Decluttering pays off

One of the websites I like to read every now and then is Unclutterer.com.  It’s got some great tips on keeping your home (and the rest of your life) organized and as clutter free as possible.  

If you’re anything like me, keeping clutter from taking over is an ongoing challenge.  I tend to relegate my clutter to certain rooms in my home, and the worst room at the moment is my office/craft room.  It’s a disaster!

So this past week I decided to tackle one small part of the room by shredding all my credit card statements and receipts from 2011.  As I painstakingly made my way through the pile, I suddenly came upon a sealed envelope from Michelin Tires.  Somehow this unopened piece of mail had found its way into the pile of credit card envelopes.  I assumed it was simply some junk mail from the tire company, but I decided to open it up anyway. 

Thank goodness I did!  Inside was a $70 rebate cheque for the winter tires I had bought last fall.  Wow, what a pleasant surprise.  The cheque was only a few weeks old, but I still have no idea how it ended up in the middle of a pile of credit card statements from 2011.  I’m just glad I didn’t toss it without opening the envelope first.

Later that afternoon, I noticed another area of the house in need of decluttering – the area housing my recyclable cans and bottles.  I hauled out a big bag of milk cartons, plastic bottles and tetrapacks, along with two small boxes of wine bottles, and took the whole shebang over to the local bottle depot.  A short while later, I walked out with about $7 and change in my pocket.  Not a huge windfall exactly, but every little bit counts.

This decluttering thing is really beginning to pay off!  Now if only I had a garage so I could have a garage sale (groan...)!

Perogy making for beginners

A big part of any ethnic culture is the food, and Mennonite culture is no exception. Growing up on a dairy farm, we always had an abundance of milk and cream, including sour cream, whipping cream, cottage cheese, cream for making butter, etc., while a chicken coop full of hens kept us well supplied with fresh eggs.

With all that fresh farm goodness, it was no wonder that my mom turned out delicious Mennonite dishes like wareneki and kielke with schmaundt fat, not to mention amazing breads and pastries like zwiebach, paska, portzelky and perishky. Just listing these delicacies is making my mouth water.

The other day, I got an e-mail from my brother, Bert, asking if I'd like to join him in making perogies. He had recently discovered dry curd cottage cheese at a Hutterite colony while at his job picking up milk from dairy farms. Seeing those bags of dry cottage cheese immediately made him nostalgic for perogies -- or "glums wareneki" as we called them in Low German.

Neither Bert nor I had ever tackled perogy making before. We had made paska (Mennonite Easter bread) together in the past, and that turned out great, so I guess we felt confident we could master perogies as well. We found the recipe and detailed instructions complete with pictures on the Mennonite Girls Can Cook website and got to work.

Bert mixed up the dough which, thanks to a full cup of sour cream in it, turned out beautifully soft and smooth.

While the dough cooled in the fridge, he mixed up the cottage cheese filling with an egg yolk, salt and pepper. Easy enough so far. I took the first crack at rolling out the dough and then began adding the filling.

 

This is where things got tricky.

 

 

Our conversation went something like this:

"The trick is not to get the filling between the layers of dough that you're trying to pinch together."

"I think the cottage cheese mixture needs another egg in it to make it stick together better."

"How on earth do women make dozens of these at a time?!"

 

 

In the end, we were pretty pleased with our results. Bert kept about 2/3 of them for himself and his wife, Barb, while I took the remainder home with me. I fried up some farmer sausage for supper, then sautéed some onions in the sausage drippings, and then added butter and sour cream to the pan to make a cream gravy (schmaundt fat).

 

 

As you can see from the photo, I was pretty generous with the gravy. Oh my goodness, what a delicious treat!

 

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Canmore weekend

In my opinion, there is no better way to enjoy winter in February than spending a weekend in the mountains.  Two friends and I did just that this past week, spending a weekend in Canmore to celebrate the retirement of our friend, Marlene.

It was everything you could want in a weekend retreat.  Beautiful accommodations overlooking snow-covered evergreens, a snowy toboggan hill and the Three Sisters Mountains.  Leisurely breakfasts of fruit, yogurt, granola, muffins, fruit bread, coffee and tea.  Brisk walks through snowy neighbourhoods, and even a glimpse of a coyote trotting down the sidewalk.  

Breakfast!

 

Toboggan hill outside our window

A bit of snow shoveling before heading for Banff

With lots of low cloud, the mountains were barely visible overlooking the streets of Banff

Watching fudge making outside The Fudgery

Another candy shop!

 

A stop for coffee at Evelyn's Coffee Bar

Bow River in Canmore

Cougar Creek in Canmore being rehabilitated after last spring's wicked flood

A huge pile of rocks has been brought in to reinforce the banks of Cougar Creek

A glimpse of the Three Sisters peaks as the clouds cleared on Sunday morning

A brisk Sunday morning walk

Such incredible beauty!

Louis Discovers the Great Outdoors

When I adopted Louis from the SPCA last December, they told me he had been left behind in an apartment when his owners moved, so I had no idea if he had ever spent anytime outside. But the past few weeks he has shown the typical curiosity of a cat in finding out what lies beyond the front (or back) door. And now that he's had a taste of the outdoors, there's no holding him back. A little snow isn't about to keep him inside.

The snow is a bit chilly but that doesn't stop him.

 

His first attempt at tree climbing: "Okay, now what?"

 

A quick bathroom break before heading back out.

 

 

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