Season 3...I need my fix

Since we finished season 2 of 24, I'm on the hunt for season 3. We can't afford to go buy the whole frickin series (those DVDs are expensive), so I'm looking for a cheap one or to borrow one...HELP!

No country for weak asses

I just finished reading No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. It was an excellent book; the best I've read in a while. That's not saying much because I haven't read much lately. I haven't seen the Cohen brothers movie yet, but I'm curious to see how they incorporate the Sheriff's narrative into the movie. I can't imagine that they didn't include this somehow since it's a large component of the book.

If you haven't read the book and you want to, stop reading here...I haven't seen the movie, so I'm not sure if anything below will ruin the ending...

The entire time I was reading I had a sneaking suspicion of who was going to bite the dust as soon as they were introduced. Even knowing that, I was holding out some hope that McCarthy's welder was going to make it out somehow. I know that Chigurh is one bad mo-fo. Psychopathic killer is a good description. I'm struggling with the common theme that ties the sheriff's narrative and the game of finder's keepers - wait no, finder's going to die - together throughout the entire book. Maybe there isn't a common theme, but why include the narrative? Chigurh and Llewelyn provide one hell of a story on their own. Jamie's reading it now...we'll wait and see what the English teacher has to say about that one.

I have seen some clips from the movie - the scene with the coin toss and the explosion at the pharmacy. Just seeing those clips and reading the book tell me that the Cohens seem to have captured the emotionless killer that is Chigurh. Hopefully the rest of the movie won't disappoint.

No pow here

I started back to taekwondo a couple of weeks ago. I knew it would be different going back, but I didn't think I would be moving this slow. It feels like my body is moving in super slo-mo like in the Matrix movies, but the rest of the world is in super fast-mo. My balance is off too. It's not nearly as good as it used to be. Last night I'm doing 540 hook kicks and nearly falling over. Not a great thing if you're in a fight and you land off balance giving your opponent a clear open shot as you try to get your bearings.

A couple of months of classes twice a week ought to get me back to where I was. It's going to take some time to get me back to my powin' them outta here shape. I ought to have enough time to get in great shape with a killer roundhouse, 360 roundhouse combo and then go on our Portage in the Sportage '08. I'll have to bring my kicking pad with me and try to keep in shape while we're gone. So, if you see a woman in a park or a hotel parking lot or somewhere similar kicking the crap out of kicking pad or just having a fight with no one somewhere between Nova Scotia and Ontario and Oklahoma and Louisiana and Florida, don't be alarmed.

Old men rock

Last night we saw Blue Rodeo at the Metro Centre. We've seen them before in Halifax, and I've decided they are my favorite Canadian band of all time. For the Americans reading, Blue Rodeo is a mix of rock and country and blues and folk and everything in between. There are harmonicas, slide, acoustic and electric guitars, piano, organs, horns, mandolins and anything else they can get their hands on.

Jim Cuddy & Greg Keelor have been playing together since the early 80s, and it shows. The two play off each other so well that you can tell over 20 years of playing gigs and likely late night drunk jam sessions allow each of them to complement each other in a way that bands with a mere 5-10 years together couldn't accomplish.

I think I like the band so much because both guys sing lead vocals, and each have very different vocal styles. It makes for 20 years of songs that have a familiar Blue Rodeo sound but with very different voices - literally and figuratively. It makes for songs that feel like a new, fashionable style from your old stand-by favorite black pants.

So, I'm sitting at the concert watching the band and watching Jamie thinking, "This is awesome; I'd love to go for drinks after the show. Wait, we have a baby and a babysitter...can't do that. I hope Navarre can appreciate Blue Rodeo. Jim & Greg will probably be dead by the time she can go and really enjoy one of their shows."

Then I thought about how I hated my parents' music when I was a kid. It was mostly country, of which I still hate a lot. But there are some gems in there that I wish I could have appreciated earlier in my life. Sorry Dad it took me so long to hear what I was missing.

Eastcoming

I want to give a big CONGRATS to the Addisons. They've got a homecoming coming up. Jay got a job at UNB Fredericton, and Jamie and I couldn't be more excited. 4 hours is a hell of a lot closer than Cali. So, here's to Jay for working his ass off to land such a great job, and here's to Ange for all of her behind the scenes work that make it possible.

Jack, Navarre and the new baby A are going get in so much trouble together...he he he

I love poetry

Aunt Betty sent me this poem today. It's very poignant.

"Winter"

By Abigail Elizabeth McIntyre

Shit,
It's cold.

