Butter Me Up

So I was today years old when I learned that cream is supposed to be at room temperature before you shake it into butter.

I had a 1-ltr unopened carton of heavy whipping cream in fridge that expired yesterday so I thought I'd give this tidbit of information a test.

I shook half of it cold straight from the fridge. It was a good workout to the point that my Apple Watch asked if I was doing exercise and should it be recording the session. I said, "Sure what the heck, I might as well get the brownie points." And in 12 minutes and 50 seconds I had a ball of yummy butter.

And I was exhausted. So I had a nap while the other half of the cream warmed up to room temperature.

Two hours later I timed the second jar. One minute and eight seconds. True story! It didn't even count as a workout. Apparently the first 11 and a half minutes of shaking is only to create friction to warm the cream up.

Dude. Did anyone else know this? (Or does anyone else even shake the crap out of their expired whipping cream?? Maybe I'm alone in this.)

You just can't top home-shaken butter with a healthy sprinkling of pink Himalayan salt. So yummy! 

Come and Sit a Spell

Sanderson Park is pretty much across the street from my house. My kidlets always referred to it as Xanderson Park.  

Last year the city removed the playground equipment from many of the small lesser used parks and totally updated most of the rest of them. Xanderson Park was one of the updated ones. It was so exciting when the old equipment was removed. It was a few weeks before the new equipment arrived and the kids and I did lots of speculating about what it would be like.  

"I hope they rename it," suggested six-year-old Maeve. "It's been Xanderson for long enough. It should be renamed 'Maeverson Park'."  And alas it has been called Maeverson Park to us ever since.  

Just this last couple of weeks I have started letting the kids cross the street and go to the park by themselves. Xander has been old enough for a while, but I figure at the mature old age of seven, it was time Maeve be allowed the exciting responsibility of venturing out on her own. 

Yesterday, as I was making supper I sent the kids to the park to play for a bit.  After a short time X comes running back into the house, "I have a question!" 

His mom responds, "Did you leave your little sister there on her own?"

"I'm going back. But I have a question," he retorts. "Granny when did you get the bench?" 

"The bench?" I ask, thinking he is talking about the outdoor bench on my deck that I have had for years but recovered a couple of weeks ago. 

"Yeah, Papa's bench." 

A bantering conversation of confusion ensued. And he assured me there was a bench at the park that said it was Papa's bench. 

"Does it say "Papa" or does it say "Albert Ziemer?" 

"Both," he replied. "And Aziph."  

Jade and I left the potatoes boiling on the stove and followed the excited young man back to the park. 

And sure enough, Maeverson Park is now home to Papa's Bench.  Complete with his little goatee icon that he used to sign all his email and texts with. 

We did a bit of CSI work and investigative deductions to determine that it must have been donated by someone close to Papa, who was familiar with his nickname and signature icon. 

And sure enough our first suspects were the responsible party.  And I managed to get back home before the potatoes boiled dry.  Can't say as much for our eyes though. 

Maeve wears Papa's "Maui hat" pretty much every day. 

I will make a point to sweep the sand off the platform and wash the bird poop off the bench at some point this weekend. 

Papa. Albert. Aziph. And the little goatee icon.  Iconic. 

200 Days of Counting My Loss and Recounting My Joy.

The metric system is based on increments that end in zero. And it really is a far more efficient system of measurement than imperial. (And it is kind of ironic that the US is pretty much the only country still firmly based in the old British Imperial system) And many of us middle aged Canadians are stuck somewhere in-between.

However, universally whether you think in Imperial or Metric, it is customarily or symbolically appropriate to acknowledge and/or celebrate things when they reach dates that end in zeroes. And even more so for double zeroes.

Today, Father's Day 2019, marks the 200th day since my husband, whom I cannot imagine choosing anyone else to father my children, joined his own Dad and his father-in-law in dancing and singing around the throne of their eternal Father.

While I weep here on earth for my own loss and for the loss my children experience, I seek to find joy in the fact that "Father's Day" this year sees the three most influential fathers that I have had the privilege to love and benefit from, be united again.

200 Days.

200 Nights.

Already.

Only.

Gratitude and hope forge the way forward for me.

How is it possible to be so simultaneously filled with joy and sorrow for what was and what is?
200 Days. For two hundred days I have counted my loss. For two hundred days I have recounted my joy. 

Oh Babe, we each felt your presence today on Father's Day as we breakfasted at Whitespot and cheersed you with our coffee mugs while imagining your pride in your offspring as you and Ben stand with the GrampsX2 peering down upon us and urging us on in the journey.  Counting my loss. Recounting my joy. 

Random Coincidence? Or Evil Mind Control?

O.M.G. Facebook is freaking me out!

