The Ukrainian Domestic Goddess

When we lived in the Lowermainland, Easter for my family was always spent at my Nana and Papa's house. They would make lavish spreads of food for supper for the extended family. So this year, Brad and I have undertaken a (somewhat condensed) Ukrainian feast. I started making Easter Babka (an Easter bread with a dozen egg yolks, YUM!) on Friday and left it in the fridge to rise over night. Yesterday I put the 12 egg whites to use and made a chocolate angel food cake, baked the Easter Bread, and boiled potatoes for perogy filling. I finished making perogies (only 50 this time, as compared to my usual 80+) around 3 and, let me tell you, my feet were KILLING me. Today Brad started some borscht in the slow cooker, and he'll be making cabbage rolls later in the day. To finish it off, I'll be making some nelesniki (a crepe filled with ricotta cheese. I also add spinach for fun).

How many projects can I have on the go? This is in the midst of two I believe...bread and cake.
~ Post-baking. My THIRD set of dishes for the day. I had already run a load through the dishwasher as well. Sigh. A Domestic Goddess shouldn't have to do this many dishes. Note to self: get a minion.
~ My brand new acquisition. A must have for every Domestic Goddess who intends to make perogies: a marble rolling pin. Does half the work for you!
~ My cake is big and fluffy!! I've never had success like this in an angel food cake before! Victory!
~ The spoils of my day: 5 loaves of Easter Bread (cooling on a cloth covered pillow, rotated every 5 minutes to prevent settling), Chocolate angel food, 50 perogies.

A fantastic weekend!

Last weekend I hopped on a Westjet flight (courtesy of a seat sale and a $100 coupon they gave me when they lost my bag and I picked it up instead of having it couriered to me) from Regina to Edmonton for four days with Vassy! We planned our whole weekend around the best times to go to certain malls, stores and areas of the city. She took me out to fantastic restaurants and I had to start playing dirty in order to pay the bill once in a while. We went out for drinks on Saturday with her work colleagues who made me feel very comfortable and welcomed.

It was a truly fantastic weekend! I took a half-full suitcase and returned with it packed to the brim. My haul: 7 shirts, 2 dresses, 1 sweater, 1 movie, 1 bra, 2 pairs of shoes, and 1 (my FIRST) pair of lululemon pants. HEAVEN! I couldn't have asked for a better weekend!

Hooray Spring!

at the risk of jinxing the warm weather, i will post this entry. i love spring.

Black Diamond Anyone?

Karlene had the brilliant idea to go to Hidden Valley in the Cypress Hills for a day of snowboarding. We loaded up the little Golf and hit the highway for the 2 hour drive to Elkwater. The roads were truly terrible from maple Creek to the Alberta border, but cleared up afterwards and all in all, we made pretty good time. We suited up, strapped on our boards and hit the hill. Thanks to the recent resurgence of winter (grrrr) the hill had some fantastic spring powder (yay!!) and wasn't terribly icy or windy. We put in 4 runs before lunch and afterwards headed back out, exploring some of the runs that branched off of main runs. Each time we went up the chair we would crane our necks around trying to see what some of the other more challenging runs looked like from above.

