Backsplash

Not sure if I've mentioned before or not that Kristen is quite the handy man. He often takes on new projects in our house and in my opinion does a fine job at it :)

His latest project, our kitchen backsplash.

Before photos:

And after photos:

Nice eh? Thank hunny you did a great job! And I love the look of the kitchen.

Today's Quote:

"We can't become what we need to be by remaining what we are."  ~Oprah

Fall Things

As mentioned on Friday I love Fall.....every year I try to add something small to the collection. Here's my latest finds.....

Happy Fall!

Friday Thoughts....

1) Love the new Discovery channel commercials....the song is SOOOO catchy :)

2) I love Fall ....think I'll actually get my house to the theme of things this weekend

3) Contest winner announced on my photo blog (and a little perk for all of you who entered)

Today's Quote:

"What I've learned about marriage: You need to have each other's back; you have to be a kind of team going through life. That's beautiful--to have that kind of friendship." ~Tom Petty

Cucumber & Dill

I'm a fan of the Renee's dressing.

And a few years back a friend of mine suggested that I buy Renee's Cucumber & Dill to mix with rice. He said it sounds weird but tastes great.

I thought "umm...no thanks!" First because I'm not a big fan of either cucumber OR dill and mixed in rice?? That's just eeeewwwww

I broke down a few weeks ago and bought the cucmber & dill dressing....

Then I proceeded to mix the dressing in rice.

Guess what?!? It's really good!! Especially if you're having a spicier dish the coolness of the cucumber is the perfect compliment.

Give it a try....

(I apologize for the blurred photo...my lighting was really low)

FYI!!....Renee's dressings are in the refridgerated section (usually in the area of your pre-packaged caesar salad kits, pre-cut veggies, things of that sort) since most of the ingredients are not simulated versions. The cucumber & dill dressing, for example, has REAL cucumber in it. Not cucumber "flavouring"

You will not find these dressings on the same shelf as your Kraft dressings to say the least.

Give it a try...you might actually like it, I did :)

Encouragement

Encourage someone today....a friend did that for me today, makes that person feel better than you would think. Thanks :)

Todays Quote:

"Never mind if you fall far short of the thing you want to do,--encourage your effort. If no one else will say it to you, say it to yourself. 'Not so bad.' It will make the next effort easier and better."  ~Josephine Demott Robinson

Boone's Bath

This isn't Boone's first bath but he hasn't had many. Surprisingly he's VERY cooperative and Kristen can do it all on his own. Just needs some help with drying him off once he's out.

Look how funny he looks when he's soaking wet :)

This is outside afterwards, see how crinkly his fur is? LOL :)

Belly rub please...

Happy Monday!

Friday Quote

Today's Quote:


"Turn the page. If something falls through, turn the page. It's over with, get used to it, get on with it. Very simple. It's always worked for me." —Merv Griffin

Contest!!!

Head over to my photo blog, I'm giving away a FREE "Fall themed" photo shoot!

Today's Quote:

"....what we have to do must be done in the now"  ~ Audre Lorde

Myrna's Back!

Yes you heard me right, Myrna has returned to the blogging world! Now don't get too excited because she's not doing daily posts like she did in the past since the dial up internet is still a challenge for her (but hopefully high speed will be there soon) and she's a mom now and that's a whole other ball game.

But check it out.....if you've never read her blog before start from the beginning, she's a great writer and story teller. Me I just ramble, she...well the girls got writing talent...that's for sure :)

http://myrnaweblog.blogspot.com/

Today's quote:

"Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness" ~ Bertrand Russell

Thank God for Friends

I was chatting with a friend today who told me about this quote:

"I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together" - marilyn monroe

It was EXACTLY what I needed.....let's just say I'm not having a great day but I'm still okay :)

Thank God for awesome friends!!

Head on over to the photo blog for the official sneak peek from the Baptism.

Weekend in Review

It was a nice weekend, Friday night Kristen & I took Boone for a walk, making a detour to Tim Horton's along the way :0)

Saturday didn't do a whole lot, did some laundry & cleaning, picked up a few groceries, got my camera gear ready for Sunday and Kristen's brother Brian came to visit so spent the night hanging out with him.