The End.

Bananas & sweet potatoes - oh me oh my

Baby girl is a fan of bananas and sweet potatoes! I'm not surprised, as both the Louques and Falcones love to eat just about everything. I'm not sure what will be next...does it matter? I don't know, but that's a lot of responsibility introducing a foreign food to a newbie for the first time ever. Maybe some squash; maybe some green beans; maybe some grapes??


We've been getting this look a lot lately..."What? I didn't do anything, and you can't prove anything."

I'm hooked

I know it's been a while, but Jamie and I have been held hostage...not really, but sort of. It all started when Shaina, Jamie's sister, gave us season 1 of 24 on dvd for Christmas. We hadn't watched it until 2 weekends ago. Well, we were hooked. We watched almost all episodes that weekend and finished it a few days into the week. It's not easy with Navarre. She decides to starts screaming or bouncing really loudly in her saucer right at the cliffhanger - or when Jack Bauer has to whisper some super top-secret info vital to the mission. Nevertheless, we got through it.

Then Valentine's Day came. I made Jamie's dinner that I described in the last post. He loved it; I didn't, but it wasn't for me. I'm really glad he like it so much. To say I was disappointed in the Bananas Foster would be the understatement of the year. It was nasty. As my Dad would say, I wanted to lick a dog's ass to get the taste out of my mouth. The cheesecake was really good, which says a lot because I don't even like cheesecake. How one can screw up bananas, rum, brown sugar and butter is beyond me, but I did it. I've never made anything this disgusting before in my life. My desserts are usually to die for, but not this. It tasted like burnt sugar scraped from a frying pan that has been sitting on the stovetop for 2 weeks...I know...yummmmmy! So, we threw that out and had cheesecake with blueberry jam on top. That turned out to be really good.

Jamie asked me if I wanted flowers or season 2 of 24 for Valentine's. He's usually really thoughtful and gets me flowers several times throughout the year, and he knows I really love flowers. But, I wanted more 24!! It's like my crack. I can't get enough. Don't worry...I won't be selling Navarre's things or the car or anything to get the next season, but the Jack Bauer is so stealth and smart and I have to know what he's doing next!! So, we started season 2 last weekend. We're on our last dvd, so I suspect we'll be done this weekend.

Right now, Navarre is in bed and is talking to Bunny. Bunny is her "lovey" as it's called in the parenting lit. She loves Bunny; she gnaws on Bunny; she talks to Bunny; she rubs Bunny's ears; most importantly, Bunny helps her fall asleep. I thought Bunny (or Green Bunny) wasn't imaginative enough, so I tried to start calling Bunny Ms. Mildred. I'm the only one who says this and since she can't talk yet, I'm not sure what the name will be.

Speaking of names, Jamie asked me the other day why I have to name everything. I don't know. I never thought about it. There are these 2 chewy, rattlely things on her highchair that I've named Rattlely and Mr. Smiley. Her stuffed elephant is Ellie (that's not original, but from Nicole). I don't know. I like having nicknames for things and people. While I love Navarre's name - it's original and reminds of my favorite place on Earth - I can't get a good nickname or shortened version. My friend's little girl, Bianca, who is 4 says Varra (actually she says Vawa). I've tried using that, but I'm not taken with it. If anyone has suggestions put it in a comment and hopefully we'll get one soon.


It's been so long since I did a post I forgot about these pics I took during the last storm. It was beautiful with the snow in the trees. It's hard getting good pics (especially at night) with my little crappy digital camera. If Nicole was here with her camera, I'm sure she would have gotten some gorgeous shots...

Love the one you're with

Happy Valentine's Day! I usually make dinner for Jamie on Valentine's Day, since he normally cooks every night. The last two years we went out to dinner, but I prefer to make dinner for him. The restaurants are too busy, and I like to make stuff he likes. Here's tonight's menu...

Roasted Tomato Bisque
Stir-fried Greens with Garlic & Ginger
Crumb-crusted Lamb with White Beans
Served with Grande Pre Marachel Foche Wine

Bananas Foster over Cheesecake
Service with Mumma Napa Champagne

So, everyone love the one you're with today, whether that's you're significant other, your pet, your plants, or yourself...love the one you're with:)

The Regal Beagle

Uno...The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show's first beagle Best in Show. I heard a news report yesterday saying that Uno, a 3-year old Beagle, won the hound group. Let me stop here.

