Follow up, cooking and questions..........

Do you remember this dish I bought?

Well I got an answer from the lady at the Wedgwood Museum in England.:

"I do not know if you have access to the publication ‘Adams Ceramics. Staffordshire Potters and Pots, 1779-1998’ by David A. Furniss, J. Richard Wagner and Judith Wagner (Schiffer Publications, 1999. ISBN 0-7643-0847-5) – in the above named work a number of early variations on the Adams’ factory backstamps appear – though I must admit I cannot find one identical to that featured on the item in question – however, although the Prince of Wales’ backstamp is not featured in the appendix at the back of the work, there is a reference to a ‘WA & S’ printed backstamp, which was used by the factory from 1819 to 1861 – and I suspect that this is related to the printed backstamp below the Prince of Wales feathers as portrayed on the image you forwarded.

Stylistically the shape of the dish would seem to correspond with this era of production – and the (almost) pheasants’ eye decoration is very similar to copper plate printed work which has appeared on the Adams factory production again around the time indicated.

It maybe that with a thorough perusal of the above named work – which is excellent – that you will be able to come to a more satisfactory conclusion, but on the face of it I would say yes, that this is a William Adams piece."

 

I have called the library to see if I can borrow that book through inter-library loan, to see if I can find out more about it, but they can't find a copy.  It is nearly $80 to purchase a copy online, so that's out as well. The thing that fascinates me is this area was settled in the 1830's, so this piece may have come over with them?

 

I went grocery shopping on Friday and bought some ground beef and cooked that up with some onions and divided it to go into the freezer.  This is such a great way of dealing with ground beef I wouldn't dream of putting it in the freezer without pre-cooking and dividing it up.

 

Also made a casserole of liver, onions, mushroom and bacon...........I know you either love liver or hate it with a passion.

 

Then dd is hosting her first Thanksgiving dinner on Monday and she asked me to make her some bread sauce.

 

We were invited to go, but are not going which is just as well, as there will be 8 young 'uns between the ages of 23 and 28.  We would be the odd couple out!!!

 

Now for the questions.  I was ironing today when I thought of all of these.

 

1. Do new houses in Britain have airing cupboards?  Ever since we have lived in Canada we have never had an airing cupboard, so we don't technically "aire" our clothes like we did in England.

 

2. How many sets of sheets do you have for each bed.  I was talking to a friend and she washes and dries her sheets in one day and puts them straight back on the bed. 

 

3. How often do you wash your sheets on your bed?  I wash ours every Friday.  Same friend was very evasive when asked!!!!

Home of the Week.........

This week's "Home of the Week", is an improvement on what it was like before hand, as it shows before and after photos, but I really dislike the stair case, it really spoils the look of the living room and dining room.

Love the kitchen, though I wouldn't have put that sink in.  They may look nice but are a nightmare to keep clean especially if you drink tea or coffee........I know!!!  It's nice to see that there are houses in Toronto for under $1 million!!  Mind you I think $630,000 is still expensive for a semi.

Well if I win the lottery, I'll take "The Cottage of the Week," but at $2.2 million saying it's a cottage is a bit of a stretch.  Now I am a big reader, but even I couldn't fill all those book shelves in the library!!!  Also not sure they would put a kitchen table and chairs in the "nook" off the master bedroom?  Great having guest accommodations about the garage, that way the guest can have their own place to go.

"Condo of the Week," is on sale for $825,000 which according to the comments is nearly over priced and should only be up for the mid $600,000's.  Me I'll pass, it's not my cup of tea AT ALL.........

Everywhere we go I see these on cars:

Never knew much about them until I was looking at Fab Find again and I saw them advertised.  You can get them from here, think they are really cute.

Whose responsibility is it?

Went to the grocery store last week and I had a free product coupon for Kraft Cracker Barrel cheese snacks. I was buying a number of other things as well.

Dh had eaten six out of the 8 packages and when he took the next one he found it was moldy.

I called Kraft, and as I was talking to her I looked at the expiry date and discovered it was for June 4th, 2012. 

I then said to the woman at Kraft, listen this isn't your fault, I need to take this up with the store. Meanwhile the woman at Kraft insisted on sending me a Free Product Coupon for the item regardless.

I went to the grocery store today and told them what happened and they didn't seem overly shocked. They said that this product should all have been taken off the shelves, as it was being replaced by another product. They gave me a block of cheese as a replacement.

Now this is a large grocery store with a lot of customers, so product turnover should be good. I feel slightly responsible as I should have checked the expiry date; but like most people I tend to multi task and I was obviously distracted.

However at the end of the day I feel its the stores fault for not rotating their stock and removing expired items? I am happy with the outcome, as I got a replacement product. Dh wasn't ill.......mind you he has an iron clad stomach!!!

What do you think? 

Very different.....

I had a few jobs to do on Tuesday and one of those was to advertise the snow tires with rims from my old car.  They are almost new and don't fit my new car.  I advertised them on kijiji as it's free, so fingers crossed I sell them, as it's close to $1,000 for ones for my new car.  