Sunday was Reed's Christening, whom Kristen was one of the Godparents. It was a unique day for me for a couple of reasons. One being I've never been to an Anglican Baptism before, it was different to say the least. I'm not familiar with such structured church services, but it was still neat to see how different denominations practice their faith. Second it was my first Baptism that I was hired to be the photographer...I was 'super' nervous before the service started but I started to feel better as things went along. What I have processed so far I'm happy with so that's a relief. After that we all headed to Reed's parents house for lunch, which was delicious!

Head on over to my photo blog for a teaser from the day.

Also check out these posts today from Zen Habits & Good Life Zen

One is about finding Quiet Time and the other is about living in the now! Life's purpose.

Happy Monday :)

Recipe: Portuguese Rice

I know a lot of Portuguese people, my last job employed about 70% portuguese which meant the Christmas party, picnic, awards ceremony were always catered by Portuguese caterers, and led to me falling in love with Portuguese food. My favourites being the parisienne potatoes....they're like mini white potatoes, and they cook them in a traditional portuguese pepper sauce (some call it peri peri) and a few other ingredients....they're DELICIOUS! They also do their chicken and rice in this same/similar sauce.

Then on to my new job where I have met more portuguese friends, one of whom invited us to her house for a bbg and made rice....portuguese rice....yum! So I asked her for the recipe, pair this up with some grilled chicken or fish, it's great.

Here is my version, tweaked a bit from the co-workers recipe:

Portuguese Rice

2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup of olive oil
1/2 white onion
2-3 tbsp portuguese red pepper sauce**
2 tbsp fresh chopped parsley (dried is okay too)
1 cup chicken or beef broth
1 cup brown rice (NOT minute rice)

In a medium size pot sauté your onion, garlic, olive oil, parsley (careful not to burn) about 2 min.
Add your broth and rice, bring to a boil then turn on lowest setting to simmer for approx 10min.
Add pepper sauce and stir. Return lid to pot and let sit another 10 min. approx or until rice is soft.
*Optional* you can add more sauce here if it doesn't have enough flavour/kick for ya :)

**Sidenote: Most grocery stores that have "ethnic" foods will carry this sauce. It comes in sweet/mild and hot. Kristen and I buy hot (it's not that hot...honest) and mild isn't actually that sweet so you still get the same taste/effect without any heat. I know one brand name is Borges, another starts with an "F" carried at walmart but I can't think of the name of it right now**

Enjoy!  Happy Friday....til Monday!

Re-design

I'd like to apologize if my new blog template/colours frequent changing as of late has been aggravating you. I'm a person who bores easily and I needed an update, that being said I just couldn't find a template & colours that I liked.

I do like my new colours and layout :) so hopefully it'll stay this way for a while now. I also edited my settings a bit to allow for larger photos which means depending on the size of your monitor it might affect how you view my blog. Again sorry if it's an inconvenience.

I'm also hoping to update my photo blog but that's towards the new year more so than now.

Don't really have a lot to ramble about today....

Here's a photo...it's some weird wasp/bee thing that Kristen took a photo of while we were at Middle Brook in Newfoundland. Freaky eh?

And today's quote:

"We are never the worse for our dreams...."  ~ Lyn Hejinian

Nfld - part 3 & the end

I missed posting this photo of Kristen & Hayley yesterday...this is where they were playing together. Seriously you should see the two of them....it's so sweet watching big brother (who really could be her dad) and little sister having so much fun.

We had a 4 hour (I think???) stopover in Halifax so Kristen's mom made the drive out to visit with us. It was nice seeing her since we hadn't seen her since our wedding last summer. I'm lucky to have such a good mom-in-law.

My friend Amanda also drove to the airport to see me....this girl was my best friend when I was in gr. 11 and she in gr. 12 and even though we're not "as" close and things change once you move away from home I still love her to pieces and know that I can talk to her anytime if need be :)

It's been YEARS since I'd seen her last maybe 4-5 years or more??? But it was awesome to see her and pick up where we left off.

Then it was time to say goodbye and as we're getting ready to go we see this life-size poster board of some "mounties" since these ladies are single we made a joke of them hitting on them :)

So....Amanda did....LOL :)

And Bev being the Mom, totally gave her heck for it, which I thought was HILARIOUS since they just met :) he he. It was all in fun though and a good way to make the goodbye happy instead of sad :(

Then a couple hours later we were back home and trying to absorb our whirlwind of a weekend.

Miss home lots and lots....and miss Amanda & Bev lots and lots too :(

Our next visit will hopefully be a bit longer.

