Time Flies . . .

I can't believe the weekend is gone already! I managed to get my bedroom mostly rearranged, got rid of the smeggy carpet and did a bazillion loads of laundry. \\sigh\\ I still have to put away all that laundry and reclaim the rest of the bedroom furniture from the greenhouse and my kitchen.

We got a new foster dog yesterday. Lucky for me someone else brought her down from Nanaimo so I didn't have to stop the laundry process. She will be here for about a week before heading to her new home. What a cute little thing (she's the black one)! Don't let the pic fool you, she is tiny. I'll get a shot of her next to Darwin and Cuinn for perspective.


On a not so good note, Mr Cuinn decided to potty in the house. \\sigh\\ He has separation anxiety and usually goes to Niko during the day but I thought with company he'd be OK. I guess because she was crated and he was loose he thought I'd abandoned him.

Today at school was a busy one. I was running all day putting together Chicken Kiev because Casey didn't do any prep on Friday. \\grrr\\ Now I've got to go do homework, after I run to the library and the grocery store.

So far, so good

I've had a busy month and even had to spend a chunk of it sans computer. Hence the lack of blogging. So far this month I've:

1. Gotten a new computer!! \\insert happy dance here\\ I was ready to throw my old hunk of junk out the window. Never buy a Compaq, no matter how good the deal or the financing. I got a cool custom build from Sneakers for one third of what the Compaq cost me and Selena even got to choose the tower. Finally got a neutered mouse too.
   


2. Spent my student loan $$. A large chunk of it for tuition, of course, and the above computer. The rest on the neccessities of life and a few books from E-Bay (books are neccessities aren't they?).
   


3. Ran a booth at the Duncan Pet Fair for my greyhound group. Unfortunately, it was an overcast day, then the skies opened so attendance was low. Too bad as I spent an hour at Staples getting brochres photocopied the night before. \\sigh\\ I was so wet and cold when I got home that I curled up in my fuzzy blanket and took a nap.
   


4. The next day we went to a Greyhound Planet Day walk and picnic in Victoria. We rented a van so we could travel comfortably and safely (my wipers still aren't fixed). It was a nice Grand Caravan, the kind with the seats that fold up and disappear. Very cool. Niko came with Darwin, I took Cuinn and both kids, and we met Rowena at the park. It was a nice relaxed walk.
   
   The picnic was fun until someone gave me crap about Cuinn's nails being too long. Apparently if greyhound's nails aren't clipped regularly and kept quite short their feet flatten out. Well, Cuinn's feet are flat and he came that way, I didn't do anything to him. His nails also aren't any longer than any of the other dogs at the picnic, just more noticable with his flat feet. She was very snotty and pissed me off, but as usual I didn't think of any comebacks until it was too late.
   


5. Made soup. Lots and lots and lots of soup. Monday I made thick potato and leek, Tuesday I made chicken gumbo and Wednesday I made french onion. Yesterday, today and tomorrow and worked on (and will be working on) chicken stock and a brown veal stock. Last week I made bechamel sauce - twice, I also served caesar salad and made fettucine primavera.
   
   We were broken into our working groups this week. My group is starting in the cafeteria and consists of my car pool (Sarah and Casey), Kyle and Joey. Kyle works in a nice restaurant so he already knows a lot and is easy to work with, Joey on the other hand is fresh out of high school so thinks he knows everything. Casey is even worse, he thinks he knows everything and is constantly telling everyone else (except Kyle) what to do. If he doesn't can it soon one of us is going to clock him one! Sarah drives like a bat out of hell, but doesn't tell anyone else what to do - I like her.
   
   Technically we have one other group member, Michelle (the talkative one I met at Student Services) but she hasn't shown up since Wednesday last week. That means the rest of us have to cover her station, luckily Jen is a super fast dish washer and picthes in even though she's in the other group.
   
   I've decided to blog about school more often to save poor Niko from the daily updates. Every day when I go to get Cuinn, I give her a run down of what happened. I'm sure she has better things to do than listen to her overtired sister rant. Like draw more Fey. Please. Must have more . . .
   


