Remembering

October 20th, day 20 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. A cloudy cool morning. The sun is trying to come out as I speak. It is the second anniversary of my mother’s departure. I am hoping to whip out a post before I start to tackle the making of my first apple pie. The dough for the crusts are resting in the fridge. My apples are weighed and washed, waiting to be peeled and slice. I will try to make my mother proud by completing the fete.

I’ve come to this baking and pastry thing late in life. My sister’s the chef and pastry master. She inherited that part of our mother. Our mother was always trying out making all kinds of things. She had no recipes. She figured out the measurements herself. Back in the days, you could say we were poor. We lived in a rental with a hole in the floor. She did not have an oven in a stove. What she had was a toaster oven. She made with what she had. She did pretty well, too. I’m finding myself tearing up with the memories. That is understandable, remembering and missing our mother and the way we were.

Difficult as life sometimes can be, we’ve come a long ways. There’s no regrets or complaints from me on how life turned out. It is what it is. I am missing my mother but I am at peace that she is freed from her physical and worldly pains. So now onward towards making that apple pie.

It’s Complicated

I was going to whip up an apple pie today. The task proved to be more complicated than I anticipated. For one thing, I’ve never made an apple pie before. My whole pie experience consisted of making 2 pumpkin pies. That was back in 2022. I was inspired by the book, When Pies Fly and the fact I had a bumper crop of pumpkins. I had meant to bake more pies. I even bought 2 expensive pie pans from Lee Valley. My meaning didn’t pan out and so they’re been sitting in my basement cupboard since 2022.

Pumpkin pie from 2022

Since I still have a batch of picked apples from my Sunday outings to Boffins Garden with my sister, I thought it was high time that I put those pie pans to use. Yesterday I went about to make the dough according to a recipe from When Pies Fly. When I went about to weigh my flour, the scale was dead. I had to recharge the batteries. A little delay was ok since I had to freeze the shortening and butter for 20 minutes. Then I had to chill some water. All these steps feels so complicated to one not familiar to pie making.

After I had everything mixed, shaped, wrapped and chilling in the fridge, I discovered that one pie crust means exactly that – one. You think when they write up a recipe for a pie crust, they should tell you to make 2, one for bottom and one for the top. I was in no mood to go through the messing around measuring flour, freezing this and that again. It was getting late in the evening. The second crust got mixed this morning and is chilling next to the first.

Then there’s the filling. The apples need to be peeled, cored and slice. It’s too late for today. Maybe I can tackle it tomorrow. And I might use the store bought apples. They’re bigger and might not need peeling. They’re Ambrosia apples I bought at the mall this morning. They’re beautiful and at a bargain price of $1/lb. Six of them only cost me $2 and some. On researching, I discovered that Ambrosias originated in Canada in the early 1990’s. They’re sweet so I might not need as much sugar.

Tomorrow is another day. I hope things will not be as complicated. I hope the pie thing and writing will go easier.

Sunday at Boffins

A sunny Sunday October 18th. Another Sunday morning at Boffins for my sister and me. Yesterday was a no write for me. Some days are like that. After a long struggle, I gave up. I had nothing to offer to the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I hope I can pull off something for today.

I was tired this morning and being easily distracted, I lost our way even though I knew we were there. I had to rely on Google Map app. I am not embarrassed about it. It is who I am, one who is forever lost. I had to rely on it, too, to guide us back to where our car with our coffee was after our walk. We varied our walking paths a little. We got onto the railroad bridge and walked just a short distance as my sister is extremely scared of heights. It was enough. The view was fabulous.

On the way back to the garden, we encountered some different agricultural research greenhouses that we saw last week.

When we got back to the garden, there was a wedding going on in the gazebo. We thought best not to crash it and had our coffee and muffin in a sunny corner overlooking the pond and gazebo.

