I was up in Canada and a friend said, “LOOK, there are the Northern Lights.”
Funny, I could not see them, but I indulged my friend and took a picture. GUESS WHAT – in the picture, I could see the Northern Lights. The stars were amazing, they felt so close as if you could touch them.
One night I saw the Big Dipper, it was so clear, but I did not have my cell phone with me to take a picture.
I loved how the sky would be mirrored in the lake. So many great nature photos.
Also, a Canadian magnet puzzle – that was funny!
Canada is beautiful, I look forward to going back. I’d like to visit Quebec.
Have you heard of the Eclipse Hot Springs Hair Freezing Contest in Yukon? It’s been taking place yearly since 2011. They have different categories you can win, ie best female, best male, most creative, best group, etc. Each winning category receives $2,000, not bad for sitting in warm water, dunking your head, pulling head out, sculpting hair and having photo taken. Done!
Visit the site and you’ll see so many fabulous frozen hair styles. Don’t worry, as soon as you dunk your head back into the water, the freezing hair melts. So your hair does not break into a million tiny pieces.
The site doesn’t have details on timing for this. However, I was reading in past articles that photo taking takes place in February. Last year they said with warming temperatures, it was becoming hard to find the right cold days for hair to set. Maybe that’s why the website doesn’t have contest dates.
Well, right now, Chicago has been having freezing temps. We could certainly do a Freezing Hair day here.
Moose memories. For over 30 years, every September my father went moose hunting in Canada. He’d be gone three weeks in the wilderness with either my brothers or friends. That was a highlight of his year. Two months before he left, he’d go shopping for groceries to bring on the trip. He’s start pulling out his hunting gear, etc. It was a big ordeal, all of us helping to pack up the truck.
We then would eat moose meat ALL year. The moose burgers were good, but if we heard my Dad yell to my mother, “Pull out a moose roast for tonight,” we ran to visit our friends. Moose roasts were so dry and gamey tasting, just AWFUL! My Dad wised up to this tactic of ours and would say, “EVERYONE will be home for dinner tonight!”
My Dad liked to play pranks on his buddies. Since we had a lot of moose meat, he would give some to his friends. One year he had the hoof of the moose, wrapped it in the white paper that the butcher shop uses and wrote “TENDERLOIN” on it! Gave it to his friend and waited. It took a few months, but you can imagine when his friend called. He sure was mad, his poor wife was unwrapping the “tenderloin” package and found the hoof. She was NOT amused and did not want anymore moose meat from my Dad.
When we were kids we’d have our friends over for dinner. They were excited about having hamburger and french fries. We would stare at them as they ate their burger and keep asking, “So, what do you think? Do you like the burger?”
They would say, “YES, it’s really good!”
When they were finished eating we would tell them they had just eaten a moose burger. At first they looked at us and said, “WE WHAT???” You just had a moose burger. Wasn’t it good! They had to agree, moose burgers were good.
Now my Dad is in his 80s, going moose hunting is too strenuous for him. So, of course, there is sadness to this. I know my Dad misses going. A surprise happened at the store. LOOK, what I found — A MOOSE PLATE!!
I smiled. My Dad would look great at the head of the table for Thanksgiving with his very own MOOSE PLATE!
So, he will have a BIG SURPRISE this year. I hope he likes it as much as I do.
I came across these quinoa noodles and thought I would try them. I like quinoa, so in a noodle form they should be good, right. I made a mistake though. I didn’t read the cooking instructions. Thinking they were like normal pasta, I let them cook for over 6 minutes.
BIG MISTAKE! They went from al dente to super inflated and mushy. I looked at directions – 4 minutes for al dente. WOW – that’s fast cooking time, but it made sense, because normal quinoa cooks in 5 minutes. I would not have known they were quinoa noodles, very good.
They are really healthy, free of eggs, nuts, gluten, dairy, soy, peanuts and GMO. The GoGo Quinoa brand is Canadian. On their website they have other quinoa products.
On a side note, I also found Banza chickpea pasta. Have not tried them yet. One new pasta at a time. If my Italian grandmother was alive, I wonder if she would embrace these new pastas.
This weekend a friend brought me to a church where they had different Nativity Scenes on display from around the world (Japan, Thailand, Africa, Uganda, Canada, New Zealand and Poland). It was a little dark to take pictures; however, I think these came out relatively well. It’s interesting to see how each country has their interpretation of the sheep, the wise men and so on.
Merry Christmas to those who celebrate this holiday!
Brilliant Viewpoint 