There's been lots of discussion the past few years about FB and our TVs and phones 'listening' to our daily lives and incorporating it into the algorithms of advertising (or using the info as fodder for the powers-that-be to take over the world - depending on your conspiracy theory point of view)

And I admit I've had some questionable coincidences to support the listening in theory. But are they able to 'thought control'? 
Now, I've often made it known that my mind never stops, so many many thoughts of vastly varying subject matter are always floating just beneath the surface of my consciousness. So it's reasonable to understand that when a subject matter comes up, I can often truthfully say, "I was just thinking about that." 
However, today's thoughts were just a bit too randomly weird. 
I awoke at 6:30am. My very first waking thoughts were about my Facebook 'username'. I'm not sure how it works for newer FB members but way back in the day - a decade ago to be exact, you had to choose a 'username' if you wanted a short web address to your facebook account instead of a string of about a thousand letters, numbers and symbols. I chose facebook.com/elzee 
My waking thought was wondering if I even tried to get facebook.com/liana or if I went straight for elzee. /liana belongs to Liana Tipperman from Maryland and it appears she joined in 2012 so I have to think it was available for the taking in 2009. Anyway, I digress... 
My very first thoughts this morning were about choosing my fb username. I got out of bed, made my coffee and plunked down at the computer and opened facebook, sort of on autopilot for surely fb is in the process of taking over the world and is already controlling my mind.  
Normally, my first course of action when opening fb would be to go through any Messenger new messages first, then scan through my notifications to see what gravely important posts are requiring my attention and then I will scroll down my newsfeed to see how the world is faring this morning.  
But today I opened facebook and clicked my Memories link first, which is odd enough, but then this is what pops up:

Screen shot of my FB Memories this morning

I Think I Might Have Almost Died on Friday.

I am not easily bored. My mind is always abuzz with activity even though my body hardly ever is.

Sometimes, I'll just randomly wonder how close I am to the nearest grizzly bear at a given moment. I've occasionally wondered at what point in my life have I come nearest to dying. Or what's the nearest I have unknowingly been to a cougar. (Yeah, go ahead and make your smart-ass comments, but I'm trying to make a serious post here.)

There is so much going on in the world around us that we are completely oblivious to. I also believe we are mostly clueless as to how much is really going on in the spiritual realm as well.

While I firmly believe there is an active spirit world, I am not one to seek to find a spiritual meaning for every physical thing that happens here on earth. But I had an odd thing on Friday.

I was driving alone along Highway 5 from Kamloops, through Valemount and on to Edmonton, listening to the audio version of Girl, Stop Apologizing, which is the sequel to Girl, Wash Your Face.  Both of which I recommend.

Somewhere in the valley between Blue River and Valemount I came to the end of the book so I started to fiddle with the infotainment screen to find a playlist of music. As I am driving along with the cruise set at 118km/h and scrolling through my playlists, my eye briefly catches, off to the right, lower in the valley, there is a little dust devil swirling up from a bit of gravel/dirt area I can see between the trees. I'm not sure if it was a gravel pit or a gravel road - I couldn't see much of it and really wasn't thinking much about it at the time.

The swirl of dust came swirling up and didn't just sort of dissipate leaving dust in the air like they normally do, it was swirling and then it just disappeared completely in an instant.

I didn't pay too much attention to it as I was focussed on finding my play list... er, I mean I was completely concentrating on driving. But my mind clearly heard, "The Angel of Death has been fought back."  Which was a completely random and bizarre thought and not the sort of think I would normally think. But again, I didn't overanalyze it, I had other things on my mind.

I selected playlist "37" which is 37 various songs by 10 or so various artists, and carried on my merry way. (There's a story behind the play list, but I'll save that for another day.)

I listened to the first two songs which were by Mumford & Sons and decided I wanted to shuffle the album so I didn't hear songs by the same artist all in a row. Francesca, my car, is still relatively new to me so I can't mindlessly operate all the functions yet. So I looked down to find the 'random' button to adjust the song order.

When I looked up I was basically on the yellow line. And the semi truck headed south was about as close to the yellow line as I was. I'm pretty sure he scraped the bugs off my mirror. It freaked me out a bit and I'm sure the driver behind me damn near had a heart attack.

Anyway, I arrived safe and sound in Valemount a while later happy to discover there is a Tim Horton's there now.

It wasn't until I was laying awake at 4am in my hotel in Edmonton that I wondered, "Is the 'Angel of Death' even a thing? Does he live in dust devils? Did he want me to encounter a semi?"

While driving in that 5-minute timespan, I didn't correlate the semi and the dust devil at the time, but my buzzing mind can't help but ponder what really took place. But I think I might have almost died on Friday.