6. Went to bed early. Thank the Gods for digital TV! Otherwise I'd never see my shows. Lucky for me with digital I can catch the east coast feed at 6 and 7 instead of trying to stay awake until 9 and 10. These early mornings are making me feel o-l-d with a capital O.
   


7. Did homework. Can't remember the last time I did that. Okay, I can and it was a looong time ago. We have a test tomorrow that I guess I should study for, not too much though since it's multiple guess.
   

Mystery Solved!

I finally found the author of that medieval mystery I read that takes place in Jerusalem during the Crusades. His names is Simon Beaufort and the book is called Murder in the Holy City. And, the best part, he's written more! Yeah!

And Phew! That was really bugging me. One more thing off my list of things that keep me awake at night.

Pleeeaase, Start Already

Ahhh!! I love my kids but they are driving me insane. They can't be in the same room for more than 2 minutes without fighting. Thank the Gods school starts on Tuesday! This has been one loooonnng summer.

Dogs and Bears and Pigeons, Oh My!

• Dogs - huge surprise when we got home from shopping on Friday, Mum had gone over and taken the dogs out to potty! We were stuck in Victoria because of an accident on the Malahat, so she took the boys out not only to pee but for a long walk around the yard. It's surprising because she is not a dog person, although she does like Cuinn and Darwin.
  


• Bears - Selena and Mum have seen a juvenile black bear twice this week. Both times they only saw his (?) rear as he headed for the hills, but it's enough for me to keep wandering Iolaus cat in at night. We also picked up a bear bell while we where in Victoria.
  


• Pigeons - Niko acquired a pigeon yesterday. It turned up outside my ex's place near Victoria on Friday morning. He discovered it pecking his sliding door and when he opened the door it came in the house. It is banded so he checked with his neighbours, they phoned around and found the owner. Turns out this kid got "tired of feeding it" so he let it go. \\Grrr\\ My ex phoned to see it we wanted to take it, Niko being a small animal fan said yes and now we have a pigeon in our chicken coop (no chickens).
  
  We're now keeping an eye out for one or two more to keep it company. It's a beautiful black and white bird, fairly tame and friendly - Niko thinks it might be a nun pigeon. I say "it" because we haven't figured out it's male or female. Anyone know how to sex a bird?
  

Chicken and Salmon and Garlic, Oh My!

Now you know what we did in cooking school this week.

We roasted chicken, dismembered it and froze it. Then we dismembered more chicken, deboned it and froze it. We also learned to fillet salmon, debone it, and you guessed it, freeze it. Then we learned to correct way to prep carrots and onions, and my team peeled 5 million cloves of garlic (I can still smell it on my fingers). The last day of class we learned to slice carrots and onions (and not our fingers) and we got to cook them.

I mastered the "flipping in the pan" technique without getting food everywhere, made some yummy carmelized onions and worked on my carrot slicing. We also got to blanch the carrots, cool them, then reheat them with the onions. And finally, we got to eat them! Mine had too much pepper . . .

I also spent almost 500 bucks on books and knives. Actually by the time I add the gadgets I bought in Victoria and binders, etc, it's well over 700. \\sigh\\

I did get a nice pair of Docs (since we need black shoes for the kitchen, might as well get the best), a sharpening stone, a meat thermometer, and a tiny Micro Plane grater (don't really need it, but it's really cool!). I found a fun silver Sharpie that I'm going to use to personalize my knife bag (everyone has the same one). I want to get a pair of pliers for fish deboning, and some fabric paint for the knife bag.

We also got our uniforms. I still need to get a pack of white T's to go underneath, hopefully that will mean I won't have to wash the top every day if I can keep food off it (that should be interesting). The really fun part is that we have to be there 30 minutes earlier next week. \\Argghh\\

Why is it? #2

Why, why, why when you go shopping looking for something specific you can never find it?

We went to Victoria to pick up a few things on Friday and had to look all over town for them, or at least it felt that way. I dispise shopping with a passion, so that made it worse. Really, I found what I wanted in the first store of the second mall.