Monday, March 9th - so THAT'S WHY our cooking school teacher said to always label things you put away...

Conditions at 5:30 am: clear skies and -14'
Expected later: Sunny for the morning with flurries in the afternoon and the temperature rising to -4' - not bad at all

What a terrific weekend. It started off great on Friday after work with a ticket to the Ocean 100 Women's

Kirk hamming it up in the fashion show

Show. Shortly after I got there and was in line to pick up some nibbles, I met up with a couple of girls I'd met before, although I didn't know them well. They very graciously let me sit with them for the evening of entertainment and entertainment it surely was. We laughed a lot and had a wonderful time thanks to our favorite Ocean 100 staffers. Kerry Wynne was the MC for the fashion show and Kirk and Scott, also from the morning show, were models, strutting their stuff in the latest from Mark's Work Wear. All in all it was a great night and I had a really wonderful time, so thank you ladies for letting me join you.

I got home just before 10:00 pm and was surprised that Lloyd wasn't home. He should have still been sleeping. Turns out someone couldn't work so he was called in to do the 4 to 12 shift. Needless to say when he got home around 12:30 am, I was sound asleep. But it was nice to have him there in the morning to join me for coffee before I headed off to work. 

Charles and 'Savoury'

After getting home from work, we headed out to Wheatley River to have supper with our friends Charles and Laura. We had a great evening with them, as we usually do, but the best part had to be "Savoury".  One of the sheep had triplets very recently and I suppose it's just mother nature's way of saying mama sheep doesn't have the resources to feed three babies, because she promptly rejected one little one. So Charles and Laura have been feeding her by hand with a bottle and  she's become quite the little pet. I picked her up out in the barn and she just snuggled up to me with her tiny head under my chin and when you put her down, she jumped up against you to pat her, pretty much like Cooper does. She was just too darned cute!

Sunday morning I was trying to decided what to do with my day. I had lots of options but the one that won out was to defrost the upright freezer. So everything was taken out and the ice was all melted out of the inside before everything was organized and put back.  I found an unbaked pie shell and decided it would be a good opportunity to use up some of the pumpkin I'd cooked and pureed back in the fall.  I was pretty certain that I had labeled the pumpkin containers as some of it was from our garden and some was from Brenda's pumpkins. But I found a couple that were not labeled and I just figured the tape must have fallen off. So I took some out to thaw and dragged out the pumpkin pie recipe.  I thought the filling didn't taste quite the way it should but I baked the pies and they looked okay but when we tried one it didn't quite taste like it should have. Lloyd said he thought it smelled to him like Chinese Five Spice - which is made up of star anise, cloves, cinnamon, sechuan pepper, and fennel seeds.  After some careful thought, I think I realized what I had done. I believe the pie was made with a combination of pumpkin puree and some kind of squash soup that was in the freezer. Needless to say it's a recipe that can never be duplicated.  The pie is actually okay and I had made a soup with some of the left over pumpkin so instead I made soup and pie out of pumpkin and soup. Duh - next time I need to make very sure I'm using ingredients that are what I KNOW  they are and not what I THINK they are. Fortunately in both cases they are very edible.

Backstage it's hair and makeup time

On a pleasanter note Meghan's dance team had their first competition this weekend. The girls have been working very hard and except for one little booboo in the first dance, they did very well. They came in second in the first dance and first in their other three dances so they were pretty happy.  Congrats to all of you for a job well done!