Conferences just have a mind of their own.

So here I am in Whistler, medical conference on a break, back at it in 30 minutes.
Hotel is lovely - food is fabulous, staff have been amazing, doctors are happy. That is a good thing.
However they have a tendency to write their own rules and change the program to suit the mood (such as the hockey game last night) Thank goodness the chef hadn't started to do major cooking when they decided they would move the after dinner talk to before dinner. Staff = amazing, yes I'll repeat myself.
My student is doing a wonderful job. I think she is enjoying herself immensely.
Quite possible we are the only people in the hotel - at least it feels like it. Very quiet here.
Had traditional lunch and a couple of demonstrations at the Squamish/Lillooet Cultural Centre. Then came back to the room for a rest. I hit the wall about 11am. - Will I make til the end of dinner? Nothing that coffee and eyedrops won't fix. 3:30 for apres ski refreshments and then the robotic talk by Goldenberg. - I love listening to him speak - there is humour, drama, science, facts and amazing pictures. He is such a good speaker.
Well that is about it for now. We will check out the village and do a few things like that tomorrow after check out.

Just amused myself

Ha Ha, Just took a walk down memory lane and reviewed all my older posts. It's interesting how you hear yourself from the way these posts read. Gives me a chuckle.

Anyway friend of mine - Kozy Kids and Kozy Canines.etsy.com just had one of her finch eggs hatch. Hooray and congratulations a baby finch. That one just might find a home here with me. We'll see.

Where did that weekend go?

I guess I am always asking a question of sorts these days.
I didn't really see the sunshine this weekend - too much to do indoors and I had to go the dentist. That was a surprise - didn't have an alert pop up at me the day before so at 0900 I retrieved a voice mail that said "you have an appointment at 11:00"
Well that pretty much instantly put me in a grumpy mood - headache AND the dentist? oh boy - such a day for me! Seems I get to go back to my old regime of see the beloved dentist 3 times a year - bone loss = deeper pockets in the gums = larger margins = means I really have to floss every day to disturb any bacteria. This will help.
I promise I will floss every day. Write this 100 time for it to sink in. I'm sure all of you out there floss more than once a day and now you look at me poorly. Oh well, they say my brushing is very good.

Spent Sunday working on my doctors conference coming up. It is looking marvelous. But where in the heck is my little BCIT student? I do believe she is MIA. Must PHONE her - emailing doesn't work too well it seems. Maybe I scared her. I better check with her mom (a really good friend of mine)

I consulted my Vegan with a Vengance cookbook and came up with Maple Walnut Cookies for "cookie monday" - turned out pretty good, the boy has consumed 4 and the man has had 3. I scooped for the office before they've had at them. I've had one and I think I'll have another as a reward for everything I've done today. It is 10:32 and I'm signing off.

Mark Knopfler last night

Well after that grueling day it was nice to sit at the theatre and people-watch. We marvel at looking to see who comes to the concerts we choose to go to. We are finding there are vast differences in the audiences. I guess that means we have a vast taste in music.
The show started right on time at 7:30 with an opening act Pieta Brown and Bo Ramsey, a simple but complex and haunting duo with shades of the south or ozarks. Her voice seemed the same in all the songs but what saved her was the repositioning of the capo on her guitar with each song. She was a very good artist, don't get me wrong. Something definitely different. She announced that she is fortunate to be doing the entire tour with Mark.

Intermission then the headliners. Great setup on stage, the entire Dire Straits group plus an number of others. We decide that Mark was paying the guys enough that he insisted they all have nice shoes. Nothing scuffed or sneaker/like was seen. How refreshing.

The lighting was the best I've seen for a long time if not ever. One, maybe 2 songs that I knew and the rest were off the new cd for sure with blue grass overtones and what I'll deem as celt-lantic sounds with some traditional Knopfler styling interspersed. I felt the concert may have been wasted on me as it truly was a musicians concert, not that I didn't enjoy it - it was thinking man's concert for those who know music - maybe I've just not been subjected to him enough. There was film footage smattered here and there throughout the night but what was really unique was the cameras strategically placed on the mic stand and on the end of his guitar. We witnessed his playing and fingering. All these touches added to what was a wonderful evening.

I could have sworn I wrote something yesterday......

