2013 Vacation is here!! FINALLY!!

After 2 weeks of "camping" in our own home as we proceed with our kitchen renovation, working furiously at work and then the final push to get laundry done and packing, Sunday, August 11th could not come fast enough. Tim's folks put their timeshare on the exchange for a 2 bedroom condo in Banff for the week so all 5 Filtz's were heading to the mountains!!!

Mom and Dad Filtz showed up at 10 a.m., Tim and I were finishing packing and getting dressed but a few minutes later, we were dragging our suitcases downstairs and while Tim loaded everyone's stuff in to the truck, I loaded our foodstuffs in to our cooler. When I went outside finally confident that we hadn't forgotten anything, I found that the box of the truck was almost full!!! Lots of stuff for a week of vacation!

By 11 a.m. we were on the road to take our puppies to Country Kennels Bed & Biscuit. They were excited that something was up, they like their truck trips!

After dropping the pups off, we were finally on our way!

At 12:30 we had a quick pit stop at Costco in Red Deer for lunch (MMMM-- Montreal Smoked Meat Sandwich on ciabatta... ) and didn't stop again until Airdrie for a final fuel up before we made it in to Banff. I grabbed Tim and I some delicious Starbucks coffees (Cinnamon Dolce Latte and Carmel Macchiatto... yum!) We changed up our seating arrangements as Norm took a tumble on a travel bus tour and hurt his arm, broke his elbow and having the seatbelt over that shoulder was irritating.

Back on the road for the final push... we arrived in Banff and unloaded our truck bed worth of stuff. What met us at the Banff Rocky Mountain Resort was a very charming, rustically decorated 2 storey 2 bedroom condo unit. Lots of wolves, from photo prints to wolf door pulls in the kitchen. Knotty pine  and slate accents throughout. The bedrooms have tree bedding and one bedroom has a king bed with 5 pillows!! Really quite lovely I think.

After we loaded all our stuff in and put it away it was suppertime so we headed to Downtown Banff to find a place to eat. Tony Roma's was our choice. It filled that hunger gap and we of course had to stop for Candy after. Coconut Brittle is a favourite! We watched "Bedtime Stories" before bed... very fitting don't ya think?

Staycation 2012 Day 2 - August 12

Today was a VERY exciting day!! I worked on laundry, puttered around the house, worked on cleaning the en suite bathroom while Tim went and flew his model airplane... see, exciting stuff. Good to decompress though. Didn't get everything done I wanted to but hey, I'm on vacation!!!

Two days and six hours later

I ran out of stripper last night and was only halfway done stripping the second window so I packed the works up because my hubby wasn't parking in the garage and that makes him cranky... so today I set up my work station in front of the car and I have sufficient room to move so he is happy as am I...

I am getting excited!! The window that is bowed out that needs the cames repaired... I soaked the hardware from the latch in stripper after removing it and worked on stripping the bottom edge cleanly without the hardware on... happy with the results thus far.

Is it me or does this look like copper??

another view.... I'm going to research this!

I bought a small brush set when I picked up another 500 mL container of stripper at Home Hardware, package said that the stainless steel brush was for removing paint... uh ya and wood!! Learned that one pretty quick, not too much damage done... there was a nylon brush as well and it is doing well at removing paint from the nooks and crannies. I did use the stainless brush though on these metal pieces and I think it did beautifully. If you look at the pictures below, you can see how, on window two, it is still on there pretty thick after about 3 rounds of stripping chemical. I've exposed the screws and cleared out the channel for the screwdriver so I will attempt removal tomorrow.

window 2 side 2 after 3 layers of stripper, still lots of layers of paint to go except on the bottom pane. That came off second go round...

look at the pretty colour underneath (ugh!)

Sorry again for the poor photo, camera not a fan of these windows or something!!! You can just barely see the screw heads exposed on the hardware. This is what the hardware above had looked like when I started working on the project after supper. Yay me!