Towards the end of the day we came into a beautiful little glade of powder and small hills that seemed to be the final end of a black diamond run. We stopped at the bottom of the hill and looked up to see what it looked like, and it looked good! So, after getting off the chair, we headed towards the black diamond run called "Suicide". I went off ahead and was shooshing along the soft snow at a really gentle incline wondering why this run was black diamond. I started to approach a ledge. The closer I came, the more alarmed I became, realizing I couldn't see the other side of it. I came right to the edge and sat down, laughing. Directly in front of me (below me), was the steepest drop off I'd encountered in a winter sport. The hill was covered in moguls. Karlene came up behind me and asked what was so funny. I pointed over the edge at the moguls and she simply said "oh, no....moguls." We sat there and laughed as we tried to decide how best to get down the hill. I went down a couple of meters on my heel edge, all the while looking down the hill. Before I left yesterday morning Brad made me promise not to break my leg. "This is how legs get broken," I thought to myself. So I sat down, unbound my board and proceeded to go down the hill on my arse, board held with one hand and sliding down beside me as I put a nice ass-groove into some of the softer moguls (sorry about that, expert skiers). About halfway down, I let go of my board knowing it was strapped to me with the runaway-strap, and hoping it wouldn't tug too hard at my leg as it slid down ahead of me. It picked up speed faster than I did, tugged twice at my left, and broke free. (Thank you runaway-strap for not doing the only job you were designed to do). Karlene and I laughed hysterically as we watched it careen down the hill on it's own, hoping that it would slow down and maybe even stop, but each time it appeared to be losing momentum, it hit a mogul and launched itself with renewed enthusiasm, finally coming to a stop once the decline evened out. I slid the rest of the way down on my ass until I was on a more level part of the hill and could strap myself back to my board. We were (thankfully) alone on the run, until we reached the bottom of the steepest part and I was putting my board back on. I don't think they were any the wiser that the bum-groove down the middle of the hill came from my bum.

We finished off the day with a couple more blue runs with a little more powder.

Things that are New

With the coming of spring (it IS coming, damnit!!), I find myself looking forward to the lovely days of sun and warmth that must be on their way - believe me, if I could push spring simply by force of will, we'd have been prancing around in t-shirts and gumboots for a solid three months already. Alas, my superpowers are underdeveloped just yet.

Yesterday we reached 6.5 degrees (according to the thermometer in my car). Despite really loving my teal Steve Madden winter coat, I flat out refused to wear it during any of the trips I had to make around the city for work. Yes, I wore it to work in the morning, but that was just a formality and I threw it carelessly in the backseat of the Golf on my way home after work. My co-workers scolded me, saying there is still snow on the ground and that "it's warm, but it's not THAT warm". Still, I refused. The way I see it, I'm just coaxing the sun to come out and melt away the rest of the snow by proving that it is, in fact, the time of year to start warming things up. "See? I'm not wearing my winter coat anymore because it's practically summer, Mr. Sun! Honest!"

I've got a lot of things to look forward to in the next few months. Mum and Da are coming to visit in July (for the whole month, right guys? Right?), I'll be heading to Penticton in June to meet Mare's little boy, and en route will hopefully have the chance to stop in Calgary and meet Leah's little one. And the thing that's closest for me to look forward to is a trip to Edmonton to visit Vassy in April! I booked my flight not two hours ago and am so excited! Thank you Westjet for your seatsale, and for losing one of my bags on another flight and giving me a $100 credit for picking it up myself! WOOT!

KITCHEN!!!!!

Here it is; the finished product! (minus toe-kicks, and trim).

It rather looks like a kitchen!

Unfortunately we weren't able to have the kitchen finished prior to Mare's arrival and the weather played a truly evil role in preventing a lot of work from being done (the countertop couldn't be brought over in the -20 weather because the extreme changes of temperature may have caused the arborite to pop off of the base). Brad put in some of the door fronts and installed our over the range microwave over the weekend which has made the kitchen useable (and REALLY nice!). Then yesterday we had a wonderful treat and Ben and Nick came and installed our countertop! YAY!!!!!! Ben did an amazing job making this custom countertop and it looks fantastic in the house! Next step is to have the plumber come in and finish up with hooking up the sink and dishwasher....then we will officially have a working kitchen!!

A weekend of scrapbooking? Yes, please!!

Mare left yesterday after a spending just shy of a week in Saskatchewan visiting with me. I picked her up from the airport on Wednesday evening and we spent the night in the city to avoid a long drive home at night and to get in some good shopping the next morning. We came to town on Thursday and proceded to do some serious relaxing in the form of hours of Big Bang Theory episodes, a night watching Emma, a surprise pedicure and three days of scrapbooking! A perfect long weekend, if I do say so myself!

Cupboards, IN!

Things are moving along nicely and we now all of the cupboards installed! The pantry isn't in yet, but that'll come last I believe. Next is the countertop which Ben has been kind enough to offer to make for us, but the aborite won't be in until tomorrow or Tuesday. Then the plumbing, and the microwave, and by george, I think we'll hvae a new kitchen! WOOT! (Oh, and the light fixture is new, too)

FINALLY, a picture or two!