I know I logged in last night. Thought about writing, obviously it didn't materialize. Oh well.
Today is another day. Met a couple of very bright doctors at the cancer agency. They took turns giving the man the once over. Bottom line is he is reasonably healthy but does indeed need surgery. Boo.
So back to the orginal doctor we go. Once the original one and the new one get their facts in order we should have an appointment and some pretty invasive face surgery done. He has slow growing cancer in the epidermis. They don't want to leave it even though it is somewhat contained. Man, pay attention, for crying out loud - it's cancer - get rid of it. Now. Like 4 weeks ago. But a 2nd opinion is allowed and we've done that and we are all good. No major trips planned - so no tickets to worry about cashing in, a bit of a driving trip planned but we will play that one by ear. Let's get better and get on with our lives.
A word to the wise - No more sun worshipping, ok? People, are you listening? Lots of sunscreen, glasses, hats etc. Off to see Mark Knopfler now. Nice reward for visiting the doctor today. oh and a ps: the doctor has a piano that needs tuning and wouldn't you know it he also has 4, count em, 4 accordions that need a bit of an inspection. HAHAHAHHA Yes we gave him our card.

Red Devils Food Cake for the Virginian

So somebody at work will turn 50 tomorrow - ha ha - no sympathy from me, buddy!
My colleague, Amy, (who is the cake baker of the world) is decorating his office and I will make a Red Devils Food Cake (from scratch).

The only problem is I put it into the oven at 9:00 - what is the problem you ask? What time do you think I will frost it? - My guess is the morning. ugh - it will be fresher that way I suppose - no crumbs because it will be cool.

Hope I sleep tonight. Brought work home and don't see myself doing it. Bring it home, take it back and repeat.

So from the left over pork chops I made a lovely soup in one pot and pork fried rice in another. mmmmmmm

Easter Sunday - what a day of organization

Brown the chops and put them in the crockpot with sweet/sour sauce.
Make Potatoes au gratin.
Make Angel Food Cup Cakes.
Give the boy and the man their Happy Easter Cards.
Peel the carrots.
Make Strawberry Mousse - to go on top of the cupcakes.
Work on the taxes.
Run the dishwasher.
Pour a glass of wine.
Make the Rice, boil the carrots and prep the peas and corn.
Take the pumpkin pie from fridge to bring to room temperature.
Find my Salmon recipe and figure out when this should go in the oven.
Set the table? me or them?
Bon Appetit!

'Freakin' computer!

Every year at tax time something always goes wrong with my computer.
Yesterday it said I didn't have enough disc space to save my new year's worth of Simply Accounting for my husband's business.
I had to save it to some dorky little USB drive I won on a Safeway game.
I have an external 500 gig harddrive that my PC man said isn't working the way it should. I tried all day today - some success but the files are in some cryptic format so I don't know how I would work with them from this drive - thought it would be nice to use laptop as a tool instead of a storage facility; therefore having the external drive as the storage facility. Not so. Dilemma - do I buy another external drive and see how it behaves? or just get a bigger, more powerful laptop and hope that I don't lose it or have it stolen. If I get a new one it means a lot of trauma for me: learning new windows applications, transferring files, having the Hospital do their magic to it. Decisions, decisions. A new one would be nice - I could run parallel for a while while I learn the new applications. Syncing my blackberry is causing me grief too. Oh drat technology.

Where has the year gone - April 1 already

Well let's see where this takes us, shall we....Let's recap - new baby has moved to Kamloops sans father, Kozy Kids = Kozy Canines (I'm waiting to see a whole new line of coats in pleather, faux alligator and mink, it is Easter weekend and what will I cook - maybe Mrs Humblepie has a solution for me - must check on her blog to see "what's cookin'".
Taxes are a creepin' up on me - ugh - I hate accounting. Did I tell you I hate accounting? Well I hate accounting.
I have decided to maintain a neutral position in my mental being. I'm tired of encouraging people to look after themselves. I can only do so much - my thoughts, concerns, or suggestions aren't appreciated, acknowledged or even considered, so why waste my time, energy, thoughts, emotions or breath. - It is going to be mighty quiet around here.

Gee I just want to be good at something. Everything is always a struggle and a scramble. I want to be recognized, awarded and rewarded.

Well this post has pretty much gone into the toilet so I'll just call it a day.....