Life In a Goldfish Bowl

I’m finally settling down with a cuppa to write a post for the 16th day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I hope I have something interesting to say though my mind is blank. I am feeling tired, my cup half empty instead of half full. I’ll just sit for a while and watch my little goldfish swim around in the bowl. It is relaxing. He seems happy in his world. I don’t know if he is lonely. Do fish have emotions?

I did start out with 2 tiny goldfish but one died after 2 weeks. I’m not sure if it was sickly to start with or if my bowl was too small. My research through AI told me that I should not keep goldfish in a bowl. They need to be in a proper tank with filters, pump, treated water and everything. What I learned was that I was doing everything wrong. Goldfish are social and so should not be alone. In the end, I felt I was abusing my poor goldfish. It made me feel very bad.

I had to stop my research. Having a goldfish should not be so complicated. I stopped fussing and worrying. I did not get another little goldfish. I waited to see how my little one does by itself. I feed it a little bit twice a day. Changed the water every week. I use the water from the rain barrels, letting it get to room temperature first. I turn on the grow light during the day for the water hyacinth as it needs sunlight for at least 6 hours to thrive. I dim it or turn it off in the evening so the fish would not get stress by it. I think we are both happy campers. I haven’t start talking to it yet. I do send it good vibes.

Working Under the Gun

October 15th, halfway through the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I am still here almost 100% but not quite. It is good enough in that I step right back in after a slip. I’ve never cared for perfection. There’s a crack in everything as Leonard Cohen said. That’s how the beauty gets in. I do wish though that I could be a little more organized, had a plan and the discipline to come to the keyboard earlier in the day. Alas! I do not so I almost always have to work at writing a post at the end of the day. I think that’s what they mean by working under the gun.

Did I tell you that I like doing things the hard way? I do. A friend offered me a ride to our group lunch today. It’s not exactly out in hell and gone but it is a little outside the city. What with our crazy traffic and the price of gas nowadays, you would think I would jump at it. Well, I didn’t. I declined saying I want to take my own car. Why? Because it would help to keep my brain working. I am forever getting lost. I need to keep working on finding my own way. Another reason is I need to keep driving to keep from aging before my time. Traffic has increased so much in our city that if I rely on getting rides, I might get too scare to drive altogether. I need to keep up the practice.

Lunch with the girls was wonderful. It’s lovely to know and meet each other now that we are no longer working. We no longer ask each other: Are you on days off? Are you working nights/days/the weekend? We no longer ask each other how we’re sleeping. Life outside the hospital is wonderful. I, myself, do not miss the bedpan alley. I am not one of those who identifies once a nurse, always a nurse. I do not miss the shift work and the stress. It took me 3 years of retirement before I could shed all the trauma of caring for human bodies and souls. Even with all that, I can honestly say that I enjoyed all the experience of working with and caring for people. I don’t think there’s such a thing as stress free work or life.

It was wonderful driving a little into the countryside solo for our lunch. I had a little walk around the grounds before heading home.

Wordless Wednesday – At the Big Bright Studio

October 14 and it’s a cloudy afternoon. I’m trying hard to come up with a post for the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Thank goodness for Wordless Wednesdays. They’re a god send for days when words are hard to come by. Here are a few of my favourite photos from sunnier August days of 2025 at the Big Bright Studio at Pik Lake. The guy had his first art showing there. We (my father, sister and I) showed up to give support.

My sister and I showed up again at the Big Bright Studio this August. We got sidetracked out of the studio somehow. Somehow we ended at the library behind the studio. We spent a good amount of time on the deck visiting and having coffee and cake. We wandered inside and upstairs where there was more more books, artwork and lots of paper mache dolls.

All too soon it was time to drive back to Saskatoon. It was a nice outing and a good excuse to get out of town.

Thanksgiving and Mooncake

It is another October morning, the morning after Thanksgiving and my mooncake bake. I knew that I should have waited for a day when I have absolutely nothing going on. Those days are hard to come by so I went ahead with my mooncake adventure. I did planned ahead. I mixed the day before and put it in a ziplock bag in the fridge. My bean paste was already made. Like all my first attempts at everything, it was almost a disaster and a messy oily one at that. I was tempted to just toss the dough.