Also head over to the photo blog, I've added some new posts since last week.

Nfld - Part 2

Today I'll be featuring Kristen's family while we were in Nfld this past summer.

First his Papa :) He's not much for the camera so I have to take snaps when he's not paying attention to me. He even has a nickname for me cause I'm always taking photos...I don't think it's meant to be a good one either?!?!?!  :)

Then Baby sister Hayley, who turned 3 on our wedding anniversary. She is HILARIOUS! She loves the outdoors, sports, being in the garden,.....quite a strong personality.

Here she's going to play hockey with a baseball and glove. Notice the helmet on backwards....note she was having a phase that if you laughed she immediately thought you were laughing AT her...even if you weren't and she would start to cry. So picture me trying not to laugh (which makes it worse) to the point, tears were rolling down my face trying to keep it in not to offend the poor little thing....I love her soooo much!

Then Older Baby sister Samantha, who didn't spend much time with us since she now has the boyfriend and she's just at that age where friends are WAY more important than family. I remember being that age....so I understand her not wanting to be around us....it's okay :( Just kidding....love ya anyway!

And Kristen's Step-mom Paula who was playing with Hayley and I think possibly having just as much fun :)

Miss them all so much.

Tomorrow our stop-over in Halifax where we visited with Kristen's Mom and my friend who I hadn't seen in YEARS! Literally!

Today's Quote:

Why Always, 'Not Yet?' Do flowers in spring say 'Not yet?'  ~Norman Douglas

The Art of Getting Off your Ass

Check out this article on http://www.lyved.com/ ....it's good :)

No more excuses for not doing what you want with your life!

Newfoundland

Do you know what I realized this morning? I didn't post any pictures of our trip to Nfld in July....why I didn't I don't know and why I'm realizing this now?!?....is beyond me!

So here goes.....Today I'll post photos of my family....then next week I'll continue with Kristen's family, and so on.

First we have Riley (the Bishop family dog...who's way too hyper...lol)

And Kayla....my 'honourary' sis.

Then My other honorary sis...Kenda (who's having a rough week so pray for her) and my Dad, my papa :)

My momma :)

And Uncle Shawn, my momma's brother who's one of the funniest people I know (not funnier than Kristen though....lol)

And that's it for today....Happy Friday.

Boone & the apple

We took Boone for his first hike, this past weekend, to a conservation area where Kristen deer hunts every year. While walking, Kristen gave Boone an apple from a tree nearby....to quote the old saying he was "proud as a peacock" walking with this apple. I'm not even sure he realized it was edible...I think he just thought it was a great tasting toy :)

Today's Quote:

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."  ~ Samuel Beckett

New Years Resolution - September Style

It was a great long weekend. We had a bbq with friends, I accomplished a LOT of little things that had been bothering me and I even had time to relax.

Didn't take a lot of photos this weekend, mostly of Boone truthfully. So I'll post a couple of those tomorrow, but don't worry I won't be like those new mothers who all they ever do is talk about their kids and only ever send pictures of their kids and forget that life still goes on even though they're a mom now. However, that being said I totally see why they're the way they are...I love my puppy :)

Be assured though this is still a blog about Christa and not my puppy ....lol.

Anyway enough rambling....

Do you feel that after Labour Day weekend its like New Years all over again? A fresh start, a new school year? I do....it's this time of year that I like to re-evaluate my January New Years resolutions and goals and see where I am and where I want to go these last 4 months in 2008.

My resolution this year was to "Be quiet" and for the most part I've done well....I've learned a lot about myself. Some good, some bad....both I'm working on.

The bad.....

I've learned that I'm not a good listener, I mean that literally. I find I cut people off when they're talking to me or I'm already formulating my response to something they said even before they've finished speaking. But I'm doing better with changing this, now that I'm more concious of it. There are other things too but admitting one flaw is enough for today and this post :)

Now the good....

I've admitted things to myself that I was kind of in denial about. Things that I really want deep down for my life (and my life with Kristen) but was afraid to truly admit. Feels good being honest with myself and now that I've realized these things I am taking steps to make my life more along the lines of those desires.

So today I re-commit myself to my resolution. To change my goals to suit these new discoveries and to keep moving foward. Check out this post on Zen Habits

AND...check out my photo blog....new photos today.

Happy Tuesday!