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If you have followed me for some time or know me in real life then you know it’s no secret that I love food.  When I’m not eating I am thinking about food.  Constantly.  I am one of those people that is planning their next meal before they have finished the one they are eating.   Cookbooks, food magazines and cooking shows are my porn.   It is somewhat surprising then that I had never baked a loaf of bread in my life up until a couple of weeks ago and now that I have I am kicking myself that I had not done it earlier. Thinking about it I guess I just put it into the all to hard basket.  Since ..read more

Last week we celebrated Thanksgiving in Canada.   Since moving to Canada it has become my favourite holiday.  I love that it’s an inclusive holiday and not associated with religion or any one particular religion.  I also love that it is a time to give thanks and with it comes reflection. This year for various reasons it has been a hard year.  In the words of Queen Betty Windsor, it has been anal-y horrible.  Oops, I mean an annus horribilis.   Instead of dwelling on the shitty I found Thanksgiving a great time to push the negative aside, forget about them for the weekend and think about the po ..read more

If you follow me on Instagram you may have witnessed my meltdown yesterday on my Instagram stories over deodorant.   If you don’t follow me on Instagram, in a nutshell, I woke up, jumped in the shower, dried off (don’t worry you didn’t see any of that in my story) and then attempted to put on deodorant.  No biggy.  Only I couldn’t put on deodorant because as soon as I went to apply it, the deodorant crumbled and came away from the deodorant stick and landed all over my floor. I was frothing at the mouth and a stuttering mess that could barely get the words out I was so crazed.  I know what you ..read more

The Canadian and I are fortunate that we don’t fight very often but things tend to get a little heated come election time.  It’s odd because I would say we both have similar values and political ideals but every now and then a subject will come up where we are polar opposites.   The great thing about the modern age is that you no longer need to risk ending up in the spare room after an argument with your spouse about politics.  Just head straight to social media, vent your frustrations in the facebook comments on a news article about politics and argue to your heart’s content with random stran ..read more

Last week it was a big week for birthdays for friends and family back home in Australia so plenty of Facetime and phone calls.  I was asked a couple of times if we had plans for the weekend and I found myself replying with my usual September to April response that we had the 12-year-old’s ice hockey game. You see last week we transitioned into two seasons in one week.   Summer to Autumn and the 5th season here in Canada,  “Hockey Season”.   Summer is short in Canada, far too short, however, the 5th season, Ice Hockey is the longest and seems to go on and on forever. I noticed I was adding some ..read more

This morning as I was walking out the door to drop the 12-year-old at school and he dropped a bombshell.   He probably should have dropped something else because he was umming and ahhing at the kitchen door and asking if he had time to use the bathroom before we left.  I let him know for the 15th time he was running late and should probably do his business when he got to school. Oozing with pride he then proceeded to tell me that he has never used the bathroom at school for number 2’s.  He went so far as to backtrack and name each of the last three schools he has attended and confirm he had no ..read more

If you have been a long-time follower of the blog you would have followed our move from Australia to Canada and our first 12 months in Toronto.   Before I took a break from the blog,  the last post I wrote back in November 2016 was about our living arrangements. In a nutshell, we had been living and renting a condo in downtown Toronto for our first 12 months and we needed to make a decision when our lease was up for renewal.  Should we continue to rent or buy?  Stay in a condo or move back into a house?  Stay in Toronto or move elsewhere? The housing market at the time was crazy and overpriced ..read more

Well hello stranger. What’s been happening?  I can’t believe it’s been almost three years since I last blogged.  Yikes!! I’m not sure what happened and why I fell off the blogging bandwagon but anyway I’m back.   I have been umming and ahhing about a re-entry back into blogging and then got the shove I needed this past month.   My domain and account came up for renewal and I had to make a decision one way or the other if I would let the blog go completely or pay for the renewal.   I’ve chosen the latter so here I am.  Is anyone else still here or am I talking to myself? I know my Aunty Carol i ..read more

Don’t you just love an unplanned, spontaneous, last minute night out? Especially when you have no expectations or idea what is ahead. Late Wednesday afternoon The Canadian sent me a cryptic text message Personally,  I had never heard of them but thought they can’t be that bad if they can draw a crowd that warrants a stadium show. With nothing to lose,  free tickets and walking distance from home,  we headed down to the concert via a quick meal at a restaurant where we were seated next to several CFL (Canadian Football League – Like the NFL but the Canadian version) players from the Calgary S ..read more