I'm a retard in the kitchen... good thing I have other skillzzz!

Wow! I was all pumped to make some Almond Roca tonight... I bought all the ingredients and had them sitting on the counter (butter in the fridge, of course) waiting to be made. Well, I finally had the time tonight to make it!
OMG... how does someone screw up candy soooo bad???


Ok Ladies... what the hell happened? I boiled the sugar and butter mixture, was doing the water test and I only got up to soft ball (barely) and all the sudden the mixture started to seperate, into crystalized sugar and cured butter (oil). What the hell???

Check out how much oil I got back --------------------->
(that's from the two batches, gone wrong!)


The first batch seems like crystally sugar, the second batch is hard as a rock.
It was like my stove couldn't quite hit the perfect temperature. :(
What a failure!

Happy New Years to ME!

Back on the board!

Earl asked me if I wanted to go snowboarding today (just to COP, the hill in the city) and I really wanted to try out my new board and bindings, so I went. (Check out the pic at the left. That's my new LTD. board with the new Flow bindings that Ken sent me!)

Fun Fun! Nice weather (-4 to -8oC)! My new board and bindings felt great! (Flow bindings rock!!! I'll never go back!) First few runs were iffy but once I got the hang of it, I was flying!

I did fall a few times... one time pretty bad on my knees. Ouch! Skidded along on the ice groomed hill, not fun.

I'm sure I'll have bruises tomorrow :( Oh well, no pain, no gain!

Stupid People!

Apparently, my parcel was at the Greyhound ALL THIS TIME, and I was none the wiser. WTF? All the calls when I asked if my parcel had arrived and I got "No" was b.s.!
The Greyhound needs to get thier heads out of their asses and design a real system for tracking parcels. The post office seems to have it figured out! (most of the time)

Anyways, that's what grinds my gears... the Greyhound Courier service.

back home, taking it easy! Ahhh...

well, I decided to cut my Christmas holiday short... well, I'm still on time off, just came home early. I have to learn some new choroeography for my fitness classes, and I just wanted to spend some time alone (or maybe go snow boarding... but I can't now, cause I still don't have my bindings... the parcel still has not been recieved by the bus depot!!!)
Jenny, do not send out parcels through greyhound during Christmas week ever again!!!

My mom knit me a gorgeous shawl/wrap with this black fur like yarn... it's so pretty! I'll wear it with dresses to Christmas parties and stuff. I'll post a picture when I take one of it.

BTW... I made Christmas CRACK this past week, and we ate it ALL!!! OMG, now that I know it's so easy to make... you know I'll be making it ALL the time!!! And DAMN it tastes soooo freaking good! Thanks for the recipe Suz! :)

Can't get enough baking :)

Well, I came home, to Leduc, for Christmas a couple days ago. It's been just the break I needed.
I've had a one track mind since I got here: Christmas Baking! lol

Since I got here we've made:
Turtles (from a store bought box)
Magic Cookie Square
OH Henry Square
Lemon Coconut Square
Almond Rocca
CottageCheese Cake (Cheese cake made with Cottage Cheese, Mom's choice!)

So far, the turtles turned out meh... OH Henry square is good... Magic Cookie square: bland.
We haven't tried anything else yet. We have high hopes for the last 3 squares... I guess it just took us a few squares to get into the baking groove ;)

... I'm going to be 5 pounds heavier when you hear from me next! LOL

Parcel, Parcel, WHERE ARE YOU???

Still no parcel. :(
I'm waiting for all the Christmas gifts Jenny sent over from Nanaimo so that I can bring them with me to Leduc when I visit my family... I might have to stay home for an extra day waiting for the package :(

I had Earl blocked on my MSN, and yesterday I noticed an "Add Contact" box pop up... it was EARL! I think he wanted to see if I'd accept then he'd know I had blocked him. I just cancelled the request for him to add me, and left him blocked. I think poor Earl has too much time on his hands to be doing things like that... and if he was smart, he would have used an email address that I COULDN'T recognize as him! LOL

I have a meeting with my boss today re: my performance assesment. Not really sure what to expect from it... probably the same ol' song and dance!

oh, Earl!

Well, I've started to ignore Earl. He's getting on my nerves.
Yesterday we had a conversation that just made me go "What? Is this guy serious??"
Poor Earl, he is nice... but like my sister always says "I don't suffer fools"... and I'm afraid Earl is just one of those fools.

Poor, Poor Earl. I will break it to him gently. (Not, that he's a fool, but that I am not interested in him like he is in me.)
________________________________________________

On another note, I bought a friend's Christmas gift today... what a pleasant experience! I was putting it off for a few days cause I was scared the people on the other end would be hard to deal with... On the contrary! The service was super-d-duper, so friendly and professional! I love ordering things off the internet :) Next year I'll try to buy EVERYTHING that way!