Usually, it wouldn't have even registered that there was a news report on a dog show. After watching Christopher Guest's Best in Show years ago, I find the dog show world hilarious. Right after the report on Uno, the owner of a bloodhound was interviewed. This woman could have come right from the movie - with her love of her bloodhound and her gawking laugh she would have fit in nicely with Guest's crew. Somewhere I'm imagining the commentator from the movie asking if Uno has a red scarf and aviator glasses like Snoopy and flies his red dog house.

I have to say Uno is the cutest beagle I have ever seen. So, props to Uno, 2008 Best in Show.

On another note, Jamie has another snow day. We're supposed to get 5 cm of snow, turning to ice, then rain - then about 30-40 mm of rain. Today is Snow Day 3: The Board strikes back (preemptively).

This post's title is credited to Jamie who informed me that the bar on Three's Company was named The Regal Beagle...I'm too young to know that:)

Portage in the Sportage '08 update

I've started loosely planning our road trip this summer. Right now, I've got us gone for about 7 weeks. This is too long for some in our house, so I'm looking to revise. I say if you're going to do it; do it right. We all know about how I feel about doing things half-ass. So, we'll see. I've started to contact folks we'd like to stop and visit during the trip. In other words, if you're a friend and live somewhere remotely close to our route this summer you may be asked if we can stopover at your place! I think I've mentioned this before, but I am so damn excited for this trip that I can barely contain myself when I start thinking about it!

Snow Day 2: this time it's sno joke

Today was the sequel to Jamie's first snow day of 2008. It was better though with beautiful big flake snow....great if you're a skier. I hate skiing. I'm more of a hot toddy by the chalet fireplace girl than a skier. I wanted to build a snowman, but the last snow to fall was not sticky enough to build a good one (or that was Jamie's reason for not being able to build a snowman). I must defer to him on all matters of snow. Navarre isn't big enough to play in the snow yet, so I threw a few snowballs for her.

It's Friday, and she's sleeping

This has been a rough week. I'm not feeling well. Sinus problems again, and I've been extremely fatigued. I wake up in the morning, and I feel like I haven't slept all night and Navarre is 2 months old again. She is actually sleeping great through the night, so I should be well rested. I'm not.

I go to the doctor; she gives me stuff for the sinuses, but thinks the fatigue is something else. She sends me for bloodwork: B12, iron, thyroid, etc. I doubt it's anything like that, so who knows...I think 5 months of no sleep may just be catching up with me, but we'll see what the results say.

Last Saturday we started new sleep training techniques with the baby. Having a Child & Youth Study degree should be an asset in raising a baby, but I find myself thinking back to all of the child psych classes I had and worrying that her crying or us laughing at her whining/crying at times is having detrimental affects on her personality development and ability to trust others...then I get a grip and keep laughing (or I try to). For those unfamiliar with different sleep training techniques, different doctors advocate different methods. There are also nurses and experienced mothers who have published widely successful books on the subject too. There's the No Cry Sleep Solution...your baby should go to sleep on its own without crying because you love your baby and it's secure, yada yada yada....there's the Baby Sleep Book saying getting your baby to go to sleep happy and not crying is the best way and it doesn't matter if you have to rock, soothe, drive around with, stroll the street with, break your back with, or nurse your baby to sleep because she will grow out of that...I could go on and on.

Well, guess what...watching Dr. Phil has taught me that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, and if we don't ever put this baby down to sleep on her own, she'll be 2, 3, 4 years old waking up in the middle of the night wanting Mommy or Daddy because she woke up and we're not there to help her back to sleep. Sorry, but Mommy gets a bit psychotic without sleep (as some can testify to in the first months of her life).

I'd like to reclaim the night for Jamie and myself. So, I broke down and got Dr. Ferber's Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems book. Good god, don't tell a nurse or child specialist that I've done this. This is the equivalent to pulling a Michael Jackson and dangling the baby over the rail for these people. Because they say Dr. Ferber advocates the "cry it out" solution, where babies are put in their crib and allowed to just cry and scream until they fall asleep.

Well, this is not what he advocates, and the "specialists" and nurses use scare tactics to get mothers and fathers away from Dr. Ferber. He advocates a progressive waiting approach to break sleep associations, so the baby will learn to put herself to sleep without mommy feeding her or daddy rocking her or sucking on a binkie, whatever the particular association is.

