Been a While!

Just checked and it has been since the end of November that I posted anything! In my defense, I have been busy. I knitted up yoga socks or leg warmers with scarves to match for 5 of my granddaughters friends. I knitted a couple of items for my crafters group, I have taken 3 cake decorating courses and am on the 2nd week of my 4th. I also attended a workshop on Modelling Paste and made a bear! I will post pictures with descriptions of all the above soon. Also Christmas has been and gone. My daughter came to visit for a few days. She went to a couple of cake decorating classes with me. So with the holidays and the flurry of knitting projects and the many cakes that I have made (including Groundhog day cake and cupcakes and a SuperBowl cake outside of class) there hasn't been a lot of time for blogging. I will correct this, but not today, I have another class this evening. I will try to get all caught up by next weekend so when I attend my tall cake workshop, I can blog it in a timely fashion. I am all excited about this cake as it will be going from class straight to an after party for the cast of Joseph and his Technicolour Dream Coat! More soon.....

Raging Grannies

Today was my first Raging Grannies Gig. This was an education/information meeting to introduce prospective new members to our group affectionately known as the BAD (Barrie and District) Raging Grannies. Here is a picture of our group with our brand new banner singing one of our songs. I am the one in the hat! lol

Day 19 - Third Last Day

When I got up this morning, I only had three days left on this diet. Not I am heading towards my second last! I had apple slices for a combined breakfast and lunch after I returned from the gym from doing my lower body exercies, cardio and Fit For Life 55 + class. Supper was spinach salad with smoked chicken slices. Snack tonight will be grapes and crudités!


The gardens are looking fabulous. I am going to add all the pictures together at the end of this post. My bleeding heart is all in bloom. I didn't even notice it starting. I have a new patch of red tulips and my front rose garden is full of spring blooms. The garden where the spring bulbs first started blooming are dying off. The bleeding heart is keeping the garden alive!


On the weekend, we were driving by Zehrs and saw the fire department out in force. The aerial ladder was moving men to the roof. My granddaughter thought it was important we go and watch. As we were just going to spend the rest of the evening quietly at home, I decided to agree to her request. She took several pictures with my blackberry and if I ever figure out how to get them to my computer I will post them. I learned that night, that we had failed her in one area. When we were leaving, she wanted to drive by the fire truck so she could touch it. Where in the world did we go wrong? Fire truck I said... You want to touch the fire truck???? Me .. well .. given the choice, I would rather touch the fire fighter than the truck.. sheesh!


Did y'all know that today is boobquake day? Search facebook for boobquake to find the details.


This is the beginning of the spring bulbs in the front rose garden on April 15.

One week later on April 23, the blooms are basking in the sun.







The first non spring bulb flower in the back garden with my dancer statue.

A better picture of the dancer.

Another spring flower by the fountain bird bath. I don't know what it is called.


A couple of days later on the 26th, the front rose garden.

The red tulips in the back side garden opened up almost simultaneously.


The back garden beginning to dye off.

The Bleeding Heart bringing life back to this garden. This is the flower.


This is the bush.

These are a couple of trees and their shadows that happened to intrigue me on the weekend. What can I say. I get impressed by the simplest of things sometimes! :-) This is my tree.

This is its shadow.

This is my neighbour's tree.

And its shadow.

Birthday Weekend - Days 17 and 18

What a great weekend it was. The sun was shining and I was celebrating a birthday! Saturday started with a facial and eye treatment. I then went to the gym, grabbed a salad and went for a manicure and hair wash and style. I was all set to go home, get changed, put on some makeup and head out to supper and the Cosmetic Gala at the Bay with my granddaughter. I had a chicken spinach salad at Swiss Chalet. Sarah had the pierogies and poutine and my mandarins and torilla chips from my salad that I couldn't eat. Then off to the Bay. We received a couple of nice gifts... it seemed to be fragrance weekend. I got full sized bottles of Dazzling Gold from Estée Lauder and Vera Wang Truly Pink and Sarah got one as well but I don't recall the fragrance she got.

