Birthdays............

It was my mother's birthday at the beginning of this week and she was saying she always associates her birthday with spotting the first of the early Spring Lambs, and the first of the early daffodils.  Obviously she's in the UK, as at this point, I would just love to know where the garden is.........can't see it for a pile of snow!!

It got me thinking as to what I associate other people's birthday's with.

For mine, it's the middle of March, so it's always March break here in Canada when it's my birthday, so the kids are on holiday.

Hubby's is September, so I always think of it's vacation time for us, on or around his birthday.

Our son's birthday is the beginning of April, so his birthday is always around Easter time.

Our daughter's is in November and I always think of pomegranate's being in season when it's her birthday.  

What do you associate with your birthday and/or other people's birthday's in your life?

Some food pics from our vacation..........

One night we went to the Mediterranean restaurant in the resort.  The presentation was perfect, the taste not so!

The beet salad was actually tasty, but nothing exciting.

I ordered the the vegetarian roll.  It looked great but I wasn't too keen on the taste.

Hubby and daughter-in-law had the beef stew.  We were confused how beef stew was a Mediterranean dish?  They both said it was good.

Son had this shrimp and rice dish.

I had the strawberry pavlova for dessert and I can actually say it was the worst meringue I have ever had!  It looked lovely but the taste didn't match.

We ate lunch at a buffet place called the Goldfish a couple of times and I did enjoy the variety there.  Plus the view was gorgeous.

I did try a pina colada and a margarita while on vacation, never had either.  Loved the pina colada, hated the margarita.  

The gift that keeps on giving part 2!

 Not sure if you remember, but when we came back from vacation, we brought an extra gift back with us; a stomach bug!  I posted about it here.  Son came down with it the worst and was pretty sick for well over a week.  Hubby also had a shorter second bout of it a few days after he finished with the first bout........basically he never got over it.

Fast forward to last Thursday (12th of February) and I felt like death warmed over with a terrible headache.  The next day the diarrhea started and the stomach cramps.  I pride myself on being a pretty clean person and keeping a clean house, so we were puzzled as to why I came down with this?

I am writing this on the 15th to post on the 16th.  Fingers crossed I am hoping to be over the worst, as in no more stomach cramps, but have no idea why this happened.  I don't think it would be from the vacation, I could have picked it up while out grocery shopping?

Suffice to say I have not left the house!!!  And will probably be staying put until further notice...LOL  I had bought a jigsaw puzzle the other day at Costco, so have been busy doing that and reading.  

I bought this one as I thought it would be difficult, it wasn't too bad it turned out.........

House of Guinness - Netflix

 

Late to the party as always, but we finally watched the House of Guinness on Netflix.  It reminded me of Peaky Blinders in the way it was filmed, but Peaky Blinders was way better!!

The way it finished makes me think there should be a second series.  It does clearly say this is a work of fiction loosely based on facts. I agree with that, as I looked up the history of the Guinness family and some things don't add up.  I do find the Irish accent a bit strong at times, so didn't catch everything that was said.  Saying that Peaky Blinders was as bad at times.  Will I watch a second series, maybe if there is nothing else on!

Talking of strong accents I had to have subtitles on when watching Brad Pitt in Snatch...LOL  Great movie but that Irish accent.................

In case you think I am being "racist" on Irish accents, believe me when I say I have to listen very carefully when talking to people with a Scottish accent as well!!  Plus where we come from in Cumbria, we have what we call a "broad fell back" accent, and I really have to listen carefully or tell folk to slow down when talking (a couple of nephews are really broad).  I was standing in line at the chip shop in Carlisle, Cumbria where I was born.  I was attempting to listen in on someone's conversation 😁 and couldn't understand a bloody word, as they were talking in a broad Carlisle accent!!!  I have been living in Canada too long....LOL

28 Days, 28 Items, Part 2

 Another week, and more things collected to donate.  As youngest grandchild is a boy and now four, these things are too baby-ish for him, so off they go to a new home.  Daughter gave me all these for when the girls came over, so they are probably 12 years old.......

I did also get another good job done, I cleaned out the bill drawer, where I keep all the credit card and bill statements.

I only got a partial bag of shredded paper, so put it back under the desk for the next time I do some shredding.  I need to clean out the filing cabinet at some point, so there will be more shredded paper to put in the bag.

How did you do this week?

Any ideas?

I bought four bottles of this Aveeno Moisturizer back in the Fall to use over the winter on my legs.  It's a pump top and everything has been working great, it's so much easier on my hands.  It stopped pumping out the moisturizer so I figured it had ran out.  However when I opened it up there was plenty left in the bottom.  I drew a line on the left hand side to show you how much is left.

So I took the top off and jiggled it around and got some more out.  Normally on a regular container I would turn it upside down to get the stuff out of the bottom, but with a pump top that's not the solution.  With conditioner I would normally add some water to thin out the liquid to make it pump better, but not sure if I can do that with this?

Has anyone else run into this situation?  What was your solution?  Or do you have any ideas on how to make the pump work until I finish the bottle?

I may also contact the manufacturer to see what their solution is.

UPDATE:

I did contact the manufacturer customer service.  Long story short; they pack the bottle with the expectation that you won't be able to get all the product out.  Fair enough, but 2 inches worth of product to be wasted?  That to my mind is not acceptable, and I told them so.

Anyhow, I have to send this container back (prepaid UPS) and they will reimburse me with a free product coupon and a couple of other money off coupons.  Now as I told the guy, I have no complaints about the product, it works perfectly fine, they just need to figure out a better way of getting the last couple of inches of product out of the bottom.  If you say turn it upside down, yes, but you have to balance it against something as the pump top is not level.

It's been a while..........

 since I have bought a fruit and veg bag which costs $20 a month.  I picked it up yesterday and thought it was good value for money.  What do you think?

The only thing I think we will have trouble using is all those potatoes.

I did have leftover mashed potatoes in the fridge, so decided to make some fish cakes using a can of tuna.  I added some of the garlic and herb cream cheese to the mix, for extra flavour.  I also add the organic no salt flavouring to the breadcrumbs, which I made from some bread I had in the freezer.

I used some of the cucumber with a little ranch dressing on it as a veggie and fried the fish cakes in a little bit of oil.  I guess I could have put them in the air fryer..........I just thought of that???

Will say they were nice and tasty......