Testing something here ... ignore the quirky wolf :)

Danette said to do it !! (snagged from Cal)

Danette said to do it!! Leave ONE WORD (in the comment section) that you think best describes me. It can be only one word. No more. Then copy and paste this on YOUR page so I may leave my one word about you.

(Ok. I'm curious .. good or bad haha)

It is written that when icicles drip on the mulch bed, the wise man hides his peanut butter.

'Timothy Cone' in Lawrence Sanders book Timothy's Game, while musing the sudden increase in a pre-packaged Chinese food stock prices.

This is when ours is ....

This weekend is our Thanksgiving Weekend. Always the second Saturday in October and we always have the Monday off.

It will be the first one for me and the kid. I had invited Fang to join us for dinner today, but he had to be at work for 4, so I said come for lunch. They changed his hours and he had to start at noon instead.

And no, I'm not doing the turkey thing with all the goodies and trimmings. I love turkey, but to get one small enough so the kid and I aren't feasting on turkey leftovers for the next two weeks .......... lol Having a roast beast instead, and even then it didn't go as planned. I wanted to try slow roasting it and see what happens, how much better it really is. Got some advice that if I wasn't going to sear it first, to put the temp at 350 for 20 minutes then knock it down to 200. The roast I got is a little bigger than what I usually get as I anticipated a third person being here but oh well, I like roast beef sandwiches the next day too. The kid and I made a cake and I thought "perfect .. when the cake comes out, the roast can go in". Twenty minutes later, I turned the heat down to 200. Thought I'd give it a peek at the two hour mark and see how it was doing.

And the idiot thing was done !!! I like the roast a little browner inside than just medium, but not too much, but at the two hour mark, the thing was more than a little more than medium. grrrrrrrrrr

And I had just made toasted tomato sandwiches for the kid and me to hold us over until dinner.

Now what do I do ?

Of course, I turned the oven off. The potatoes were ready to get thrown into the roasting pan for the last hour. The carrots were ready to throw into the steamer. Got what I needed to make gravy (which only happens when I do a roast) The only thing I can think of to salvage a roast beef dinner is to put a bit more water into the roasting pan to heat up the roast later and hope it doesn't end up too well done.

Good intentions gone bad. If I had known the roast would have cooked that fast, I wouldn't have made sandwiches lol  Somehow, I think the slow cooker will be put in use tomorrow.

Funny thing happened yesterday. The kid and I had gone grocery shopping and stopped at Walmart to get him a new pair of shoes as he had a blow out with his other pair. He never ever got the hang of laces and doesn't do velcro straps tight enough, so we have to get him the slip on kind and with ankle support. Hard to find here and when you do find them, they're expensive to be buying a pair every two months or so (he's hard on his shoes), except for what the Walmart here sells. He doesn't need a lot of ankle support, but more than what cheapy shoes offer.

Anyways, we live in a small town, if you can call it that ... population 3500, and it is surrounded by farmland on all four sides. And is the type of town where people know everybody (unless you're me lol). People here have known each other for years and have celebrated the kids growing up, getting married, etc. Of course, there's the usual gossip stuff happening. My landlady starts yapping, assuming I know who she's talking about. lol I politely make my escape as soon as I can without be downright rude to her. Not into gossip myself.

But this town doesn't see too much, if any, of some of the stuff you might see elsewhere.

Stayner has a two lane highway enter from one end of it and exit from another end, so there are a lot of small businesses along the main drag, trying to entice the tourist traffic (we get a lot of traffic go through town) to stop and shop.

The kid and I were passing through the main drag on a mission to hit the coffee shop to grab a coffee to take home and enjoy once the groceries got put away.

And I saw my very very first 'couple' walking down the main drag, holding hands.

I never saw this 'couple' when I lived in Toronto or Barrie (pop 130,000). Just timing I guess. I don't know.

I know, you're thinking "so?"

Welllllllllll this 'couple' were both men !

Now I don't have an opinion about it, one way or the other. I might not understand it, but to each their own. I won't condemn them for it.

But I started to chuckle when I saw them. My very first gay couple holding hands. And my first thought was "that should set a few tongues wagging about town"

I was close to passing this couple walking on the sidewalk in the direction I had just come from, when I saw people popping out of the stores they had just passed and looking in their direction !! And when two or more popped out of the store, you just know they were making comments. The looks on their faces were priceless, and I laughed more. I looked for them after I got the coffee, but they had either dipped inside a store or climbed into a car and left, as I didn't see them.

I've lived here for ten years, and can't say I know anybody other than the two drivers I work with that live here, the landlord and his wife, and one of my neighbours in the building enough to say hi and have a bit of a chin wag with. Well, mostly her, but sometimes her husband too. I never really felt at home here, but it was a place to live in when we lost the house and had to find someplace quick. Took two months before we moved in, but that was quick lol

But I am thankful that it happened. Kind of a blessing in disguise. The kid had turned 14 the previous year, so he had no choice to go into the life skills programs the high schools had. When we lived in the house in Barrie, the school he would have gone to had moved their life skills program to another school as they were doing some major renovations, so he ended up in a program where he was one of 30 odd kids. The reports home each day said he wasn't applying himself, wouldn't interact without being basically forced to interact, and even then, he held himself back and not totally get involved. He would stand on the sidelines in gym unless cajoled into participating. Etc. Now that really didn't sound like my kid. Yes, he was a bit bashful and didn't initiate interactions due to his inability to talk. But not participate in gym ? Definitely not like him at all.

So while we were at a loss on what to do, we lost the house in January and moved in here in late March. He had missed school during that time as it's hard to keep him going when you're either staying with one set of parents almost two hours north or another set an hour north. So when we got here, then I started the process. Would it make sense to travel 40 minutes one way to keep him at this school or just wait until September? Turns out, the high school in Stayner here had a life skills program as well. We went to check it out one day in April, met the teacher and the assistants. Not many kids were present that day, so I inquired about where the other kids were. The teacher says "this is all we have enrolled." I registered him on the spot and he was only one of ten kids !! He was still a bit bashful, but we both knew one girl in the class from when he went to elementary school in that program in Barrie. So that helped him settle in. By the time he graduated from the life skills program after he turned 21, he wasn't as bashful anymore, was using a voice output device with skill, and had matured enough and became comfortable enough with himself to initiate interactions with others. No doubt in my mind that if we hadn't lost the house and he had stayed in the program with so many other kids, he wouldn't have grown much.

Took me a while to be truly Thankful we lost the house and forgive Fang for his role in it, but I do. I realized that just today. If we hadn't and he hadn't done what he did, we wouldn't have found Stayner and this program.

Now the kid is in a life skills program just up the road for adults like him needing something more than spending 24/7 in front of the tv. And he continues to grow.

The dog has got more fun out of Man than Man has got out of the dog, for the clearly demonstrable reason that Man is the more laughable of the two animals.

~ James Thurber

Harper sings a Beatles tune

I love this video. Steven Harper's wife is on the board of the National Arts Center, located in our capital Ottawa, and had asked her husband if he would perform at a recent Gala. The guy isn't a bad singer and I thought it was awesome he did this. Think he surprised a few people, really. I can think of a few past prime ministers and current party leaders that wouldn't be caught showing their fun and human side lol

Oh, for those that don't know, Steven Harper is our Prime Minister. The head guy here in Canada, much like the U.S. President is the head guy south of me. And please, I don't really want to get into whether the Prez is the head guy or not down there hahahaha