have time for crumbly meatballs!

Well, they didn't crumble completely, but they sure seemed a lot smaller out of the pot than when they went in.
Sadly I dumped them into the crock-pot and gingerly tried to coat them in the sauce. The delicate meatballs however burst apart at the softest touch from my wooden spoon.
Completely upset now I called mom.

"Jen it's okay! It'll all taste fine - don't worry!"

Well, it sure didn't look like the picture in the recipe book, but it did taste pretty good.

"Jen, just call it sweet and sour beef on rice" Nessa suggested.

I had to laugh - okay, I guess I could do that. Jeremie loved it regardless, just like I knew he would, and now we have very nice lunches for tomorrow.

My other accomplishment today was organizing Ugly Room. We had moved into that room a week ago, but due to work and general busy-ness, it never got done.
Well I had finally had, had enough of tripping over baskets of laundry, and my little woven baskets of knick-knacks.

Here is the end result:

I even hung a little picture - It's amazing what a little colour in a white room can do!

The end of our bed, and dresser that fits quite nicely between the two closets.

A lovely rug I bought at Safeway for an awesome $39.00

So all in all it's been a very good, organized day!

- Jenny

Taste of Edmonton

So I finally ventured to "Taste of Edmonton 2009." It was actually really fun.
You bought tickets then spent the tickets at different vendors which would give you a sample of their food. There was generally two choices per vendor.
My favourite was the rice pudding from a Korean restaurant, Jeremie's favourite was the pad thai.

We both had a bunch of fun, there were people everywhere though. The crowd was huge, but still manageable. There was a live band playing and a wading fountain to cool off in.
It was a stinking hot 33 degrees, but it didn't seem to stop people from eating hot food on the sweltering sun.
The hottest thing I ate was a deep-fried Mars bar. I remembered my sister telling me once how amazing it was - and it was delicious, but I think I would have appreciated it more had I myself not been melting in the heat.

I've been going to "Planet Organic" a lot. A local organic market - I do have to be choosy of course, as Organic tends to be quite a bit more money. But for things like fresh veg and some fruits, I find it worth it.

I bought Jeremie a light cotton shirt, and he's been just living in it that past few days. Like any fair-skinned person, he burns easily, so when he found he could be covered and cool, it just took the cake.
It's tan coloured and tunic-style with a small collar and three buttons that go halfway down his chest. With his shaggy wavy blond hair, he looks just like a hippie. It's pretty funny.

I borrowed this book from the Library a few weeks ago - I had seen it at the bookstore, but decided to borrow it first before buying, and boy, do I love it.

It reads so well, and is interesting from cover to cover. It's informative without being full of lingo and resourceful in a very practical way.

Did I mention it's also Canadian?!? Heck yes it is!

I've already recommended it to Mom, but I thought I'd share it with everyone else too.

It covers everything from beauty/bath products, food, clothing, personal hygiene, cleaners for your house - everything! All backed with Internet sites, resources, and store guides. It talks about different chemicals and ingredients without being confusing, and talks about how alot of "organic" labeled isn't quite as organic as it sounds.

So if you're worrying about what you're eating/cleaning/absorbing into your body, I would check out this book. You won't be disappointed.

Well, enough babbling from me!

- Jenny