Free at last!!!!!

Today we moved the bees out of their winter home in the workshop and let them out for their first flight since early November!!!! It was wonderful to see them flying at last, to be able to have a good look in the hive and check on them...and to be able to see how much honey and pollen stores they have left. I will be updating the bee blog in the next day or but thought I'd do a quick post here now!

Yes!!!

Chris is going to make a documentary on the Gender Reassignment surgery and the fact that the Alberta Government has removed funding for it!!! He has joined the Facebook group and asked people on there to chat with him about their thoughts and experiences and if they'd be willing t be interviewed.

I hope he does a good job. I'm going to suggest he contacts his Dad (a psychotherapist) for this thoughts on how being unable to have the surgery could affect someone too!

3d shapes....

Today was a lovely lazy morning....we sat on the bed and homeschooled from bed :) We studied 3 dimensional shapes and learned all about cubes, cones, prisms and pyramids!!!

It was wonderful to hear Abigail and Sam thinking of how these simple coloured shapes relate to the real world!!! I would ask them to think of where they could find rectangular prisms in the real world and they would think of things like 'the buildings where Daddy works' and 'long trucks'.......and for cones of course 'ice cream cones', 'party hats', 'carrots'.......and so on......

Sam spent ages afterwards building castles with the shapes and when Lloyd came home form work Abigail got the shapes out and showed them to Lloyd, remembering all the different names (thankfully YAY)!!!

Mr and Mrs quiz....

Print off two copies of this page. You can play this with your partner, who should fill in his/her page before you compare notes against what you have put. Or you can arrange to ask the questions at a party in front of everyone......

1. Where was your partner born?
2. What colour are his/her eyes?
3. Is your partner a tidy person?
4. Does he/she like cooking?
5. Does he/she like sport?
6. What is their favourite TV programme?
7. What was your partner's first job?
8. How much does your partner earn now?
9. What newspaper does he/she read?
10. What is his/her favourite place?
11. What will your partner avoid like the plague?
12. Did he/she have a happy childhood?
13. How many children does he/she want?
14. Does your partner like children?
15. How does your partner vote?
16. What would your partner grab in a fire? (apart from you!)
17. What time of day is your partner at his/her best?
18. How does he/she like to rest?
19. What is your partner's greatest fear?
20. What do you wish you knew about your partner?
21. What is your partner's best feature?
22. If your partner could be anyone famous, who would they be?
23. What is your partner's speciality in the kitchen?
24. Where would your partner most like to go in the world?
25. What's the most embarrassing thing your partner has ever done?

Summer camp!

We got Laurie and Susie in to the weeks they wanted at Summer camp this year :) We finally got confirmation - yay! :) We kind of assumed we would get the weeks we wanted but you're never sure right? But yesterday we got the letters confirming it!!! Woohoo! So now we just have to wait to hear if Chris is off to his film camp or not (he's undecided still) and then we can decide what we're doing for our trip and when....

Susie and Laurie are thrilled to be off to camp again though - Susie is doing the same horse riding/ kayaking/ zip line/ typical 'Summer camp' as last year with a different theme, but laurence is doing a teen camp on a different week and instead of horse riding it has a 'get a grip' edge to it and is all to do with climbing and zip-lining ;)

A message to my Son....

I am very frustrated and angry about what the Provincial government have done regarding removing funding for gender reassignment surgery. I totally understand about the chiro being removed - $53 million is a lot of money to save. $700,000 however is PEANUTS to the Provincial government. I know this - I have insight into the health and Wellness side of things including funding and where that money goes. I know a little about budgets. $700,000 is pocket money! This decision is ridiculous and in my opinion TOTALLY discriminatory and pointless.

They have picked a minority group that most people know nothing about and care little for and a subject most people are ignorant about. For most people this subject is something to laugh about.....or something to do with perverts or always homosexuality or some weird or strange sexual oddity. How sad.

But imagine spending your whole life feeing like you were born in the wrong body - the wrong sexual body. If only you could afford to have the operation to change it.......

Why should that option only be there for those who can afford it?

Why should everyone else be destined to suffer from depression, suicidal thoughts...in fact often costing our health service even MORE through mental health services than they would if they HAD the reassignment surgery!!!!!!

I've been talking to my oldest Son Chris about his thoughts on this subject and what his friends (Generation We) think about it all - trying to get them to join the Facebook group supporting changing the governments decision etc. Sadly he was quite unresponsive to my anger at the government - I wish he was more passionate!! He is film maker and I was hoping he could use this topic to make a film or DO something! Sometimes I think he doesn't realise the power he holds in his hands when he holds his camera!!!!

