Why McDonalds Canada is Better!

I just posted “McDonalds is way better in Canada than the US” on my Facebook page and it caused a little bit of a stir. I got an agreement, a disagreement and a couple of “why?” posts on my wall in reply to it. I don’t really get replies to my wall posts that often. I’m not on Facebook as much as a lot of my friends are, maybe once or twice a day on days I visit a lot.

Okay, back up a little.

David and I took a weekender trip to Hamilton, Ontario, hoping to get some train photos in fall color this past weekend. I can confirm that my new passport works! I have a Sarnia, Ontario stamp to prove it. When crossing into Canada from the US, you have to ask for a passport stamp. The customs agent was less than enthusiastic when he stamped my passport, but he did it. They don’t commonly stamp credentials when you are crossing from the US to Canada by car. But they will stamp mine every time I cross!

If you have read some of The Chronicles of Nani, you know how grumbly I am about paying $100 dollars for a passport to go to a country I was born a half hour from and traveled to without a passport for 42 years. So, I’ve paid my $100 to go to Canada. Seriously, I have no plans to go anywhere else that I need to spend the $100 for. So, the passport is good for ten years. I’m going to ask for a stamp every time I cross the border. It’s sort of my receipt. In ten years, I’ll count the stamps and determine if I’ve used it enough to make it worth renewing.

Oh, it will more than likely be worth it. I’ve spent a lot of my now 43 years visiting Canada. I’ve had many birthday dinners in Windsor. Of course, now they’d be smaller dinners because of the 7 people at my last birthday at Spago Ristorante, only 2 have passports, so my plate of gnocchi would go up $500 in price!

Now I’m hungry for Spago’s gnocchi. I guess it will have to be an intimate dinner with my husband.

Fall colors in Ontario - with sun

It was a pleasant weekend and the fall colors were very vibrant, especially when the sun was hitting them. Unfortunately, that was not an often recurring theme. David had said that if it weren’t for the fall colors, the weather forecast really wasn’t optimistic enough to make the trip, but with a promise of partly sunny skies, we gave it a try. We got a few shots, but a lot of frustration as the clouds filed in both days. But the railfan cuisine was good!



See that wonderful, amazing double chocolate muffin at the top of this entry? Oh my! It was SO tasty and, unusual for muffins, no heartburn after! I love muffins, but don’t eat them often because the grease gives my heartburn for half the day after I eat it. I had that with lunch, an awesome salad, on Saturday. It was moist and very chocolatey, but NO heartburn!

It’s from McDonalds!

NOW we’re back to why Canada McDonalds is so much better! With that wonderful muffin, I had a Garden Fresh Salad. You can’t get a Garden Fresh Salad in the US; too many vegetables. I’m serious about that, although it’s said with a sarcastic air. This salad had bell peppers and red onions on it with just a little shredded cheese as a condiment. The salad I like best at home, and I do like it, just I’d order it less often if we had the choices they have in Canada too, has gobs of cheese and a mound of bacon on it.

Sunday morning I had a basic breakfast burrito. They don’t have the burritos with potatoes and meat in them, but the basic sausage, cheese and egg burrito also had onions and bell pepper in it. It’s FABULOUS and still only 300 calories. Lunch was a Mediterranean salad. OMG!! Peppers, onions, olives and feta. Canadian McDonalds is actually a restaurant, not heart attack in a bag. And the food tastes good. We had three stops at McD's this weekend and three really good meals. Amazing! At home, I don’t like the convenient railfan meals so much. They don’t taste bad, but they don’t taste good. They’re just fast. In Canada, McDonalds was a stop to look forward to at meal time!

McDonalds Canada Mediterranean Salad

The major difference between the quality of food at the fast food giant in the two countries is the veggies. Why are we Americans so deathly afraid of vegetables that they aren’t marketable at our suicide joints? The lower grease muffins can’t be found at an American McDonalds either. On Saturday morning, when we hit the drive -thru before we left town, we were told they didn’t make substitutions when I asked for apple dippers instead of hash browns. Huh? First off, that was that location's policy. I’ve substituted the fresh apples for the fried potatoes before, but why isn’t that franchise policy? Seems to me they’d sell more food if they helped keep their customers alive and healthy longer.

