dear diary (good friday)

Dear Diary 

 

 Once upon a time back in the olden days , getting a diary for xmas or a birthday was such a thrill. We filled it with all our secret thoughts and petty grievance's and that cute boy we had a crush on. Then someone close to us would... find...read... and expose our secret life to the world! or our moms would demand to know the boys name ...how come you never heard of dads reading our diaries?

 

 Fast forward to today and we willingly expose everything on Face Book, no need to write in those diaries.... well maybe it was better in the ‘olden days’?  but no less boring I'm sure. My girlfriends diary was coded so everytime she washed her hair in her diary she had done something sinful with her boyfriend (we were catholic) ...she had the cleanest shiniest hair ...but also the  blackest soul full of sins...omg . As for myself, I got bored after the first couple weeks because I wouldn’t dare put down my real thoughts and desires ...I had six siblings and no privacy ...are you kidding me, besides I had all those sinful thoughts too ...just sayin.

 

 We used to skip mass which was a sin ...but we would pick up the missive ? ...essentially it was a newsletter about everything happening in the church. These were kept at the entrance so it was easy enough to get a copy without actually attending the service.. If we ran into someone that had been at mass that was a bonus because then we could quiz them on the sermon! See... you could get caught if the adults were suspicious enough they  would say “ok what did father Bob talk about in the sermon today?”

 

 All these sins needed to be confessed at some point so we could clear the slate and start over again. Now you think this would be the easy part but it was the toughest for me. The priest could be the same one you had last time so I needed to get increasingly creative without him suspecting me of making up the same ones over and over. I gotta tell ya I had the most boring sins and if I had it to do over again I could make his ears bleed...!  We had to recite prayers as penance and that was also torturous. I would sing my favorite songs along with a few ‘hail Marys’ under my breath and then make a clean get away as soon as I figured that  who ever was watching me would know I wasn’t cheating.

 

 Those days are long gone I quit going to church in high school and have never really been back, don’t get me wrong , in school (catholic school) I was top dog in religion class , so I knew I was gonna burn in hell... but nobody else suspected ! Organized religion has since ...held no power over me and I have since come to my own understanding of spirituality.

 

 

 This Good  Friday has me looking back and looking forward too.... without our experiences of all our life journeys how would we know what is right and what is wrong? I sure don’t believe in those stupid sins and confessions creative in confession....or maybe when I was on my knees supposedly saying the rosary as my penance , some of that spirituality seeped in when I wasn’t aware.... or maybe it was there all along ......

 

happy Easter everyone! and my only wish is for everyone to find their own spirituality....

The story of the apple phone

 

This is my story and little ‘rant’ about my apple Iphone 

 

and the lord said to Eve ...if you eat that apple I will make sure you suffer for ever more !  Eve was so sick and tired of men telling her what to do and what not to do and  she had no female friends to commiserate with. "Meat ...meat...meat... what does a girl have to do to get some fruit around here?" .... so ya just know this was a time bomb waiting to explode !

 

  when she spit the seed onto the ground from that apple, up popped a tree that grew  into a big corporate conglomeration with an apple as it's symbol...  this company sucked in men and women from all over the world to partake of its fruit . Once bitten you are committed to eating its fruit forever more. The pains suffered from trying to mix other fruits with this superior apple are legend and dare I say... soooo annoying!  The tentacles it sends out will bind you to it and will NEVER let you embrace any others.

 

 The offspring (called apps) from this lowly little apple 'turned conglomerate'  proliferated and this is where the story gets good . God foresaw that Eve was an adventurous girl and wanted to experience it all ! She would want to feed on lots of different fruits so he embedded in his precious apple the ability to spurn all others wanting a taste and a piece of the action. He wanted to keep Eve pure and sanctimonious ...but Eve being a little on the slutty side did not discriminate, she loved all kinds of fruit and wanted it all !

 

 So god said..... Dam you Eve ...I will make sure your life is a living hell should you decide to keep eating other fruits after eating my apple........ and the arrogance continues to this day!! The apples from this store refuse to be mixed or blended and will leave a terrible taste in your gut when you cough up all the extra cash you are gonna need to keep eating these apples. And if you think  all the fruits of your labours will live together happily ever after ....well....you also probly believe in the tooth fairy !!!!

 

end of my story ...nobody lived happily ever after  !