So, I read; we planned, and we braced ourselves for a few nights of pure hell. We started last Saturday. We did your bedtime routine with Navarre and put her down in the crib awake. She cried for 3 minutes; we went in and comforted her without picking her up; she cried a few more minutes and went to sleep. Great!! Jamie and I are doing the Dance of Joy! The next night it was a similar result. The most she cried all week at night was bout 10 minutes. It has been wonderful. She's only waking up once around 4 or 5 am to eat, then goes back to sleep. Jamie and I have our nights back!!

Naps are another story. I think she isn't completely exhausted enough to not fight the nap and go to sleep as easily as she is at night. So, she hasn't really been napping, which makes for an extremely cranky baby at times. She did take a couple of 2 hour naps, but that's about it.

It's Friday, which means Jamie is here during the day on the weekends to help with her and can feed her at 4 am. Consequently, I catch up on sleep and can do other things during the day. And, drumroll please....she's actually napping right now. We'll see how long this lasts.

Have a great weekend!

Hoodia is the new ylang ylang

That's a winning combination...

Nicole, get some of your all natural soap, lotion, cream friends to make us a special Louque sister ylang ylang blend with hoodia.

The whole enchilada

Due to the overwhelming requests from readers (by overwhelming I mean a suggestion and by readers I mean Jamie), here is a picture of the whole king cake, not just the Mountains of Purple Majesty.

The Louisiana stoplight

I don't know why, but it never occurred to me to bake my own king cake while I was in Halifax. I've always missed Mardi Gras, with all of the parades and partying, but I really missed the king cakes. My parents were generous enough to ship me king cakes several times, but it's expensive, and well, not as fresh as it could be...don't get me wrong, it's better than nothing, but not as fresh as being in Louisiana.

So, this year I decided to bake my own using The Encyclopedia of Cajun & Creole Cuisine by Chef John Folse. I'm not a huge fan of his, but the cookbook ("cookbook " doesn't seem to give it the significance this book deserves with its detailed histories and recipes and beautiful photography; not to mention it weighs about 13 lbs.) has fantastic recipes.

The pictures show some of the different steps...It really wasn't that difficult to make, but it was labor intensive. I even colored my own sugar, which was very easy to do. The only thing I didn't like was that the recipe said to put in 3 tbs. of cinnamon in the glaze. When I did this, it turned brown, so there isn't a white glaze on top, but a brown glaze...every king cake I know of has white glaze, and the picture in the cookbook had white glaze. Before I put the cinnamon in I kept re-reading the bit about the cinnamon; it definitely said to put 3 tbs.

When it was all said and done, this was the best king cake I've ever had. The dough was perfect; the sugar was perfect, and the glaze was - well, it should have used less cinnamon - delicious. We can't have total perfection...isn't that right Cheater McCheats in New England!

I think I'll be making a king cake every year. Who knows, next year I may shoot for a pecan praline filled cake....that's my favorite.

I call this one "Mountains of Purple Majesty"

As promised

Here is Jamie's new ride; he looked this proud when his daughter was born:)


Just so you can appreciate how happy he is, here is his ride before the Kia...

Tastes like chicken, and that's not a good thing

We gave baby girl chicken tonight for the first time. Let's just say it went over about as well as a turd in a punchbowl at a baby shower. Jamie and I were so excited; I kept telling her she was going to get real people food, when Jamie informed me that she has always been a real person and ate real person food. Now she would be eating big person food - not real person food. We baked a plain chicken breast. Jamie cut the meat off the bone and ground it up. I mix it with some breastmilk. The train is headed towards the station, baby girl opens wide and then the face comes...she made an incredibly horrible face. You would have thought I shoved 2 month old road salt in her mouth. She didn't push that much out of her mouth; she was just making horrific faces. So, we keep trying a little bit at a time.

Each time is the same - nasty face, sort of pushing it out, sort of swallowing. Then, on the next spoonful she makes a face, and her body actually shudders. It was really one of the funniest things I've ever seen. She didn't totally spit it out, so I tried another little bite. Same thing...watch this and tell me it doesn't remind you of Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons shuddering when Bart escapes his evil rath....now tell me you're not laughing!

New Ride

Well, here it is...Jamie's ride before Thursday, and Jamie's ride after Thursday (drumroll, please)...

What an improvement. He was so excited signing the papers at the dealership he looked like a jackass eatin' briars - to borrow an expression from home.

Ok, so I'm having issues with my picture software. Big surprise. There will be pictures of the new ride coming soon to a blog near you. But now it's 9:13 on Friday night and baby girl is asleep, and I'm tired and would like some time before sleep time to myself and not on the computer. So, I say ta ta for now, and I'll get the pics later this weekend.