So, I need to do some research... both for my own interest (is the hardware brass or copper) and if I can get the Workmate to work as a clamp so I can put the windows upright to do the one end piece that has black tarry paint on it without making such a mess. It's making me crazy!! It's lots of fun though. Well, best get to the laptop and get researching now! Later!

My latest project

Snow is gone, been working in the garden... preparing for the lazy hazy days of summer... NOT! More like "what do I want to do now?"

I found some old leaded bevel glass windows for sale on Kijiji and since I love the rainbows they throw off, I bought them!! They are old and beaten up, seen better days but I am confident that I can bring them back to their previous glory... here are the pictures of my 2 hours spent doing one side of a window this evening. Well worth it!! Once I have the other side stripped down, I will clean up the glass and take it in to have the lead caning repaired. Stay tuned for more progress reports!

flaky old paint, layers and layers

paint on the glass too

Big ol' blob o' something on the bottom, sorry, camera would not focus!

you can see that the paint was cracking before I started

this is a shot of the glass that is popping out of it's canes

You could tell someone painted the windows shut at some point.

Stripper at work! Paint stripper people! Get your mind OUT of the gutter!

Me, illustrating "Safety First!"

After 2 hours, the better part of one side DONE!

My garage work station using my husbands underutilized Black & Decker Workmate <3

Products used: disposable paint brushes, scraper, small putty knife, paint stripper, safety glasses, floor covering (plastic recommended, I have a large old coroplast poster I used for this), nitrile gloves.

In the words of Porky Pig: "Be-de be-de be-de, That's all folks!!" Stay tuned for more elbow grease and tales of my adventures in to antique restoration.

Canadian Thanksgiving and all that Jazz!

Last weekend was Canadian Thanksgiving, and I was the hostess with the mostest having my mom, mother-in-law and father-in-law over for supper on Sunday. As Tim and I have been attempting to reduce the amount of processed food in our diet, we decided that this year we would barbeque our turkey a la Roy Evans. What this means is that the bird was stuffed with pickled hot peppers and sliced mushrooms, rubbed all over with butter, salt and pepper, put in the roaster and covered to bake it. Once an hour we would uncover the bird, drain off the hot pepper juice and drippings and baste the bird. The result was amazing. A moist bird with a mushroom/hot pepper stuffing which added a sweet hot flavour. Really good! And it didn't take that long and because I used one of those lovely foil pans from the grocery store... no greasy clean up!! Love it!!!

Mom brought snack appetizers, two shrimp rings... of which Connor ate one, multigrain gluten free tortilla chips and some fig chevre and cream cheese with rice crackers. Super nummy! That is what we had for "lunch". Because traditional is more how our family rolls, I did make a semi-traditional stuffing but without bread. It was a pecan cornbread stuffing casserole with the traditional seasonings in it and was it ever good too. I used the last of our garden tomatoes to make a tangy tomato, cucumber and onion salad and steamed some potatoes to rice (no added milk or fat but the texture of mashed... joy!!!). I made gravy from a packet (total sell out!) but you didn't need too much because the turkey was moist and tasty. Just a dab on the riced potatoes was all that was required. I also purchased a number of exotic olives from the Italian Centre Shop for us to sample (almond stuffed California olives, Sicilian Olive salad, garlic stuffed olives) and some fantastic pickles. The cranberries were sweetened with agave syrup since Norm is on the GI diet and mom is diabetic, but no one noticed! Mom Filtz brought the pumpkin pie and I supplied the light whipped cream.

After supper, we went down to the home theatre and watched the movie "Dad". It was funny and sad, and is about a son dealing with his parents getting older and his relationship with them and re-evaluating what is important in life. Pretty good movie. Norm and Sophie left shortly after the movie and mom stayed over. I didn't over eat and I felt great, albeit a bit tired from slaving over the hot stove for two days!! LOL!

Apple pie time!

Well, now that we have had the first frost, it is time to think of what I am going to do with all those apples that are living in my yard before they hit the ground and rot. Last year I froze in a bunch of pie fillings that have been touted as the best apple pies EVER so here is my tried and true kick booty apple pie recipe.