 

 

ps make sure to buy a protector! it is 150.00  for a new face and....you need an appointment !!!!!!

in memorium

I thought I would wait
until everything was perfect
To live my life
When I should have been perfecting it all along
and now
I fear I have left it too late


We are who we are
but we can be better
why wait to live our life tomorrow
we are here today...only
and then we are gone

unpacking a life ... or so it seems

Unpacking a life....or so it seems

 

Why is unpacking from a trip such a chore? Five days back home and I am trying to figure out what to write about so I can have a break from unpacking my stuff. The problem seems to be that I have too many clothes and not enough room to put everything away ...sooooo.... I need to clean out drawers and reorganize and...and...  it is truly pitiful. I can’t seem to be able to part with anything , seriously , I have a hoarding problem ... not like the reality tv ones,  but on a much smaller scale.

 

 That sweater is a little tight ...yes... but... I plan to lose this vacation fat as soon as it warms up...lol. And then there are those dresses I bought on sale that were a little too tight but I was gonna lose a few pounds before the vacation fat set in...omg...it is a vicious circle. The clothes that fit a smaller me are really nice and dam , I looked good in em...! NOT giving those away...ummmm ...this is not going well. So here I sit trying to figure out what to write ....too many decisions about what clothes to keep and what to toss.... but my mind is already wandering to food and I wonder what is in the fridge.

 

 My daughter in law is a an organizer and everything has a place ....she takes pictures at work and tapes them to the shelves so everyone knows what belongs on those shelves and where! When you hear the shrill...”who put this here?”  “this does not belong here !” “can’t you see the picture?”  , we all blame the person that is out on a job...ha ha.

 

  Anyway she says if you haven’t worn it for a year then out it goes.... but she is a size zero...need I say more? If you bring something in ...you should take something out...like really ? Who does that? She also organized all my spices ONCE... alphabetically ! I thought she was kidding ...but she wasn’t and I did feel bad relating the story to everyone but I thought it was so funny ...but I think I hurt her feelings.

 

 Soooo I let her organize my closet and believe me when I say she was excited! omg there are other people out there just like her and my niece is one of em...... Well my closet stayed good for about... I want to say a year cause she might read this ...but actually three to six months is closer to the truth. I have to admit I really liked it too, but it doesn’t stay that way. They are coming over on Sunday and I am thinking  to go buy a lock for my bedroom door ....right after I check out the fridge......

Bacon Dust?

 Bacon, bacon , bacon... what is this obsession with bacon? Ok ...so I love bacon too, what's not to love? How would you like to sprinkle real bacon flavor on anything you want? It’s like fairy dust only way BETTER because we can eat it!! Kids won’t eat the greens...sprinkle bacon dust on em...haha. Well folks and fellow caterers , hmmmm... real people can do this too ...you know,,,  those people that aren’t caterers, but they won’t...hey, maybe we can sell it to them? Ok someone write that down!

 

 So I learned this from Emily Ellyn ( cupcake wars Caterstar), she had a powder (kinda like tapioca?) that you can buy and put in a food processor , I think it is half and half proportions. Lets say we do it with peanut butter , she did this on stage (at Catersource Conference) and voila’ ...you have peanut butter dust !! I am not making this up... I swear... ! We don’t have to be into ‘molecular’ gastronomy science or what ever the heck they call it, this is just plain simple. Emily claims you can do this with any protein  (can you do it with fruit I wonder?) but my immediate thoughts went to bacon grease ( guilty : ) , or did she put that in my head? I don’t know what this magic dust is but she had a bag of it, and as I am writing this I know some of you are going to want to know what it is... and one of you will know... and post it. Warning...do not be  putting this up your nose...hmmmm...

 

 Because I was behind the scenes this year I did not get to meet so many of you from Caterbuzz, and Catersource . Believe or not I ended up eating by myself more than I care to mention...and that needs to change! Trouble is at these conferences all of the cafes have line ups. It is something we need to work on before the next conference. Informal settings, sharing a meal or just a coffee or drink is my comfort zone, I need to connect over food I think. Maybe even just a simple posting on the  bulletin  board in the attendee lounge. “ hi ...my name is Cherylle Winacott from Canada and I am having supper at the buffet tonight in same hotel as the conference . I will be there at 7:00 pm. I hate eating alone, please join me if you want. I promise to change your name if I write about you...lol”.

 

WE'VE ONLY JUST BEGUN ...EXCERPTS FROM A HAPPY COOKER PART THREE

 

When you set out to make an idea work...something that captures your imagination... and you  can just ‘feel it’... forget that you have absolutely no experience  .....common sense does not even  come into play. An unlikely pairing of a hairstylist and a welder deciding to make a living by starting a catering company , does not make any sense at all.

