Downtown Toronto

We were driving downtown the other day when I snapped this photo. That is the Gooderham Building in the foreground.

Nature Walk

Went for a nature walk this evening. Lots of mosquitoes although it was windy. It was risky pausing to take a few photos! You'd get attacked.

One of the men at our local convenience store told me he's a Russian citizen. He's originally from Afghanistan, but lived in Russia for 20 years and speaks Russian. Interesting how global everyone is around here. My hairdresser is Armenian if I remember correctly, but lived in Greece for 4 years and learned the language. However, is he Lebanese originally. That's Toronto for you.

'Graduation' letter

L received a nice 'graduation' letter in the mail, from the children's dentist she has been seeing for the past 15 years. I had asked them for a referral to an adult dentist for her next appointment. They also gave her 2 movie tickets including drinks and popcorn. She wrote them a touching thank you letter with her pleasant memories of always being in the no-cavity club.

It's Complicated and a Muffin Story

I recently met a lovely couple, now engaged. It seems they met on Facebook. He has 2 teenagers from a previous marriage. She has 5 kids aged 3 to 12 from a previous marriage. They each have their kids on alternate weekends in joint custody agreements. They live about 200 kms apart in different cities. That's about 2 hours' drive. The challenge is for them to spend time together, not to mention how married life will work. It's complicated.

L made delicious chocolate muffins last night using a Duncan Hines cake mix. She wanted to make them just like in the stores and decided they must fill the muffin cups right to the brim and it worked! They swelled into those oversized muffins. She pushed some chocolate chips down into each muffin before baking and decided to call them double chocolate chip muffins. I tried to have only half a muffin and ended up having the whole one. The same thing happened to M, who declared them 'light and fluffy'. K had 2 whole muffins.

Times are Changing

News

Tracy Moore on Mat Leave - This popular host of a morning TV show in Toronto is going on maternity leave and her husband will be taking a year off to look after the baby. Well, I think it's great that the guys are taking an active role in the nurturing process, lucky lady! Times are changing.

Sunset at Wasaga Beach

We went to a friend's cottage near Wasaga Beach yesterday. It couldn't decide whether it would rain or not, so we experienced a muted sunset. The water view from their cottage is spectacular, nonetheless.

They made flavourful slow-cooked ribs, along with some pounded chicken and salsa for dinner. The secret to their ribs is do a dry rub on them, then oven bake them at 350F for half and hour, then 270F for two and a half hours. Then slather them with smokey barbecue sauce on the barbecue for a few minutes. We had fruit kebabs and a moist, delicious rum cake for dessert.

Animal Thoughts

Got this in an email and thought it was funny: