Sylvia's Simple Shots

The weather did warm up somewhat and I took a walk in the river valley.  It was afternoon during the golden hour which is about 3:00 pm these days. 

The sun was setting and putting it's warm glow on all things.  Here, I captured dried grasses which will stay all winter against the snow drifts in the river valley.

I dropped books off at the small free library in the park to keep the clutter down to the minimum.  It is a lesson well learned and it is becoming easier just to let the books go and keep the stories.

Vegetable Frittata is a new dish for me.  My sister has made them for sure. 

Sauteed veggies - onion, garlic, celery, red pepper, and mushrooms in a cast iron frypan. Love that dish. I have placed a silicone wrapper on the handle so I was not sure I could put that in the oven so I transfered to this stoneware baking dish.

Cover that with a good strong cheddar cheese.

Then a mixture of eggs and cream with herbs.

Into the oven for about 10-20 minutes until the eggs are done.  A few minutes under the broiler to brown the top.

It is yummy and I have made it again this week.

I always enjoy a visit with Kinsey Millhone. D is for DeadBeat by Sue Grafton.  These are early in the alphabet series so her landlord Henry Pitts does not feature much in this novel. He does in later books.

The job was easy - find the fifteen year old kid and deliver a $25,000 cheque,  John Daggett is trying to make amends for some of his past misdeeds.  He drinks too much and it has not served him well.

He is now a dead body and a few people are not sad to hear the news.

Some folks think they are entitled to some of that big cheque and create turbulence in Kinsey's search for the boy.

Having a dead client puts a few wrinkles in the investigation and when the retainer cheque is no good that is a big disappointment.

Kinsey manages to sort it all out.  Another great book.

I saw this Snowshoe Hare on my walk in the river valley.  I think this my first time seeing one.  I am used to the larger white-tailed jackrabbit hare which has yellow eyes but still very big back feet.

It has changed color and with it's shorter ears and dark eyes I knew it was different.  An internet search solved the mystery.

Again, that golden hour sun was shining but the hare would not accommodate my desire to have it be in the warm glow.

It scampered off after I got a few shots of it.

Glad to see it!

I bought these Bailey's crystal mugs when I was shopping for One of a Kind Essential Oil Diffuser containers a while back.  They turned out to be much too big to fill so I decided to use them for hot chocolate.

They are wonderfully heavy and feel really great in the hand. 

I do like a bit of chocolate and having hot chocolate is less calories than a piece of chocolate bar and one is enough.

I make it very milky. 

The mug is about the 8 oz so not overly large for a bit of a treat.

I am always up for a Christmas story any time of the year. Christmas Homecoming is a collection of 3 stories.  A Place to Call Home by Diane Noble, The Heart of a Stranger by Pamela Griffin and Christmas Legacy by Kathleen Fuller.

I love Irish stories and this one is set in late 1800s when Rory O'Kelly finds himself headed to America. Olivia Endicott-Jones is doing charity work in Massachusetts taking care of orphans some of which are of Irish immigrants.  They meet when Rory is tasked with stealing the Irish children so they can be raised in the right culture.

Susannah Pruitt and Justin Rossiter meet again many years after they had spent time together as children. He comes to her rescue and she recognizes him but he not her.  Can she get past the idea that he may have killed her father?  What is the truth?

Josephine Patterson rides into town to hear the reading of her grandmother's will.  She expects to inherit it all which will go a long way to helping her pay off debts incurred when she was married to her now dead husband. There is a wrinkle because grandmother has left one half to Josephine and the other half to a man unknown to Josephine. She needs to get along with this fellow just long enough to get his half.  Not that simple.  It works out in the end.

Sylvia Simple Shots

Mom's move to the lodge has gone well.  There are a few loose ends to finish and our parents will be settled for the next phase of their lives. 

The move took place and freezing temperatures.  We have been into this deep freeze for a week now.

I have been hibernating because it is just so cold.

Books have been very helpful.

They are predicting a warm up for the first two day of 2022 then back into cold temperatures.

I have to go out tomorrow then I have appointments next week so I will have to force myself out there.

Not liking it!

I spent a day with my aunt a couple of weeks before Christmas.   We make Tourtieres which are French Canadian meat pies.

We made 19 small pies.  We stuck to 5 inchers since neither of us are hosting any get togethers any time soon.    We also made some with just top crusts to cut down on carbs and calories.  It was a really nice day.

I had bought a silicone handle for my cast iron frypan.   It was too large and a bit thin to as effective as it needed to be.

My sister came to my house so we could head to Mom & Dad's early the next day.  She offered to help to improve the performance of the silicone handle.  That required some cutting and wrapping.  I chose to use 100% cotton thread to stitch up the wrapper.  A few strategically placed holes through the handle to secure the wrap.   

It was very helpful to have 2 sets of hands for this project.

Super happy with the result!  Thanks.

The Saskatchewan Saga by Ruth Glover was a great read.  I borrowed them from my sister so i was able to return them to her during our visit.

Set in the late 1800s, the stories introduce Scottish and English emigrants who bravely journey to the wild Canadian frontier.  British Women's Emigration Society offered women freedom and independence working as domestics in the wilds of Canada.

It is based on a fictional place called Bliss Saskatchewan near Prince Albert.  Cold winters in the boonies of Saskatchewan had me empathizing with the ladies based on the temperatures outside. 

All the women's stories eventually come together from different directions and we get to know them all.  It was a very good series.

I can always count on Nicholas Sparks for a good romance.  In the case of Safe Haven the story revolves around Katie who moves to Southport North Carolina.  She finds cottage down a gravel driveway, a job at a local restaurant and a friend in Jo her neighbour.

She is on the run, fleeing domestic violence at the hands of her cop husband, Kevin.  She has managed to evade him this time. 

She has to walk to her job and to buy groceries so she shops at the local country store.  It is owned by Alex, who took it over from his father in law.  He is widowed and raising a son on his own.

Katie meets Alex at the country store and her neighbor Jo vouches for him as a good guy.

Over several months, they get to know each other, trust each other, then fall in love.  

There are a few twists and turns but another wonderful story.

It turns out this is the last book in the 3 books series.

In the final episode in The Christmas Box collection, David and MaryAnne Parkin find a mysterious letter at the base of their child Andrea's grave that eventually returns joy to their marriage, which had been strained in the nineteen years since her death.

This story features family secrets, abandonment issues, friendship and doing the right thing.  Sometimes you have to go away to come back and so Mary Anne takes a trip to see her brother with no intentions of coming back.

She does return when a friend passes and the letter brings about healing.

I will keep an eye out for the other books in the series.

I chose to show both covers because it shows both women in the center of this story.

As a Gracekeeper, Callanish administers shoreside burials, laying the dead to their final resting place deep in the depths of the ocean.

North works as a circus performer with the Excalibur, a floating troupe of acrobats, clowns, dancers, and trainers who sail from one archipelago to the next, entertaining in exchange for sustenance.

It is set in a world mostly covered by water.  It is quite mystical and other worldly.   It is very interesting how their lives come together.   I really enjoyed the circus who travel in coracles - which were one person boats used thousands of years ago.  A nice change of pace.

I'm always up for a Christmas story.  A Mrs. Miracle Christmas by Debbie Macomber was a good one.

Jake Finlay is the manager of the toy department and he has made a large toy purchase on a hunch that it will be "the toy" this Christmas.  He father is skeptical.

Another quick moving romance involving Holly who is taken custody of her nephew as her brother is posted to Afghanistan.

Holly's chance meeting with Jake at a coffee shop leads to more encounters sometimes helped along with Emily Merckle who has been hired as seasonal help at the Finlay Department store, the toy department no less.  .

This romance evolves over the 2 weeks before Christmas where love blossoms, healed relationship between the Finlay father and son, Holly's boss sees the merits of the spirit of Christmas,  and Emily fades away with her work done.

A shot for Flickr Macro Mondays which was to choose 2 themes from 2021 and shoot on photo with both themes.

I chose Five and Game Board Pieces and composed this shot of Trivial Pursuit pie pieces with a nice bokeh background.

I bought the game secondhand and it turns out there are pieces missing.  I only have 4 full pies.  The 2 boxes of trivia are there.  

I think I will work this into a board game shot for a future project.

Stay warm, be safe.