 

 Sometimes maybe it is better to be ignorant of what may lay ahead and I certainly do think that ignorance is bliss in this situation. What ever made us think we could make a living at feeding people? A couple lucky jobs that we fell into.... I guess, and the timing couldn’t have been any better (being bankrupt and having nothing else to do ).

 

  Inexperience and not being a chef and I suppose having no preconceived ideas about food in general, was our saving grace. What we really cared about was making money ....lol, being as we didn’t have any. We also figured out early on that feeding people with lots of great food that doesn’t run out, and you don’t have to wait forever in a lineup for ...is THE most important rule of catering....still is I guess!

 

 We had the basics down pat...we could slow roast and  rotate whole hogs and hips of beef on a rotisserie barbeque and it is pretty hard to screw that up..(well you can, but that is another story.. and a good one too : .) Bringing lots of food was a no brainer because we didn’t even know how much food everyone would eat ....so we always had lots of food left over.  We never ever ran out of food even when we learned how much to cook. I do have to say though , that to this day I still go out on an event and worry if we have enough food....could this be a trait of good caterers? The ones that stay in business ?

 

 My only business experience was having owned four beauty salons (that was before we became known as ‘stylists’) one in Alberta and three in Saskatchewan. The ex was a certified welder and had the expertise to make anything run , or build anything we needed and fix just about anything that broke down.

 

....... and ‘break down’ we did! This is one story (and I have a few) from early on in our start up days. A potash mine booked us for their company picnic out in Wakaw regional park . They wanted  a bbq lunch of hamburgers and a bbq beef supper. It was about an hour and a half away and we were traveling in a school bus we had acquired that was equipped as a kitchen ‘.

 

  ...ok.... I have to pause here and tell you about the bus. I can’t remember how we ‘found it’ but I do remember we had no money to buy it. We needed it for prep and it allowed us to expand our vision and use it at Auctions! The bus was a shabby blue colour and needed a lot of cleaning and repairs but it was basically sound , had a deepfreeze , bun warmer, a grill and big kitchen hood with the proper ventilation vent, as well as prerequisite number of sinks..(and btw , what is it with health inspectors and sinks ? it is like you can never have enough sinks for them) It had everything we needed. The guy selling it would take payments (thank you  lord for this break) and we had ourselves a real live ‘food truck’ this was before reality TV ! 

 This poor bus needed a facelift soooo bad and we couldn’t afford a real paint job ...so we bought some bright red high gloss house paint and a  paint brush and holding my breath I took the first swipe at painting this thing! OMG ..... before you knew it that bus looked just like  new ...I still have the before and after pictures ...we were so proud ! Now lets just think about that ...a lowly paint brush and house paint ...like really....who does that, and it only cost us a couple gallons of paint!

 

 ok now where was I...? On our way to do this picnic for a couple hundred people and the bus breaks down a third of the way there ....Dam! ...here comes those  Kentucky Fried Chicken thoughts again ....the ex gets out and looks under the hood and finally figures out what the problem is (he always can figure out what is wrong and how to fix it). This bus needs parts that are back home and we need to have this baby at the park because all the food is in it. We had a vehicle following us with staff.

 

  It so happens that we have a good friend with a big tow truck that can pick up semis . We give him a call and he comes out and puts a hook on our bus .We shuffle the help into the bus and ex jumps in the other vehicle and goes back to the kitchen /shop/business....to pick up parts...see after the job is done we still need to get the bus home. So here we are riding in this bus on a hook behind a towtruck ....we are busy peeling and chopping onions and splitting frozen burgers because now we are running late and out of prep time on job site. oh ...and all this at a crazy angle because we are up in the air.

 

 I call ahead to the event organizer and explain our situation and she is in a panic and who can blame her? This park is situated at the bottom of a hill with a long curved road and it is noon when we round the top of this hill. Picture this big blue tow truck with this bright red and white food truck on its hook coming into view at the top of the hill and making its way down to cheering waving crowds of people!!! Omg.... we felt like rock stars ... the event organizer came over and hugged us as we all piled out of that bus smelling of chopped onions ! We got to work immediately and had them eating within a half hour!!

 

 Ex made it back with parts and worked all afternoon on fixing an alternator (I think that was the problem). That potash company has booked us every year since then and eventually when we got into event planning , hired us to organize their events as well.

 

Moral of the story...hmmmm....when the lord gives you onions ...chop em up and fry em ... who knows you could come out smelling like a rose?

 

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To Plant or not to Implant (personal journey to Mexico for dental work)

 TO PLANT OR NOT TO IMPLANT?