Freezer Apple Pie Filling (yield 1)

In a large zipper freezer bag put:

3/4 cup white sugar
2 tbsp all purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

Mix it up by shaking gently.

In a large bowl (2+ Litres) put

1 tbsp lemon juice
1 L water

Add to that
6 tart apples - peeled, cored & sliced (about 4 cups)

Swirl the apples around in the lemon juice solution, this is to help prevent browning somewhat.

Take the apples out with a slotted spoon to get rid of the excess water, put in the freezer bag with the flour mixture. Press the air out of the bag and smoosh it around to mix well. Put it in the freezer to make pie later!

Tip: To make many of these (mass produce), I would reuse the lemon juice solution for the apples until it changed colour, at which point the lemon juice is no longer working to prevent the apples from browning, just make a fresh one. Best way to freeze them is flat on one another to save on space.

To make the pie you will need:

1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie (I use the Tenderflake Deep Dish frozen ones)
1 freezer apple pie filling, thawed fully
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp minute tapioca
2 tbsp Canadian Club whiskey (or whatever you have on hand)
1 egg white
1 tbsp granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 450 F.
Pour pie filling in to bottom pie shell.
Sprinkle with minute tapioca, this will absorb some of the excess liquid.
Dot the apple pie filling with butter
Sprinkle the whiskey over all.
Put top pastry on and flute edges.
Brush top pastry with egg white, sprinkle with granulated sugar.
Put pie on a foil lined cookie sheet in case it boils over. Cut vents in top pastry.
Bake in centre of oven for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 F and bake for 40 minutes more.

Voila, my most awesome pie recipe! Serve it warm a la mode (with vanilla or maple walnut ice cream) or with caramel sauce (yum!!)

Girl Day!

If you are the only woman living in a house FULL of males, you know what I'm saying here when I say Girl Day! Initially today was allocated as retail therapy day, going shopping for my cousin's baby shower on Sunday. Needless to say, it was dreary outside and my girlfriend Nicole and I had discussed having coffee on more than one occassion so as I was driving her home from our respective workouts this morning, I said, "How about coming to my house for a chick flick Girl Day?"

Thank goodness she was all for it... saved me from shopping for another day!! I made my Grandma Cowley's Best Rhubarb Cake, sans wheat flour... replaced with Bulk Barn's Gluten Free All Purpose Flour and it turned out great! We went for lunch here in Devon at the Iris Cafe then came back to Casa Filtz to watch "Sweet Home Alabama" which is definitely a chick flick (Reese Witherspoon is so adorable). After that, we had some coffee and cake and chatted for a bit. It was fun to have just us and no other boys (with the exception of my two pugs that is). It was great.

Tonight is the Meet the Creature, er... I mean, Teacher night at Connor's school. I don't have to cook!! BBQ Burgers on the menu tonight!! Good thing I did that core class this morning!! I also cleaned and fired up the gas fireplace on the main floor after Nicole left, sadly, 'tis the season for that as well.

Tomorrow bodes to be a somewhat busy one... I don't work out on Fridays so I will most likely clean the basement fireplace and get it going, do chores around the house so I don't have to do them on the weekend, get the guest room ready for mom and her BFF Sue Fraser and maybe go shopping, or maybe not. Saturday I have a Metabolic Mover class, if I am awake before it, I may even do the spin class Saturday as well. We'll see how I am doing the day of. Sunday is the baby shower in Mayerthorpe that mom and I will be attending so it's another busy weekend for me.

Sunday was my I don't have to run day

Tim had to blast out to the hobby store today for a part that broke when he was working on his radio control airplane. He got home and it was too big!! Oh was he ever choked! I worked on laundry, getting the trailer bedding completed and the whites, watched "Just Friends"... super funny rom-com with Ryan Reynolds... love that guy! Mom was over again and I made "Land of Nod Cinnamon Buns" for breakfast. We're back on the gluten free train on Monday!! It was super duper yummy. Had roast chicken and rice for supper... can't wait for Tim's payday on Tuesday, can go and get some real food as I feel like Mother Hubbard with my bare cupboard!! LOL!