Being Chinese and thrifty, it’s difficult for me to waste anything. I foraged ahead. I googled how I can rescue my dough from cracking and crumbling. I was rewarded with a few hints. I divided my dough into 12 equal parts and rolled them into little balls. My math was faulty and I ended up with 13, an unlucky number. By hook or by crook I got those dang things made. I decided to skip the salted egg yolks. It was a trick using the mold. The first 3 reminded me of the crooked man poem.

There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile;
He bought a crooked cat which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

I am not crushed. I carried on and finished all the steps, baking and giving them an egg wash and baking again. They did not come out looking beautiful or golden. The design disappeared. Maybe too much egg wash. They have to rest in airtight for 2 days for the crust to soften. I did do a taste test. It was okay. Well really how can crust and bean paste taste bad? More tries needed. There’s much that could go wrong. The oil, the syrup, the temperature of the oven can make a difference in whether it is beautiful, golden or not. Onward I will go more mooncake bake and the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

Sunday Coffee at Boffins

A cool and misty October Sunday morning. It was 0℃ when I woke. Good thing I covered my sunburst squash and zucchini plants. Not that I need more but the sunburst has a million and one little yellow squash coming along and the zucchini has one almost a decent size. I would hate to see them go to waste. They are still under cover as the day has been overcast and cool.

It certainly wasn’t the kind of morning that would make you want to head out for a walk in the park. But my sister and I have this standing date to go out to Boffins Public Garden Sunday mornings. When you set up something, you just do it. It’s like this Ultimate Blog Challenge. I registered for it, to come and write a post every day in October. Some days, like today, is hard. It is difficult to get started. So I’ve messed around a bit, hemmed and hawed before I could find a few words to get started. Actually going out on a dreary cold October morning was easier.

October is beautiful in the early morning grey. The colours of fall all the more vibrant. We walked by one of the research greenhouses on the campus grounds. It was all lit up and we couldn’t resist putting our faces up to the windows.

We were not the only early birds there. We met a few joggers/walkers along the trail by the river. It tried to snow but it was just a fine drizzle. We were warmly dressed and did not feel the cold. Our coffee and scone were wonderful after our hike. We had the gazebo to ourselves except for a squirrel. I was not quick enough to capture him with my camera. I did not climb to the railway bridge. Maybe next Sunday.

Thanksgiving

October 10th and I’m still here for day 10 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. It is Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada. I have much to be thankful for. I have a roof over my head, clothing to keep me warm and plenty in the larder. I have my health. I have purpose. Everything else is just extra.

The heat of summer has gone. The leaves have turned to gold and are dropping. The earth is preparing for its slumber. The sky is grey but the world is still full of colour. And I am happy and content.

Don’t You Want to Get Undone

Photo by Allan Mas on Pexels.com

October 9th. Day 9 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Yesterday I was feeling so done in that I want to throw myself under the train. It is difficult to explain how that is except maybe it is part of the Seasonal Affective Disorder. Luckily I did not feel moody or depressed. It was all physical and it was painful. I was able to move through the day, putting one foot in front of the other, to coffee with my father, sister and friends at the mall. Then in the evening we went to a concert at the Broadway Theatre. It was the band Lunch at Allen’s Farewell Tour.

The evening was as wonderful as the write up. It was more so being the first musical event I have attended in over two years after my hearing loss episode. The acoustic was very good in the theatre and I was able to hear and enjoy the music. I’ve listened to Murray McLauchlan for many years on CBC radio when he was hosting Swinging on a Star. I love the song Down by the Henry Moore, especially the lively chorus of:

Singin, don’t ya wanna keep on movin’
don’t ya wanna get undone
don’t ya wanna change from losin’
don’t ya wanna have some fun.

I do want to keep moving. I do want to get undone. And I did have alot of fun.