I took the car to get the oil changed, which was free as the sales guy gave us a coupon for a free oil change when we bought the car.  Otherwise it would have cost over $42.  Is that expensive, how much do you pay for an oil change?

Another job I had to do was fill in all the nail holes on the window and door frames in the basement.  I am going to sand them today.  It is a job I absolutely hate doing, but I am determined to get that basement finished!!

I finished machine stitching the baby quilt, so all I had to do is hand stitch the binding on.

I am determined to get all my jobs done on my list regardless this week!!!!


Fab Find has a a little article called Fab Spot every day and this was what it was about on Tuesday:

Adding salt and pepper to your favourite dish is nothing new, but doing it with some magic certainly is. Putting on a sprinkle, a dash, or a pinch just became a lot more interesting with these wand-like shakers. You’ll have your food under a spell in no time. Plus you won’t have those awkward grinders or ugly holders at your table. Your favourite spices will be more charming than that four-eyed fictional wonder boy. Just don’t forget to say abracadabra whenever you shake them. Otherwise all that time spent studying at Hogwarts will just be thrown out the window.

Very cute don't you think?

Managed to get a couple of things crossed off the to-do list on Monday

No idea what was up with me on Monday but by 8:30am, I had two loads of laundry hung out.

Had a pot of ham bone soup simmering on the stove.  The bread maker was all loaded up to make a loaf of bread for supper.

Made wibbly wobbly pudding for supper and washed up all the dishes.

More often than not I am still in my dressing gown at 8:30am.

I had to be in town for 9:30am as I had a hair appointment.  Got there and it was closed due to illness {SIGH}.  Still I had stuff planned to do besides that, so I did my grocery shop, called in at the dollar store, put gas in the car $1.309 a litre {{SIGH}}  Donated last months books to the library and called in at the garage to make an appointment for today to get the oil changed in Betsy, as she has hit the 6,000 km mark in just under 6 months. 

Was home by around 11am.  After lunch I dug up all the potatoes and cut the front grass.  Brought the washing in and did the ironing.  By this time it was 3:30pm.  Went out and cut the field for an hour.  Came back in and sorted out supper and a couple of other things.  Had supper at 5pm.  Dh went to town to get his hair cut, while I went outside for another hour to cut more grass.

Came back in and plopped down on the sofa to spend some time on the computer and watch a bit of tv.

Only thing I didn't get too was my quilt, which is still laying on the kitchen table. 

This is a photo of the sunset on Sunday night:

Is that not stunning?

A Weekend doing odds and ends......

Not sure about you, but this weekend just flew by; however not only the weekend but the month also.  We're now entering the last quarter of 2012, and again have to admit the year is moving along fast as well.

On Saturday we went to dd house as dh had to do some prep work as he's doing some electrical work at her house next Saturday.  Dd made us lunch and we had a M & M's Meats, Supreme Homestyle Lasagna.

Have to say it was really good, and will be buying it in the future. There is a promotion on at the moment, that when you make wine using the Glad Hatter brand of wine you get a $25 gift card to use when you spend $50 in M & M Meats.  I am going to use mine at the end of the month, to stock up the freezer.

We then went to pick up the laminate flooring for the basement.  It was on sale for $1.89; it should have been $3.29 per foot.  It is 12.3 mm and we are hoping to get it installed this month, so I'll show you photos when we have it laid.  I had hoped to keep it under $1.50 per foot, but this one was well worth the extra money.

On Sunday I cleaned out my coupon file, a job well over due; but as I am going grocery shopping today it was a good job done.  We then went to the Orangeville Fall Home Show.  Luckily we didn't have to pay to get in, as we were in and out in less than half an hour.  Came home and had lunch and then I did some more sewing on the baby quilt.  I only have to sew the binding on now and then I'm done.  However the Indian baby shower has be moved to the middle of November now, so no urgency to get it finished, but I want it out of the way as I need to work in the garden and the basement for the next couple of weeks.

Got a busy week ahead of me.  How about you?

Gangnam Style?

I have just got on the Gangnam Style bandwagon after watching him on Ellen the other week.  I wish I could remember the exact conversation I had with dd about it.

It sort of went:

Me: it's called what?

DD: Psy Gangnam Style

Me: gang what

DD: Gangnam

Me: gang who?

It went on for another couple of minutes before I actually got it, then I was saying GANG- NAM too slowly.  Poor dd I think she is finally realizing her mother is getting old and senile!!!!

I read Daily Mail Uk every day online and there was a story about Lisa Marie Presley and how she helped out in a local chip van.  What cracked me up was the comment from the woman who owned the chip van, who was asked if she would employ Lisa Marie:

Asked if she would employ Lisa Marie, Mrs Scales joked to MailOnline: 'No way! She got the fish all upside down and was totally cack-handed.'

It's been years since I have heard that expression "cack handed."  It means she was all thumbs, or very un-coordinated.

I finally gave in on Saturday and spent $3.49 on this:

Money well spent in my humble opinion!!!