Our floor is in and the walls have received their final coat of paint (Brad has conceded that I am a better painter than he). SOoooo, here are the photos!

Teaser

The floor is in and looks AMAZING!! And the first coat of paint is on the walls. But I'm not posting pictures until the second coat is done. So you're going to have to wait with bated breath!

A coat of paint makes me smile

As part of the renovations to the kitchen, we (I) decided it would be a great idea to paint one of the living room walls. I had the brilliant idea after painting the spare room downstairs that it would be really amazing to have a feature wall in the living room in a nice sage-type green. So I picked up a slew of samples and stared at them for months, finally deciding on the colour last week. The wall was going to require a coat of paint with the creation of the new pass-through anyway, so I decided to take the opportunity to change things up. One coat is done and the next will come tomorrow, but I couldn't wait to post the pictures.

(yes, that is an inflatable minion from Despicable Me peeking in from the scrapbooking room through the hall. I bought the blue ray and there was the option of getting a minion too for the same price! I'd have been crazy NOT to!)

Who Put that Giant Hole in Jess's Kitchen Wall?

Our new kitchen has been sitting in the basement in pieces since November when IKEA was having a sale on kitchen cabinets. We ordered (me), received (Brad), counted (Brad) and assembled (Brad) the cabinets and have been waiting for a slightly more opportune time to demolish our kitchen. Why renovate the kitchen? This is why:(Ewwwwwwwwwww)

So we debated on colours (finally I vetoed with the "you've liked the other colours I picked, just go with it" card) and flooring and counter top, etc and Brad decided to take the week off to get cracking on this fairly major project. Here is our (Brad's) progress so far:

Demolition begins!

Waiting for the plumber to come and fix this monstrosity of old plumbing. (fyi, we needed it plumbed in for a DISHWASHER!!! WOOOOOOOO!!!!)

On Tuesday Ben and Brad started working on the ginormous pass-through we planned for the wall between the kitchen and living room.

Pass-through complete on Wednesday!

Wall is plumbed in for all that we need, electrical work is done, and the wall has been insulated, vapour-barriered, drywalled, and mudded! Also, the carpet *cough*gross*cough*cough* has been removed and the floor is ready for a new sub-floor.
~

And this, is how IKEA tells us our final product will look (minus counter tops and sink, etc)! Getting excited!

Look at me and my fancy credentials!

I had the opportunity to take a course through the Institute of Professional Management to teach the finer points of recruitment. Being that I am a recruiter by day (scrapbooker by night?), I thought it would be beneficial, so I signed up and took the 20 hour on-line course. Granted, I received the CD-Rom in the mail in June and didn't put my nose to the grindstone until November. Regardless, the course took less than the promised 20 hours and I sent off my final exam to the institute for grading and acceptance into my official professional association! I received an email in December that I had passed, but my certificate officially arrived in the mail this month! That's right, I'm now officially a Registered Professional Recruiter, with the fancy letters RPR after my name! Hey, it may not PhD, but I'm pretty proud. See?

Christmas...more than a month late, but whatever!

The risks of this blog becoming nothing more than a photo album are far outweighed by my desire to post photos. So, I'm posting pictures from our Christmas holidays.

We drove the 20 hours to Smithers on December 17th and 18th to spend Christmas with my family (the first in four years, I might add).

During the stay, I baked 45 butter tarts, made over 120 perogies from scratch, showed my Mum the joys of embossing, relaxed, drank gallons of tea, went cross country skiing with Carly (Carly: "I thought we'd do the 5k track." Me: "Sure, sounds good!" Me, inwardly 30 mintues into it: 'Oh dear god, I'm going to die!' Carly: "Just three big hills to go" Me: "you mean the last ones don't count?" inwardly again: 'I'm DEFINITELY going to die'), went up the hill for an afternoon, visited with Maureen and Barry and had the chance to see other friends, played wii, learned that I am pretty much a master when it comes to Settles of Catan, and taught Brad the joys of a game of rummoli!