In the garden

Every week, I make the garden a little bit more mine.

It is hard because I feel Dad everywhere but I am sure he would agree with my changes.

I think in the last few years he got lazy and just didn't bother with varied plant choices....

The garden is in dire need of fertilizer ! Which I will apply shortly .

 And it needs color, but it is harder since it is a shade garden...

I decided to put a pumpkin for fall color...

Those darn squirrels did quite to party with it...

The mums are doing better!

 I planted most of my spring bulbs: Snowdrops, crocuses,

bluebells....and a few bare root astilbes.

Like this one....It will be pink

Of course I am crossing my fingers!

This morning I went to visit Yoda at the vet.

She spent the weekend there....

Since she's diabetic and had diarrhea and some vomiting

for a couple of days...it was best they keep her to monitor the situation.

This morning she ate dry food and moist food and tried to make a break for it!

She is on the mend!

her cat friends miss her....

I had to replace my old laptop and I finally figured out how to add pictures to

my blog posts, with help of course, and hopefully I will post more often!

Take care! 

Color and Chicken pot pie.....

I went to look at my Pyrex set in flickr and I realised that what I miss in the winter was the color.

My eyes need constant color stimulation (That sounds kinda dirty..lol). After seeing that there are a lot of Supermarket groups in Flickr...I joined one!

And took out my camera during my latest supermarket visit! Maxi & cie (the superstore for the rest of Canada) is having a big 'recession' sale featuring the No Name brand. Most of their labels are yellow, which is a great treat for my color deprived eyes so I let loose....lol

You have the wall of shame; now it is the wall of No Name! Second picture is pretty self explanatory.....tomatoes and cukes!

Last picture assorted veggies....Yum

Will the recession really change the way people shop,cook and eat?

Will people be leaving convenience food behind and start making food from scratch? We will have to see.

My mom was a real skinflint. She would wash saran wrap and aluminum foil. She would remove the mold from food and serve it up for supper and god only knows what else she did to save money! But we splurged on vacation. So I grew up being thrifty and repairing my socks instead of throwing them away, and making stock from chicken bones and buying an LCD TV. So I alternate between the thrifty and the spendy!!!

January is always a thrifty month because a lot of bills are due at the beginning of the year: the license plate renewal, the home and car insurance (but no Xmas credit card bills, because everything was paid on the spot!!!) At least I learn from my mistakes...

We're in a cold snap so all I can think about is comfort food. Yesterday I was surfing the web looking for a chicken pot pie recipe using biscuit mix for the topping and I found one in the Kraft canada site. here's the link if you want : http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/cheesy-chicken-pot-pie-111373.aspx

You can tell that Kraft want YOU to BUY their cheese...you have cheese in every recipe (cheese is good but you need to leave the cheese alone sometimes!)

I didn't use the cheese, used a low fat cream of celery soup, fat free sour cream, skim milk and last but not least added fresh chopped parsley to the biscuit mix. Oh I also used frozen peas, fresh carrots and fresh green beans insteas of the frozen veggies (I know they are a gig time saer but I'm not crazy about the taste...lol

It was delicious easy and very satisfying for those cold nights....Brrrrrr