My Cup (or rather, my pail) Runneth Over

Mmmm, I love this time of year. The tomatoes are ripening faster than I can eat them. And I try really really hard to eat them. There is nothing like the flavor of a home grown tomato. I just wish the season was a little longer. It won't be long until the nights are too cold for the plants and fall is upon us.

My favorite thing to do (besides just eating them plain or in a tomato sandwich) is to whip up some salsa fresca. So yummy I want to eat the whole bowl. Just finely dice a whole bunch of tomatoes, a couple of sweet white onions, a few hot peppers to taste and a medium sized bunch of cilantro. Add a bit of salt, and a squirt of fresh lime juice if you are so inclined (but I rarely have fresh limes hanging around), mix and eat. That's it. So simple. So good. Even Ben, my eight year old tomato hater, loves the stuff. He asked suspiciously the other day "hey, are there tomatoes in this?" and then proceeded to eat a bunch more after I told him it counted as a serving of 'vegetables'.

I give away all the tomatoes I can't eat to other tomato lovers, so if you live close by and read this, give me a call! Otherwise I will be forced to take a pail into the office so the extra tomatoes can find a good home! I'm not much for canning or freezing, I'd rather eat them fresh and share the bounty with my friends.

I always start my tomato plants from seeds. Around the end of March, the grow lights in the basement are snapped on, and away I go, dreaming of summer. I always grow my old favorites, Fantastic, Stupice and Celebrity, sometimes Early Girl, but every year, I try some new varieties just for an experiment. Polfast was a winner this year, I will definitely grow this variety again. Lots of beautiful medium sized fruit, tasty, early, good texture. I also tried Monster, and this one I didn't like much. It's a later tomato, and grows very large fruit that are quite flat, but the texture is quite mealy, and not very appealing.

Canadian Scrapbooker Basics

All I can say is wow.

I received a copy of this brand new magazine yesterday and it just knocks my socks off. Not only is it perfect for a beginning scrapbooker, it is full of inspiration for any scrapbooker at all! Detailed step by step instructions with great photography, tons of fabulous layouts that feature only the simplest of techniques - stickers, patterned paper, rub-ons, templates, square or circle punches........ And one of my favorite things is that the layouts are huge so you can really see the detail and read the journalling! Only one or two layouts per page.

Keep your eye on your local scrapbook or craft store. Cover price is also only $7.99! Wow!!!

Here's one of my layouts published in CSB that makes me smile every time I look at it. Our newt is just such a cool guy. I found out last week that he is actually about fourteen years old because we are the third family to take care of him! And newts aren't supposed to live this long! A couple of weeks ago, I put our betta Fin in Newt's tank as an experiment. I figured they ate the same type of food, and it would be one less tank to clean. Although I couldn't imagine how they might hurt each other, I kept a careful eye on them for a few days, ready for a betta rescue mission. But it's been fantastic! They like each other and almost seem to be friends, swimming around together. Definitely a good move!

The Cariwest Parade

We decided to head to downtown Edmonton this weekend to catch this parade (and have a quick dip in the legislature fountains). What a colourful treat for the eyes and the ears!!! This is the first time I've seen the Cariwest Parade and I really enjoyed it. The costumes are nothing short of fantastic! And of course the caribbean music was loud and infectious! It's not a long parade, but it's fun, and there are plenty of good viewing spots on the curb so it's very family friendly for short people :-).

finally, my new car

Car shopping is a painful process. At least for me. This month.

I have been patronized, mislead and outright lied to. Several times. If you're in the Edmonton area, I would strongly suggest avoiding Park Mazda in Sherwood Park or Autoworld in Leduc at all costs. They are owned by the same company, and they seem to have the same deceptive style. I still feel belittled and insulted after my recent exposure with these dealerships, and it just about put me off ever buying a Mazda at all. I still can't figure out why they would blatantly lie to me about something so easily checked with a simple phone call. Oh well. Luckily I was able to find a local dealer with a little more integrity.

Sundance Mazda was willing to negotiate over the phone and was very pleasant to deal with! So they got our business. I have heard that Jarman Mazda is also excellent (except they didn't have the model I wanted). I had kind of set my heart on a Mazda 5 because it was more or less the best of all worlds for me - a micro minivan with good gas mileage. It has room for SIX passengers (comfortably), sliding rear doors, easy to drive and park, the rear seat folds down quickly to turn into a station wagon if I need more cargo space and I could get a manual transmission. I have never owned an automatic, and I love my 5 speed manual transmissions. So I picked up my car tonight! The kids love it, of course (hey, they can each have their own row!), and it was lovely to drive home from the dealership. I am looking forward to many years of enjoyment in this car. Especially with the heated seats come winter. :-)

Heritage Festival

I really kind of love this festival. It gets pretty crowded, and some of the food prices are a bit of a rip-off, but it is always a colourful treat for the eyes, ears and stomach.

The kids and I went early in the morning, and were able to look at quite a few pavilions before we ran out of energy. This year we ate a warm honey pancake from Korea (to die for!!! yum!!!), satays from Borneo, pupusas from Ecuador, rice noodles from Cambodia, rice and green onion cakes from China and the boy's favorite - flavored snow from a vendor from no particular country. For four tickets (roughly four bucks), you got a small container of snow which you took to the self service flavoring station. The boys had a lot of fun squirting in syrups from flavors such as blue raspberry and sour grape. And they ate every bit of 'snow'.

The music and dancing were wonderful. Our favorites were the Ecuadorian stage (Benny was quite taken with the pan flutes) and the Hong Kong kung fu demonstrations.

The August kit at Scraptivity

ooh, I just loved this one! The papers are Little Yellow Bicycle and 7 Gypsies, and the colours are so rich and warm! And the little bitty alphabet stamps are so useful, they might replace the wood mounted HeroArts ones I have used for years. I'm just itching to do more layouts when I can squeeze out some more free time...............

I had never attempted gilding before, and was pleasantly surprised to see how fast and easy it was! I will definitely be using this technique again. Basically, all you do is brush or paint a thin coat of Duo Adhesive onto something, wait until it gets clear (which is no time at all if you only put on a thin coat) and press gilding flakes into it. Voila! So I brushed it on pieces of cardstock and stamped with it and loved the look!

Kananaskis Country

What a beautiful place this is!! I have never been here before, but I attended an interesting work-related conference here at the end of July and luckily my family was able to join me. We stayed at the Delta Lodge, and I have to say that I was very impressed and totally amazed at the service. The staff was just remarkable especially compared to pretty much everywhere else in Alberta right now! So friendly and helpful!! The rooms were a bit dark, but the beds were very comfortable, the swimming pool was wonderful and the steam bath infused with eucalyptus oil was to die for. I could have stayed in there forever! Just take lots of money if you want to eat in any of the hotel restaurants. They were a little on the high side, and at the cash bar before the conference banquet, a glass of wine or a beer were $9.50. Yikes!