Last week, we decided to cancel our Bell TV subscription and switch to Telus. By bundling our TV, phone (and long distance) and internet, we actually end up spending less on all 3 than Bell alone! So the race is on for us to watch all our recorded movies before returning our Bell PVR at the end of February.
If you get a chance, I highly recommend two movies - The Kite Runner and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. We thought ‘Cloudy’ might be light and fun for Ben to watch since he is always mezmerized by cartoons (must be the colours and sounds) - it was really well-written and downright funny (plus cute). ‘Kite Runner’ is subtitled and just a good story. It only took me 2.5 days to watch with Ben. Thank goodness for stop/start/pause/rewind on the PVR with a sick baby!
Ever notice that the older you get, it becomes more of a birthday celebration ‘week’ rather than day? Chad and I decided it was because we prefer to hang out in smaller groups and be able to visit with everyone as opposed to trying to talk over a noise in a crowded place.
So Chad’s birthday celebration weekend started on Friday with having Sharon, Trav and Nora over to satiate (and celebrate Trav’s birthday) a Bombay Behl craving. This is definitely our favourite Indian restaurant, hands down. It’s way too hard to isolate a favourite dish, but the best part is definitely the left overs, which always tastes better the next day!
*Cooking tip* Chad and I have been mixing up all the left over sauce (no matter what the dish) and using it as a salad dressing (really good mixed up with a leafy salad)!
The next night (Saturday), my folks had us over for bday celebration #2 -My Dad makes the BEST curry crab ever, and he always makes it as a treat for our special occasions! He mixes coconut milk with curry powder and ginger, lets it warm up in a wok, and cooks the crab right in the shell in the sauce. Combined with soft white rice (like any good Chinese family would), it’s a little messy on the hands but SO hard to stop eating!
And tonight (Sunday) was our last night of stuffing our faces. We decided to hit up a place downtown called Chambar as our favourite ‘Special Occasion’ restaurant (La Regalade) was closed this evening. A little chi-chi and trendy, but not bad.
Happy Birthday, Chad! Timbit and Ben love you to bits!
Just when you thought we were safe, in a statement released by Sigg in August 08, there are small traces of BPA found in their liners (after some apparent comprehensive testing). If you’re interested in returning your Sigg, there is an exchange program available until then end of October 2009, but there are no refunds and you have to pay for the shipping yourself as they classify this as a ‘Voluntary’ exchange program.
It’s not my favourite Jamie Oliver TV special, but this week we managed to catch an interesting presentation on how chickens are cultivated for the general public’s consumption. I guess many of us know subconsciously that this is how it’s done, but he goes into the production cycle for both the egg and the meat industry, and it’s actually quite an eye-opener about how we can choose both wisely in our every day lives.
In other news (in case you haven’t heard and are wanting to choose healthy sustainable fish for your family), the Overwaitea Food Group (Save-On Foods) has agreed to carry only SeaChoice fish in their stores. Read more on the David Suzuki site.
Those of us voting in the upcoming May 12th British Columbia provincial election (and I know you plan to!!) will also be voting on whether we should change the way our vote counts. If you’re undecided on whether this is a good system, here is a pretty good video explaining how it would work:
Sounds like a well thought-out system where each vote counts proportionally vs. the winner being ‘first past the post’, but I was a little confused about why some people felt so strongly against it (http://www.nostv.org/). I wasn’t sure that it was such a bad thing, but I confess what is making me decide to vote against it is the fact that it would mean the same amount of MLA’s grouped into bigger fewer ridings (e.g. North Burnaby would then be grouped with New Westminster) and more MLA’s making decisions that affect my riding, even though are not from Burnaby.
Plus, in my really simple outlook, it does seem a lot more complicated than it needs to be. But who knows - had something like this been in place in the U.S., Al Gore would have been president and the world would have been a different place right now.
A very sad documentary, but definitely a harsh slap-in-the-face of reality and a realization of how lucky many of us are.
Through the personal stories of several men, women and children whose lives are impacted by the stolen-child black market in China, China’s Stolen Children brings viewers face-to-face with a crisis brought on by the controversial one-child policy, implemented in 1979 to slow the country’s explosive population growth. As narrator Ben Kingsley explains, “The Chinese government doesn’t want the outside world to know about the crisis facing China’s children, so this film had to be made entirely undercover. The film crew posed as tourists, moved hotels every three days, and changed SIM cards after every phone call.” Remarkably, the subjects all agreed to appear on-camera, although several interviews are held in darkened cars or out-of-the-way locations to avoid detection. The result is a harrowing look at an illegal but largely uncontrollable practice that has reached epidemic proportions. Read more …
See, if I called them ‘Resolutions’, they would be destined for failure. So I’m just going to call them (simple) ‘Plans’ for now and we’ll just cautiously see how things go.
Well, it’s really autumn now, and today I made the hard decision to pull the plug on my herb garden and to harvest what I could for the year. Not a bad year for my first attempt at purely organic food growing! The biggest yield was definitely the basil and the carrots. Many-a-lesson learnt for next year - what I’d like to plant more of, what herbs and veggies can grow nearby eachother, what things need to be far away from anything else.
The coolest lesson I learnt (it’s probably pretty obvious to all the seasoned gardeners out there)? Carrots need more space between seedlings, otherwise they start to get frisky with eachother
Just when you thought we were safe, in a 