Oh my crazy life

I thought sleeping in my own bed would induce me to sleep in but no... the air conditioner noise bothered me, the cat bothered me... finally at 7:15 I got up and let Tim at least sleep in. Came downstairs and read the various newspapers and flyers that had come in when I was away.

Tim came down at about 9 a.m. or so, made a big pot of coffee and drank it in our BIG coffee cups (hold about 24 oz each); took our vitamins, ate a bit of breakfast then it was time to rock and roll!! I had to unpack to take a bath (ah sweet bliss, jacuzzi tub I missed you) and did not injure myself at any point (must be all the padding around this place... LOL!) Went and watered my plants on the patio, I think they may have seen a touch of frost maybe... the zucchini looks not so good... oh well, it was one plant, I got one small and one decent sized zuke out of it... what the heck. The grapes are coming along well, as are the tomatoes. The carrots have lovely leafy green tops but the orange underground roots are pathetic, although tasty. The pole beans on one side are climbing up the juniper. Silly pole beans! Don't know if they are going to set any beans but no matter. The apples are getting close to being ready. Usually a little touch of frost sweetens them up, might be a little bit for that though.The trees were already turning in Waskesiu, I was glad to see that the trees here are faring a bit better.

Did a few errands around town... picked up my chickens that my friend Jen Kosiorek picked up for me, picked up my dry cleaning (2 sweaters, 'tis getting to be that season), went to the newspaper office to pick up some stuff from the previous Mega Monday promotion (next one starts August 30th if you are looking for some deals in Devon, Leduc and Beaumont), picked up my Sears Christmas Wish Book!!!! Then Connor and I went to pick up the puppies at Awesome Pawsome Ranch. En route I noticed the rose hips were very plentiful in the ditches, I'm wondering if I should maybe make rosehip jelly this year since the cherry crop is so poor (as in non-existent). We could have boarded the dogs at Awesome Pawsome AND been able to look in on then 24/7 via webcam but we did not take that option this time. The boys were happy to see us as we were to see them. Apparently Bart used the Doggie Door fairly quickly whereas Gus took a few days. I think he was afraid of it as he is a bit high strung. Couple of goofballs! Other than the doggie door issue though, Bart marked some of the furniture (apparently they had been marked by other dogs before so it is to be expected, he pees on everything when we go on a walk) and ate Gus' food, but other than that, they had a grand old time. Once we got home, they started to use their "special" outdoor kennel that we have been trying to get them to use... so it was a great way to transition them. We are pretty excited about not having to trek all over the yard in the winter looking for frozen poop-sicles. They will all be on their nice vinyl decking in their kennel, easy to clean up!! Yay!!

After a quickie sandwich lunch, I popped back on to the computer to work on the family finances, paid a few bills, etcetera... did up my last Blue Cross claim for my former employer (benefits ended on July 31), ran over to photocopy it at the former employer then off to a Doctors appointment.

After getting my prescriptions refilled, I zinged in to Leduc to pick up cat food from PetPro's, pick up my zipper repairs at Leduc Tailors (1 down filled jacket, 1 nylon/fleece jacket, 2 pairs of pants = $96!! Cheaper than replacing just the down car coat!) and then to Safeway to pick up a few groceries. We can not get Soy coffee creamer here in Devon for love nor money. Ridiculous! Came home, put some laundry in, checked out the Continuing Education Guide for Fall (most things you can sign up at the Community Awareness Night)and then it was time to make supper.

We had soft Corn tacos, I found the corn tortillas at Safeway in Saskatchewan at the deli counter. They were so good! Gluten free!!! Connor even enjoyed them. YUMMY! Cleaned up the mess, folded a load of laundry, put in another load... and here I am, working on my blog... yet again... This is my crazy life and I wouldn't change it for anything! Oh, gotta go, my mom just showed up from Rocky. Tomorrow we are going to see my cousin Jennifer Sheather's new twin babies!! Eeee! Twins!!!