Anyway, McDonalds in Canada has healthier choices and their healthier choices are better tasting than McDonalds in the US. In the end, that could make the passport worth renewing all by itself!

Yoyo Shop - Yo! Christmas Is Coming!

Yo! I mean yo-yo !

I remember Christmas as a kid. There was always a yo-yo in my stocking. What a great memory! There was always candy, lip balm, jewelry and other small toys, but from an age too young to really know how to use a yo-yo to the age where it was cool to learn tricks and everyone at school had them, my brother and I got yoyos every year. I usually got the butterfly shaped one. Those were my favorite because they’re easy to use. I usually had mine open from the packaging and played with by the end of Christmas dinner. It was one of the small gifts that was easy to take along to my Grandmother’s house!

Yo Yo Shop is based in the UK and they have a fabulous selection of yoyos! My inner child perked right up when I opened the age! They have fro beginner to pro models. I was pleased to see butterfly type yo-yos in each category. I’d hate to think after all these years that the tricks I learned were easier because I had a beginner model and not because I practiced them! I wasn’t too shabby a yo-yoer in 5th grade! Yo Yo Shop delivers within the UK for free, but they do ship worldwide. They have a section of yo-yo videos too. In fact many of the beginner models come with instructional CDs or DVDs. I didn’t have the benefit of step-by-step instructions to learn “Around the World”. Maybe I could have mastered “Walk the Dog.”

A yo-yo is a great stocking stuffer and a fun toy no matter what the holiday weather. Yo YO shop is an excellent choice for quick and easy shopping with plenty of time to get that perfect stocking stuffer ready to wrap - Yo!

Monday Mug Shot

Nebraska

Honeymoon Hot Spot!

Nebraska was one of the new states for me on our honeymoon. I’ve wanted to see Nebraska for a long time with almost as much passion as I wanted to see Iowa!

We made the most of our day in Nebraska which included a baseball game and getting a picture of a police car in Wahoo Nebraska. There’s just something kinda cool and worth a giggle every time I see the photo of the police car that says “Wahoo Police.”

Of course, I showed photos from our day in Nebraska while we were gone. There was the coffee tower in Omaha, a water tower that I was working on convincing David was not just shaped like a giant coffee pot, but was full of coffee! He still laughs when I bring it up like he doesn’t believe me!

In Lincoln, Nebraska, we saw Torn Notebook, a fantastic larger-than-life sculpture by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen. I had wanted to see that sculpture for many years and wasn’t at all disappointed. I have loved Oldenburg’s work since I was introduced to it in high school humanities class. I can now add Torn Notebook to my collection of photos of his work that I’ve taken myself, which includes Free Stamp in Cleveland, Bat Column and Chicago and Plantoir in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

I think maybe one of the cooler highlights of the Nebraska part of the trip was that it was a turning point for our baseball luck! The Omaha Royals were the first home team we saw win and it was our FIFTH game! The Royals beat the Oklahoma City Red Hawks, 1-0. I love a good pitchers duel!

It was a game time sky pregnant with rain, we feared LOTS of rain, but the rain managed to only stay impending through the game. We felt Ike it was us and five other fans. I think the team’s last place finish and the weather kept many fans away from the park on that night. They did strike out the Coca-Cola Strike Out batter, good for a free coke for everyone. We did collect real cokes for that. David was miffed that he caught one of the Hebrew National squishy balls and the balls were NOT good for turning in for a hot-dog. They shot a hot-dog and a bunch of balls into the crown. Bad promotion. Don’t include the squishy balls for something called the hot-dog toss unless they are good for turning in at the concession stand for a hot-dog!

The pitchers duel made for a quick game that helped stave off the rain too. But that did mean that we didn’t have time for late-innings ice cream! Since we made plans for dessert every day on our honeymoon, that meant we had to make a stop on the way back to the hotel. We got Blue Bunny ice cream treats at the same C-Store where I got this mug.

All in all, Nebraska is a very cool state that I’ll enjoy visiting again!

Scrap News and Stuff

I’m going to try to get back to my regular features next week. This over a week between blog entries is SO not me! I think things are getting to some semblance of normal in my world again. It’s a new normal, but it’s okay. I just have to adjust.

