Thought for the day …..

Good Morning and Welcome to Thursday the 1st day of December, 2016.

Yes it is December and yes there are twenty-three, 23 sleeps until Christmas Eve Day.

Are you ready?

Have you continued with your traditions or will you be starting some new ones this Christmas?

I am proud to say that every year we revamp our Christmas traditions.

Some years you may not notice but others you definitely would.

Last year Christmas was at my daughters and we had Christmas Dinner catered.

This year Christmas is at my house and I am cooking a turkey.

Nice change.

Last year we exchanged gifts and this year we had planned not to exchange them between myself, my daughter and son-in-law.

I came up with something different, not buying but still something to exchange.

Good for the recycle, reuse as we are all trying not to spend money on things that we at the end of the day do not really need.

So we will look through our homes and find items that we think each other would love.

Not too difficult.

There are so many ways to make Christmas extra special.

I think that the thing I love the most about this time of year is spending it with family and friends perhaps sharing a meal or just some treats freshly baked.

So when you are running around like the Mad Hatter stop and think about all of those purchases that perhaps you are putting on your credit card.

Do you really need to do this?

Does the person really need that $200 sweater?

Give more from the heart.

Start making things …. people love home-made.

It is the wave of the future.

For those people that you have no idea but want to give ….. bake some sugar cookies or fudge.

There are ways.

How about that vase of Aunt’s that you have had sitting on the shelf forever but your Sister loves it so much.

Give it to your sister.

The gesture will be priceless.

Think about your options.

Please do not get into debt over the holidays.

So not worth it.

Really I can tell you that from experience.

Well time to hit the frosty trail to the bus again.

Have a wonderful first day of December.

Don’t sweat things ….. make a list.

That is one of my tasks for tomorrow evening is to take a calendar and write down everything that needs to be done and purchased between now and December 31, 2016.

That way no surprises….

Bye for now.

Special Hello to: my friends and family all over the world.

Always, Carol and Alvin

Thought for the day …..

Good Morning and Welcome to Sunday the 13th day of December, 2015.

Twelve days until Christmas Eve.

It is snowing here in Edmonton and the sky is completely filled with snow clouds no sunshine to be found.

The sun did not shine yesterday either …

Temperatures remain warm.

I see more shovelling in our future.

Yesterday was an awesome day at my house.

Started by sharing a cup of coffee with my neighbour ….

Ended with a cup of tea before bed.

In between the elves were making jewellery ….. earrings and necklaces …… chattering and laughing ….. they even stopped at the store …. did some laundry …. and lots more.

My daughter and I had a great day ….. so wonderful to spend the entire day with her ….. it was very late afternoon when she left our house.

Alvin and I enjoyed a walked last night but the wind did get up and that was chilly.

Today is going to be a more calm day in our household ….. wrap some gifts ….. deliver some cards ….. shovel some snow ….. stuff like that ….

 

I do have to share a story from yesterday at the grocery store.

My daughter dropped me at the grocery store while she ran to do another errand.

While she was gone I did my grocery shopping.

The last item on my list was “cranberry sauce” ….

I looked high and I looked low and down every aisle.

Finally I asked a young man in the produce aisle and he said “Are you sure you do not want these ones and pointed to a bag of fresh cranberries?”

I said “no thank you, I would like the canned ones.”

I asked him if he knew where the canned ones were and he said let’s go and take a look at the inventory sheet at the end of the aisle.

So on we went.

He then directed me to aisle 7 – canned goods.

Not there.

So I looked by myself for a while.

Finally ended up back in produce and I found the young man again … told him that I had not found them.

I found it hard to believe that cranberries would not be front and centre this time of year.

But they were not.

So we began our quest to find canned cranberries.

We stopped at the cashiers and he asked another young man ( I said we should ask the girls?)

I kind of thought it might have been a guy thing …. you know ….

But alas, I did not mind following a nice young man around the store or two.

This other young man said “yes” I know where they were and the guys ran to grab the cranberries with me in hot pursuit.

Literally in hot pursuit …

I temporarily lost them … but found them….

Voile …. they found the cranberries.

Guess where …. at the end of one aisle ( I cannot remember the number ) on the very bottom corner shelf.

There would have been no way that I ever would have located them.

I should have found the manager and asked why they were tucked away at this time of year and to rave about these young men.

I will remember for next time…..

But I left the store with the cranberries that I really wanted ….

Thank you to two such great young men …. most especially to the one who never gave up and gave the best customer service ever.

 

What a glorious day that I had ….. spent time with two young men at the grocery store and with my daughter.

The evening was quiet and relaxing just chilling watching the movie “Tomorrowland” with another cute guy “George Clooney” …. and Mr. Alvin, of course.

I was so tired almost feel asleep during the movie…..

Tonight I am SKYPING with my sister ….. YAY ….

 

Happy Sunday and remember you receive what you give …..

 

Special Hello to:  George Clooney …… just because…

Always, Carol and Alvin

 

P.S.  just looked out the window and the size of the snowflakes have grown … they are HUGE.

 

Thought for the day….

Good Morning and Welcome to Wednesday the 25th day of February, 2015.

Well on top of the partially melted snow and ice we now have a fresh blanket of the white stuff.

Traction!  Sure hope so.

DISCOVERY:

I just wanted to share how important it is to read the expiry date or best before date on food items that you purchase at the grocery store.

Last night I went to make a “taco salad” and found on the Tofurkey package of “seasoned meatless ground” it had expired in March of 2014.

I almost fell over ….. one year ago and it was still on the shelves.

How did that happen?

My daughter and I decided that we really wanted the taco salad so we made a trip back to our neighbourhood grocery store ….

When I went to the “vegan” section of “meat” I found other packages of the same brand/type all with the same expiry date and no one had noticed.

WOW.

So I picked up a different one (one we usually buy but it had been sold out previously) and what do you think was the first thing that I did?

Checked the expiry date of course.

Now I am always going to make sure that I check.

The girls at customer service were taken aback by my discovery…..

They should be.

Several people would have touched these packages ….

Now we are all human and I understand oversights do happen.

This is a wake-up call to the store to be more aware of the dates.

So I told them about the remaining packages on the shelf so that they can dispose of them.

The question remains:

Did the manufacturer send expired product?

Did the store have this on the shelf without removing as it did not sell?

Did the store have some in the back?

Anyway ….. just make sure that you check.

I am sure that by eating something that had expired one year ago would have made us very sick.

So happy that I checked before we ate it.

Now if it had been our usual brand I likely would not have … I had never used it before so I was reading the package as I started to open it.

Well here we go … another day and the old adage .. another $1.00 ….

Have a great day everyone.

Special Hello to: everyone …. check those packages.

Always, Carol and Alvin