On Sunday morning as I was waiting for my grandson to get in, I received a call from Sears saying that I won their Gala basket from Lancome from the previous week! How exciting was that. Sarah and I went to Cora's for brunch where I had the fruit plate and Sarah had French Toast with fruit. That is a great place to get a healthy meal for those who don't know the restaurant. It is only open for breakfast and lunch, closing at three in the afternoon. Josh was here by then and we went to the bus depot to pick him up. We went to Sears to pick up the basket and received several full sized bottles of Lancome products including their fragrance Poeme. We ran a couple more errands and had a bit of a visit and then Josh took me out to Urban Dish for my birthday! He had filet mignon and mashed and I had roast chicken and zucchini. He started with soup, me the salad. It was a lovely meal with jazz playing in the background. Josh grabbed the last bus for home. It was good seeing him and helped give me a great birthday!

As I am still on this diet until Wednesday, I decided that I needed to celebrate my birthday all week! At least until I can have my cake guilt free! ;-) I will end the celebration with a bunch of ladies at an all day Ladies Day on May 1st.

Day 16

Another non-exciting day foodwise. I didnt' have breakfast, grabbed a glass of apple cider for lunch and had some penne with garlic infused olive oil and zucchini and onions. For a snack tonight I had celery sticks and grapes. Then I went to Tim Horton's to get some croissants for the girls for breakfast. That was my downfall. I also got them some timbits and couldn't resist getting myself an Iced Coffee. It turns out that not only the Iced Coffee tripped me up, but while I was waiting for the girls I couldn't keep my hands off the timbits eating a good portion of them! sigh... I am a brown rice elimination diet flunkie! I will try to get back on track tomorrow for what it is worth. Not sure how much damage tonight will do to the overall purpose of it, but it is what it is and I will have to go with it.

Earth Day, Day 15, Winding Down

I have made it to the last week on this funky diet! So far so good. I had grapes for breakfast and went out with my new Red Hat Group the StrawBarrie Tarts. What a great time! The restaurant was called Pieces of Olde and used fresh baked breads, pies etc. Their sandwich fillings were fresh and not that pressed meat type. The pie filling was easily an inch thick. I didn't get to taste any, but the pies were going fast and furious out of the kitchen. What a better testament to flavour? It was wonderful. I want to go back when I am no longer on this diet! I had a salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette. It was very nice, made with fresh crunchy ingredients. It is very obvious that they take pride in what they serve their guests. After lunch we strolled the main street of the village. There is a bakery there that is fabulous! I gained 10 pounds on my first whiff as I walked in the door. I couldn't buy anything today and have any hope of staying on this diet, but I will be back. If you are in the Elmvale area in Ontario, you have to go here. I am looking forward to more outings with these gals. One of these girls is in the Raging Grannies, so we also have other things in common.

I ended up being out for dinner, unplanned but those are often the best! A tossed salad with sweet onion vinaigrette was on the menu! A nice meal for Earth Day. All sustainable foods and I car pooled today. I tried to consciously reduce my carbon footprint just a little more on this Earth Day.

Day 14

Nothing exciting to report today. I began my 55+ Fit For Life classes. So far so good. If they don't get any harder, I should do ok in them I am thinking I need to keep up the treadmill with them even if I am doing some cardio in order to keep up the intensity I am used to. Electrolysis, errands and my cleanse class rounded out my day. For breakfast I had some green grapes. Lunch was a roasted chicken breast with sweet potatoes and dinner was a sliced apple and pecans. At the cleanse class we discussed ways to keep the lymphatic system moving, exercise, yoga, deep breathing etc. We also did a meditation exercise using guided imagery. Dry body brushing and hydrotherapy was discussed as a way to removed toxins from the body. Tomorrow is going to be a fun day. I will tell you all about it tomorrow!