... just to clarify...

Apparently my last post has got some people 'a-buzzin' about my relationship with Earl. We are not "an item" by any means. He's nice, and I enjoy hanging out with him. ... C'est tout!

But me thinks Earl likes me more than I like Earl. :( He bought me flowers, and chocolates yesterday! Awe! The flowers are gorgeous, (big sunflower type, pink and orange flowers) and the chocolates are chocolate covered orange peels. (weird, but good, once you start eating them ;) He's sweet, but I don't think he's "the one". He's a bit of a "goof" and his attempts to be funny sometimes leave me simply rolling my eyes (in my mind, I don't do it to his face! GOD no!)

Dating is never easy.

sleep deprived and loving it!

Yep. I am.

I went on a date last night, with a guy named Earl ... (of all names, his name is Earl! ...Who names their kid EARL???) Anyways... once I got past his name... lol... I realized he was a pretty cool guy: semi-pro mountain bike racer, nice teeth, really cute... so I agreed to go out with him.
I wasn't sure if I would like him, so I wasn't really that stoked for the date. He came to get me to take me out to dinner... first things first, he opened my car door :)
We drove around downtown looking for "the Keg", but after about 20 minutes of driving around aimlessly, I suggested we go back to "Moxies". (I was craving their White Chocolate Brownie dessert :) When we got our table, he hung up my coat for me at the restaurant. We had some great conversation at dinner (I tried to play a more reactive role in the conversation... not sure If I was successful or not!) At the end of our meal, he asked "Can I pay for this? I really wanted to take you out, but I know some people don't like it when someone pays for the meal!" I was flabbergasted! ..."By all means! ...And I'll get the next one! :) I think he liked that comment, giving him the knowledge that he'll get to see me again.
We had decided earlier that we'd go to Eau Claire and play some video/arcade games. We played air hockey and I won 4 of the 5 games we played! lol... it was funny to see him getting so frustrated! I think we spent $20.00 on tokens only to win a couple of little stuffed bears. lol But we had a lot of fun! And he kissed me near the end. He was very nervous, I could tell... but I'm so glad that he did it!
I invited him to come over and see my condo after the games and we could talk for a while. We didn't do a lot of talking... but it was really nice to cuddle with him.

We made plans to do it again on Sunday. (well, ok, not all of it, but the hanging out part is for sure :) (Oh, btw... Earl is 24.)

Christmas Crack

Have you ever had Almond Toffee before???
I only seem to have it during the holidays, but WOW is it amazing!
I call it 'Christmas Crack' because it is so addictive!!!!

Does anyone make this stuff at home? I would love a good recipe for it!

(Like I need all the fat and sugar? Oh well, what are the holidays for, eh? No wonder I always gain 5 pounds at Christmas! ha ha!)

side-tracked!

I decided to call home and ask my brother directly what he wanted for Christmas (my Mom was no help with the matter! sorry Mom!)
He sent me a VERY WELL STRUCTURED list, complete with weblinks and priorities (an ! ment very important, an * ment it was only available on-line)
I was impressed! That boy has skills! :)

But he's got me looking at this website called ENGRISH... LOL (Yup, try saying English with an Asian flair. LOL) I am hooked! It's just sooo damn funny! Have you ever seen a sign or t-shirt that just used BAD grammar? Check out this site... it's bound to make you laugh.

wasting my time...

Sometimes it feels like I'm just wasting my time... waiting for something to happen. I hate when it gets like this because I'm really not a negative person.

I went on a date with a country music singer/ songwriter on Saturday. His name is Will Levi Webb... and wow, this guy has pipes! You'd never guess by looking at him that he can belt out the low tunes he sings! He's a skinny, lanky kinda guy. lol
Check out his song 2 Hearts... I swear I'd heard it before, and he was like "No, that's MY song!"
Wow, it's catchy!!! Did I mention, he plays his own guitar too??

He turned out to be quite high on himself. (He's from Ottawa, I should have guessed!) Self-centered, as I'm sure most musicians are. He has no time for dating, not sure why he even bothered to meet me.

what to do when the internet is down?

Yeah, finally I had a day to just sit at home and veg out... and I get home to no internet :( Boooo... that sucked!
So I decided to start working on a beaded sample peice for Suzin (owner of the bead store that I teach at). It's turned out to be a very cool peice (now that I've figured out how to create it! The instructions were terrible!!!) I wasn't sure about it at first, but now I think it's a very cool idea. Maybe I'll post a picture, it's that cool!!! :)

It's amazing what you can accomplish when you have no distractions :)

the sweater has come undone

That's what my life feels like. A ball of yarn, that is constantly being used to create a beautiful sweater... only to have the entire thing fall apart by the pull of one little string.

My sweater is half unravelled right now... just a pile of yarn on the floor.

I guess I should get knitting again!