I keep updated in between visits to Grandma via phone and I make the 2-hour trek north to visit her twice a week. The Nurse Practitioner advised against putting her back on the medications that made her so cloudy in the hospital (YAY!) and she has plateaued with not exactly clarity of mind, but memory of all of her people. That was Grandma’s greatest worry, that she’d hurt the people she loves by not remembering them. So, Grandma wins this round! She’s even doing her word searches again, though she’s not as fast as she’s always been, but I’m so glad to see her doing them again! I think I’ll bring her another copy of our wedding program so she can do the word search again!

The toughest thing to get used to is the phone and the driving. I don’t like either and I’m finding them taking a lot of my time now! The best thing I do for myself with the driving is make a point of at least one of those trips every week is also a stop on the way home for dinner of coffee with one of my friends. I get to see my family of friends in Michigan so seldom since becoming an Ohiogander and the long drives to the Motherland are a great way to get some quality time with them! Now, I just have to get my “happy head” working again. The driving makes me grouchy, well grouchy for me anyway, and I don’t like that! The nicest thing the phone does for me is the battery dies. Then I get an hour off while it recharges!

I lost a few days on my project 365 when Grandma was sick and in the hospital. When one is fearing the worst about her last grandparent, taking pictures is not really in the foreground of my mind! Also, this project is our first married year and many of those days I wasn’t with David. So for the scrapbook layouts for those weeks, I have some journaling in place of the photos for some days. I’m okay with that and I don’t feel like I failed the project. If a picture’s wroth a thousand words, then journaling CAN replace a missing picture! That’s how I scrap events I want to tell about but didn’t photograph too.


Going Out Of Business Sale!


I told you there’d be a sale in connection with my leaving the design business! When my resignation was accepted at Scrap Bird, I was also told that I could come back if I wanted to get back into it. Very cool. But I am there until the end of the month and all the Digitalegacies Designs products, I mean everything in my store, is half off until the 31st! If there’s anything that I’ve created for the store that you might want, now is the time to get it! Some items, like the add-on for Homemade Love or my brag book pages for My Blue Heaven and Laura are only 50 cents! There is no I Wanna Talk About Me challenge this month, but I did do one last contribution to the store collab kit for November, so there will still be a little Digitalegacies in that!


Creative Team stuff!

This new scrapping direction, well return to my old scraping direction, gives me more quality time to spend on my own layouts. It also gives me more time to work with Darlene’s kits again. Her newest kit, Happy Camper, is free with a $5 purchase at SAS right now.


Now, as I was explaining to Darlene, as one who walks with a cane, I really don’t have many camping photos in my current “to be scrapped file.” But the kit is very versatile! I created a nice layout for week 21 of Patch 365 with it. I just LOVE that butterfly and it HAD to be used on one of my layouts!



Also with some extra time, part of my congratulations to Veelana for becoming a new SASy Lady was an offer to create for her! Her “yes,” was enthusiastic and I’m helping her brag about her first kit in her new store!


My first layout with this kit is the second page I did for our trip to Sand Patch in October 2006. I did this for Darlene’s quote challenge at Scrap Bird. Vee’s kit is just perfect for the fall train pictures!



In celebration of my new passport, David and I are going to spend some time in Canada tomorrow checking out their fall colors and trains! Now, I need to finish up some laundry and get ready to go see Grandma. I see a pumpkin spice coffee stop in my near future!

Long Time No Blog!

It’s been, for me, a long time since I posted a blog! Life has been busy and hectic. That’s a drag because one of the reasons I blog is to relax and not blogging means less relaxing too!

Grandma is actually doing fairly well. I’m really uneasy about putting her back on all those m medications, but I’ll be talking to the nurse practitioner that has been seeing her tomorrow to discuss what the next steps might be. I visited her on Tuesday, what an awesome day for me! I don’t even know if anyone else got in to see her Tuesday, but we had a couple hours of talking. She had incredible clarity that day. It was almost like talking to her before she went into the hospital or on our regular Monday night calls, which were often hour-long phone calls. I told her the minutes on my phone were for her and Kelly because I don’t really talk on the phone for any more than I absolutely have to with anyone who is less than an hour away! I don’t like talking on the phone and I’d rather say, “meet me half way for coffee.” But Tuesday was a special day. She had almost full control and memory. I considered our time together that day a treasured gift! Dad said when he visited her Wednesday she was in good spirits, but without that same clarity and she didn’t remember me being there the day before. So it really was a special gift from Grandma, just for me.


