Exhaust

I woke up at 4am and navigated a difficult day. I think I came out successful. Gillian was a big help to me today. She sat through hours of interviews with me and helped my deliberate for ages. I am so grateful for her support!

5 steps back

After a long day of interview, I learned that one of our planned summer students had taken a different job. Nothing against her because she needs to do what is best for her, but that leaves me with only 1 day to fill the position as it must be completed by tomorrow. So this adds a few hours to my workload tomorrow as I need to do interviews and hire someone else. It will be a long day.

I thought about ordering out because it was just such a difficult place to be in. But instead I made the paprika chicken bake. It was actually cathartic to put it all together.

Front Hall

I had the day off today and started my spring cleaning in the front hall. It is a pretty small room so I thought a good place to start. I took everything out and scrubbed the walls and floor so feel pretty pleased about that.

Now back to our regularly scheduled cooking blog!

Today was beef tacos in pasta shells.

The salad and the mini tacos were really good together! The dressing on the salad was simple- red wine vinegar and olive oil.

Accident

On my walk home from Church I saw there had been a car accident on Stephen St.
From how the cars were aligned, I couldn't tell how the accident had happened. It didn't make any sense why there would have been an accident.
It reminded me of how sometimes life surprises us. It doesn't make sense the way things turn out sometimes.

unseeded

I went in to work today to run a program. It is helpful not to have people around all the time when I try to get things done.

Before I started, I hid some chocolates around the building for my students to find. I hid some on their projects:

Apparently Walmart and Costco were very busy today. Glad I didn't have to shop there.

It is still chilly here, but nice in the sun.

End of the Beginning

Song by David Phelps

James' team won the Lakeshore loop by winning tonight's game 7-1. Nice way to end the season!

They still get to play a winner of another loop in a mini-tournament in April.

Sticky freezing rain

By the time I woke this morning the temperature has risen to 3 degrees so a melt was beginning and the freeing rain was very sticky to walk on. As the temperature remains above 0 things will continue to improve. But when the temperature heads down again, we'll see how things go. James has a game at 9pm. Kim invited me to her Church's Good Friday service at 2pm. (Also the 401 wasn't closed that long last night- I think they just had to do a good salting job on it and then they opened it up again)

This morning:

Escalation

They are in the process of closing the 401 near Kingston due to icy conditions as the second wave of freezing rain  is pushing through. James' team was supposed to play Peterborough tonight but they cancelled, which was smart- better not to be driving in this.

This is what things looked like in the morning when I left for work- light snow:

And this is what it looked like when I returned (after the first wave of freezing rain):

Round 2

The day did not turn out as bad as expected with Round 1. There was some freezing rain but not an excessive buildup. The roads were in pretty good condition when I walked home. The sidewalks were not as good but if you walked carefully they were fine. While the storm impacted schools with the expected blast, it didn't turn out to be a bad day after all. However, the second wave is still expected. They had always been predicting two rounds to this.
But it doesn't look too bad for us and St. Catharines looks completely in the clear!

The purple will be the hardest hit. (The Facebook group I get this from is a storm station called Tornado Watch, but it doesn't only look at tornadoes)

Walk in

I had no problems on the walk in- there is light snow falling and it is very windy but wasn't slippery.

one prediction true

They have cancelled the school buses (so essentially a snow day). However, I do not see any snow or precipitation currently on the ground. It is very windy though. Queen's is a go though, so I am heading into work shortly.

Predictions

Things don't look good for tomorrow. I did stock up on food. Tomorrow was to be a game against Peterborough. I am doubtful that will happen. Will we keep power will be the question of the day. Supposed to snow until lunchtime tomorrow and then freezing rain for about 9 hours. We'll see if the predictions come true!

Breaking in boots

After long last I got a set of boots from the Bay. Not the set I originally ordered but they are quite nice:

I worked on breaking them in last night and so have blisters today. James also got some new shoes. Cool teenage ones I am told:

long day

Today had interviews on interviews. Lots of good ones- it will be hard to choose!

Here is some fun from Environment Canada:

Palm Sunday

Today being Palm Sunday Rustle started with a video done by children (not our children, other internet children) who drew and narrated the Palm Sunday story. The best part of the story (I thought) was that they depicted Jesus with a necklace that had a big cross on it. Jesus was very forward thinking with his accessories, apparently.

I couldn't find that video but I found another one by the skit guys also about Palm Sunday:


There was a car stolen today in Toronto that had a baby in it. Luckily, police found it a few hours later and the baby was safe. I imagine the thief was probably pretty surprised  when he realized there was a baby in the car!

James' team was playing Peterborough today. They only had to win or tie to finish the series and they lost. They were up 2-0 at the end of the second period but ended up losing 5-2. So another game on Thursday.

Irish

Paula said that my blog is now a cooking blog!

I guess it is the most exciting thing right now.

Wednesday's dinner was classified as "hard" but it's not like the steps were difficult, it is just there were a lot of them. I did miss one and had to backtrack but it did all work out in the end- Irish Chicken Pot Pie:

The day went well today. I managed to get through most of my work done. Tomorrow is the March Break open house so I will be working tomorrow as well.

southwest

Today's chef's plate offering was southwest steak salad

 Making the ingredients:

 Toasting the tortillas:

 Mixing the dressing:

 Salad with steak:

 Final product added the tortillas and drizzled some extra dressing.

It was very yummy!
The level that it was set at was "easy" and it was indeed not too complicated.
Tomorrow's is listed as "hard" so we'll see how that goes!

Essays complete

I finished posting all the essays and now am just answering questions for a few hours a night.

Today a Bell guy spent the day at the house and upgraded it to Fibe as we had been having problems with our connections. The phone is certainly much clearer!

I spent the day cleaning. I washed the windows from the dirt of winter. It wasn't quite warm enough to leave the windows open, but it is good to see clearly again.

Kim painted the bathroom so I had a lot to clean there.

On Thurs I made Thai Mango chicken:

It was a easier to make than the gnocchi and tasted very good as well!

This week chicken pot pie and a steak and salad dish are on deck. Looking forward to that!

Freedom

The smell of spring in the air smells like freedom to me.

We are wrapping up the grading of assignments. Not free yet, but closer.

I made handmade gnocchi today, thanks to the chef's plate:

 Blanched in boiling water:

 Mixed in with leek, baby spinach and peas

It was very good and very filling. Tomorrow is Thai Mango chicken.

update

I've been swamped with the marking of essays, only a few left now.

In the meantime, James went on a ski trip with his school and loved it. He had a blast learning to ski. He went down a double black diamond in the forest and lived to talk about it. (It was an accident that he was on that hill)

He also ate fish there and liked that as well.

His hockey team has been playing in the "Lakeshore loop". The first game was against Oshawa and while I was there, I couldn't watch my mouth was dry and I thought I was going to pass out. But he did ok. They played Belleville and he did ok as well. Yesterday, he was playing Oshawa again and he was a bit worried because he said there were some goons on the team. When he got there, they found that 7 players were already suspended. After James' game, there were 10 people suspended. (So 3 in addition to the ones already suspended) The refs were clear to them at the start of the game that they weren't going to tolerate anything that wasn't by the book. I wish more refs were like them.

Today James' hockey team went paintballing and he had a good time at that as well.