I left this on Chris's Facebook page today.....I know he will delete it later....but I tried....again.......

http://sherwoodparknews.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1521488
See - now they have cut this, people with GID will have more mental health disorders, may become depressed, suicidal and may end up causing the health service MORE. $700,000 is PEANUTS to the Provincial Gov. compared to the $53 million they are saving from cutting chiro. I think it's extremely discriminatory and your generation should not be allowing this to happen (remember Generation WE).

This isn't an issue to laugh at :( This is peoples lives. As a film maker you have POWER!!!!! Use it!!! Be the POWER!!

Relaxing in the sun!

After grocery shopping this evening, Lloyd and I drove home via the range roads again and took one of our favourite routes along a road that is edged on both sides by large ponds/ marshes and bullrushes. In amongst the marshes, on the drier area, Lloyd spotted something and stopped the car, reversed and told me to grab my iphone!!! He had spotted two moose lying down and relaxing in the sunshine! They were too far away to get a good picture and this was the only camera I had. I didn't want to get out of the car as I didn't want to disturb them - they looked so relaxed out there in the evening sun!

I hope you can make them out in the distance - two dark blobs lol! We haven't seen any moose on our own land for so long - we think the work on the house has kept them away!

Click on the picture to make it a little bigger.

Laminating!

Today we have been finishing off some table mats and laminating them using a laminator we bought a couple of weeks ago (thanks Tara). You can read more about this laminator and how we got it, on the homeschool blog (link to the right). The children are really enjoying seeing their projects being laminated and protected!!

Let me know if you need an invite to the homeschool blog - it is updated regularly despite what it says to the right!!

Crackled paint!

This ATC is just one I made to play around with the Tim Holtz Distress crackled paint I bought last week - have to say I am LOVING it!!!! It is soooooo easy to use and the effect is so great :) It's a one step crackle paint and dries really fast! You can even use your heat gun to make it dry even faster! LOVE it!!!! You can ink over it, wipe over it and then stamp on it too! SIMPLE!!!! :)

Anglophile ATC's

These are two atcs I've created for an Anglophile swap I'm taking part in - the ATC's are just a part of this swap though.....I plan to send special extras with my swaps as the person I am sending to LOVES anything to do with England :)

Bunny pot....

This is the little Avon rabbit pot that that I found at the thrift store last week. It's a 1983 Avon pot. I paid $3. for it. I thought it was gorgeous and have it on my scrapbooking shelf in my bedroom at the moment where it is safe. I just think the rabbit is so sweet.

In the future it will come out at Easter and go somewhere in the kitchen each year as the green trim matches my kitchen :)

As a collector of old Avon perfume bottles (I have a lot of them stored in England still) I couldn't resist snatching this up!

Abigails home made table mat

Recently Tara mentioned that her Daughter had a small laminating machine that she LOVED, and recommended this machine as a great resource for the home and for childrens crafts and hobbies.....Tara uses one in her daycare setting also with the childrens projects there and I thought this sounded fabulous! I checked out the laminator at Walmart and thought it was a brilliant idea!!! thanks Tara!!!

We finally tried it out yesterday when Abby made a table mat with her favourite theme - horses!!! I think we will be laminating a LOT from now on :) it worked really well :)

Brazilian sweetened condensed milk cake

I baked this last night - a recipe I found on the 'Eat Me delicious' blog. It has a really simple but strange recipe and I thought I'd give it a try as I had the ingredients. Instead of a ring pan I baked it in a loaf pan for 40 minutes (until a skewer came out clean).

I think it's one of those cakes you either LOVE or hate......Sam really wasn't keen but Abigail LOVES it - Lloyd really liked it too!!! Even warm out of the oven and he doesn't normally like them warm....

This cake doesn't have the normal texture of a sponge cake. It's hard to describe! I think it would be nice sliced with tinned fruit though!!! :)

I'm loving baking and cooking in the new kitchen - just a shame I only get to use it at night and that I still don't have counters yet! Can't wait for the work to be finished and to have it to myself ALL DAY and have lovely quartz counters to work on and a huge island :) And to be able to bake with the children each day :) We have so many plans and so many recipes saved that we want to make! So many experiments we want to do too! We even have plans to make paper - there are some fabulous paper making kits at Michaels we want to get that will get us in to paper recycling and we can't really start doing that until the island is done - but Susie and I want to start doing that as soon as the island is done - we were looking at it all last week and choosing the sets we want to get and talking about everything we want to get to get us started.......the frames etc so we can start making sheets of recycled paper and card stock together :)

Anyway, here is the recipe:

1 can (395g) sweetened condensed milk
4 eggs
120 g all purpose flour
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
50 g unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF; generously butter a 22cm* (9in) ring cake pan.

Place all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. Pour the batter into prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes, or until risen and a skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean (about 35 minutes).

Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool completely before unmolding.

This mornings sunrise

10 ways to beat the blues....

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7998308.stm

including stroking your pussy and getting intimate with friends ;)