Pumpkin Spice Season is Here!


I stopped at a gas station on the way to see Grandma, because I can’t get all the way there without a potty-stop, no matter how little I drink. I usually eat something salty before I go anywhere so I can cut down on the stops when I’m driving, but Grandma is just far enough away that I can’t avoid it. That was a good thing Tuesday, because the gas station I stopped at had PUMPKIN SPICE CHEAT-A-CCINO!! It was my second Pumpkin coffee treat this fall. Last weekend, David and I stopped to put gas in the car at our local Speedway. I told him that I’d pump if he’d go in and see if they had pumpkin spice yet. He came back out, empty handed and said that they had pumpkin spice creamers, was that okay? Hehe...creamers are even better! The wonderful man who complains about how much coffee I drink brought me 7 creamers and a 24-ounce coffee! I was set on coffee for the rest of the day (and then some) but oh it was GOOD coffee!

We also have a pumpkin spice pudding cake that I’ve been having little nibbles of the past few days. That was on sale at Kroger. The Pudding cake is great because it’s so moist that a half-ring can be nibbled for a week without getting dried out if you keep the cover on the package.



Dr. Frank’s

My bottle of Dr. Franks joint and muscle pain relief spray came in yesterday. I haven’t been happy with the results of therapy and if I can avoid drugs, I’ll do that. I ended up with an even weaker hip and pain in the hip and knee joints that was chronic! I’m taking glucosamine and condroitin every day and icing my hip do while I’m doing homework. I’m just now starting to have periods of time without pain and can comfortably shower standing up without fear of falling! The doctor said I could take as many as 4 Advil if the pain was really bad or he could prescribe something stronger.

Something stronger?? Than FOUR Advil???

Okay, I have to remember it’s a new doctor. I’ve been in to see him twice and apparently he doesn’t believe me when I tell him drugs are an absolute last resort. Yeah, I totally get that doctor and patient have to work together for things to work. I’ve done the month of therapy the insurance company requires for an MRI, I just have to have the doctor’s okay to get one. In the mean time, I’ll continue with the ice and glucosamine and try the Dr. Franks and we’ll see if things get any better.

All I’m going to say about healthcare reform is that making everyone have insurance is basically saying it’s even if we’re all tortured the same. Fixing a failing system by increasing the problem is not really a great solution, even in theory.


CONGRATULATIONS VEELANA!!


Veelana's Designs is one of the three new SAS-y Ladies! Vee is a pal of mine, so I’m VERY happy for her. In fact, look to see a few more layouts from me using her kits soon!


Retiring


What opens me up to do more layouts is that I am retiring from designing. Keeping up with the requirements is just a big commitment when I add it to school, and what I’m working towards in school will supply a much bigger paycheck!

Last month I was the assigned Designer of the Month for the store CT. Where there had been multiple pages of links to the layouts in previous months, the CT did the minimum required with my store and most of the layouts were with my templates but someone else’s kits. That kinda was a good indicator for me about why I don’t have much in the way of sales! I don’t think my stuff is awful. The pages I’ve done with my own kits have looked great, but my scrapbooks are digitally done but paper-style. The focus is still the photos and journaling. A page I create is not the work of art; the life my pages tell about is the work of art! Still, I make things for the pages I do in a style I can use. In a saturated market, simple is not really going to sell!

So now, I'm going to concentrate on doing pages for my scrapbooks and get caught up. I’ll still have the occasional freebie here and I suspect I’ll do templates more often. I seem to do those well!

I’ll find out soon what my last day at Scrap Bird will be and I expect there will be a “going out of business” sale. Then the items from the store will retire, I’ll enjoy less stress in getting my homework done and my scrapbooks might even think we’ve finally reached 2007 by Christmas!