  ‘my personal journey into Mexico for my dental work’

 

 

 The sound and feel of the  dentist drilling into my tooth  was to much to bear and I ended up BITING HIS HAND! He sent me home with out finishing and eventually I had the tooth pulled. My mom was not impressed ...I was 9 years old and didn’t care.

 

 .....and so began my journey to  being toothless ...well I am exaggerating,  but when pull came against drill... I had them pulled every time , now have bridges ....just another bridge  to cross when dealing with my teeth. Well that is until one bridge broke off.  I had so many teeth pulled  (they didn’t have ipods back then to drown out the drilling) that I was running out of teeth to attach the bridges to.

 

  So here I am in Mexico ,where I had my original two bridges done four years ago  by a young dentist that I went to interview and see if I felt comfortable with him. He managed to gain my trust ...well.... his wife worked there too and she held my hand while I cried. Yes I am exaggerating... but I do cry ...well my eyes are like water buckets and I feel like I am going to die when  lying back in that chair ...and yes she did hold my hand, and sure,  I recede back into childhood when I enter a dentist office.

 

  He did a lot of work in my mouth back then (putting in two bridges) and now he was scolding me for not having my teeth cleaned twice a year! Are you KIDDING me???? GO IN TWICE A YEAR to a dentist office!!! OMG ...willingly...Jesus .... Poor tooth took either too much of a beating in four years or it was not cleaned properly and it decayed under cap (bridge ) and broke off (second excuse is likely cause). It abscessed over xmas and I was in my own special hell.

 

 Sooooo ....this is my third trip to Mexico in as many weeks ...antibiotic regime for abscessed broken off tooth is taking it’s time to heal. So far I have not bought a Micheal Koors purse and have resisted all the silver jewelry ...well except for this one little ring ...ahhhh. Oh ..and...and...two metal flower sculptures that are absolutely stunning and will look great on our buffet tables (in the catering business) as centerpieces (and easy for our artistically challenged staff to put out with out too much effort......and you know who you are... : )

 

 ....and in the end the problem tooth has  a fracture and cannot be saved ...hmmmm ..dam... that teeth cleaning twice a year maybe wouldn’t have been so bad. My favorite and gentle dentist ‘Dr. Arturo’ has suggested two implants , one going into hole made by problem tooth being extracted and another by my back molar, seems you can’t attach a bridge to a ‘live ‘ tooth and an implant. So off I go for a CAT scan to see if I have enough bone for second implant.

 

 Back home we have a waiting list to get a CT scan done...here I go next door and pay 75.00 cash and have it done right away. I should also mention that I have had so many  xrays (digital) taken of my head that my friend says I’m going to grow another head and I reply ‘oh great...then I’ll have TWO mouths to feed!’

 

  All the xrays are free and I don’t see lots of big beautiful offices here in Mexico (they are clean, small and efficient). They do have a lot of assistant's that are in training and also dentists that are dedicated root canal specialists , and I really like that! I have had two root canals this visit and the female dentist was so gentle , thorough and fast that I wanted to hug her forever when she finished....I hardly felt a thing and she was nudging me telling me it was done...really ! Mexico also has travelling root canal specialists ! They come to the dentist office and do it right there on the spot ...had two done four years ago ...they know their stuff and make having a root canal not so bad.

 

 Ok... so root canals notwithstanding , I still have that inner turmoil that will never go away when visiting a dentists office. The implants are not on my agenda and in the end all the stress and turmoil won out and I only got one implant...two root canals and a three tooth bridge, one crown on the bottom molar, that was the other anchor for the bridge that broke off. Bottom bridge that broke off... will stay off... and I am FINISHED.... with one implant in and healing.

 

Total cost is less than 3,000.00

 

The removal of problem tooth and subsequent implant is painless and fast ..an hour and a half! Dr. Arturo  really knows his stuff and he is very gentle with me and god knows how I appreciate that! I fill his prescription for yet another round of antibiotic's and narcotic? for pain and swelling that mysteriously does not appear. The implant site is not even swollen!

 

 So moral of the story is  ’FOR CHRISTS SAKE DON’T BITE THE DENTISTS HAND WHEN YOU ARE A KID’....  get your teeth cleaned regular...uh huh (and I WILL be doing that at least once a year...so ok ...we need to compromise here)  I only come down here once a year, .and although I don’t cry , and don’t need my hand held anymore, when I am sitting in that dentist chair with my head back...... I still feel like I AM GONNA DIE!!

 

end of story

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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