Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Keeping Myself Busy

Despite teaching being done for the summer I have been keeping myself quite busy. Before my parents came for an Easter visit, I did a long awaited (ahem...6 years) clean up of our front entryway. It is a vestibule that is not heated or insulated but protected from the elements because it is closed in. I guess we kinda considered it part of the "outside" and it was sorely neglected. We used it as a storage area and stuff just piled up, it was such a mess. The walls were sooo dirty, it took 3 buckets to clean them! I finally got fed up with seeing the mess every time I came home. I thought to myself, "This is what greets me after a long day or work...it is also what greets our guests, this is not acceptable" and the cleaning began. I am not proud of our neglect, but I am proud of the final product!
We now have a welcoming place to greet our guests, a spot to store our scooters and hang our helmets complete with name tags!
Eventually, it will need to be painted but this is a good start!

I also prepared some lemon marmalade using this recipe and some of Sherrie's Meyer Lemon and Vanilla Jelly as a birthday gift for my Dad. He LOVES marmalade. I am not a big fan so I didn't try it...I hope it turned out okay!
Making Pectin
I know the lemon Jelly turned out AMAZING! I will definitely be making it again soon. We had it on crepes with blueberries and light maple syrup on Easter Sunday and it was delicious!
My parents brought us a gallon of Ontario maple syrup that we have been using up on yogurt and homemade granola! They also lugged a bunch of items from my youth, 3 sets of tarot cards, some kids Christmas books and my favourite musical pillow! Stashed in among the stuff were some lovely crocks that I have placed around the house (thanks for the spelling correction!).
While they were here, we stayed at the lovely place on the ocean from my previous post. We were lucky to have a couple of sunny days and took advantage of it by going hiking along the ocean.
Even though it was sunny the wind was still cold! We saw lots of eider ducks and some black guillemots! We also explored the remnants of World War II. There are lots scattered along the rugged coast along the Halifax Harbour approaches.
Bunker
Train tracks to bring concrete for building the bunkers and other supplies from ships.

Now I that they have gone and I am back at home I have been working on my thesis. I had a meeting with my supervisory committee last week and they have approved my remaining chapters (YAY!). Now I just need to buckle down and get them done!!! It is time to be a hermit which means I will be taking it very easy on blogging but I will continue to keep up with everyone.

Take Care! :) See you all soon!

PS. I hope you all like my new spring banner...complete with the ominous fog bank sitting just off the coast. I LOVE fog and we have been having a lot of it lately! :)

6 comments:

  1. Hi Alli. I'd like to try and make some of that lemon vanilla jelly that Sherrie made but I don't know where to find Meyer lemons.

    I could'nt figure out why you posted a picture of a vase and I kept looking in the picture for a pair of Crocs (the shoes)... silly me.

    Talk to you when you get back here on the blog.

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  2. A GALLON! That's my dream! I do love maple syrup fiercely.

    And Vickie, if you read this, I had to go to Halifax to get the Meyer lemons at Pete's Frootique. But I also made a batch with regular lemons, and it was excellent. :)

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  3. 'Crocs' and 'paced' made me think of shoes, too! I get it now - crocks! Hee-hee!

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  4. Silly me! I guess my spelling radar was off! ;)

    Vickie: I also made the jelly with regular lemons since I had run out of Meyer lemons and Pete's hasn't had any since Sherrie and I picked them up weeks ago!

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  5. Thanks ladies. I was at Pete's last Saturday and I could'nt find any. I'll try the jelly with regular lemons. I love anything lemon-y.

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  6. Good for you for getting the entry way cleaned up! My sis helped me do something similar in my art/craft room and it is such a great feeling. :) One of these days I'll have to attempt Sherrie's jelly too...

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