Horsing around with Silas and Jayce (Jayse? Jace?)
Navigating the sloped parking lot at Ikea.
Testing out the brew pot.
Hanging out with family.
So, I had a father moment in the Toys R’ Us the other day. Sierra was fussing and not really enjoying the trip to the toy store so I figured there was something in the store that might have made her happy. I came across the coolest Christmas toys ever…Yoda and Chewbacca in Santa outfits! As soon as I put them next to the cart, her mood changed completely and she was laughing at these two characters staring at her. I choked up a little thinking “My girl likes Star Wars!” Needless to say, the look on my face changed our mind of not picking up something for Sierra for Christmas and we walked back home with Yoda in tow.
Mom and Sierra hanging out with the other kids in the nursery.
Not all moments are fun! This was the first time we were trying formula with Sierra. She was NOT a happy camper. I can’t blame her. She has allergies to cow’s milk protein and soy so we had to get some formula which I’m pretty sure is boiled down aluminum. Luckily, the next time we gave her the formula, we smartened up and mixed it with some breast milk. Over the next week, she has been getting used to it.
Sierra watching A Charlie Brown’s Christmas
Chowing down at the Vars chili supper.
Hanging with Uncle Mike.
Trying out solid food (well, if you can call runny cereal ‘solid’) for the first time. She quite enjoyed it!
It’s been quite awhile since I brewed some beer but Etienne and I were both getting the itch to try our hand at it again. I have to say that my compressor on the kegerator has been acting up and Procrastinator Palmer is in full effect so I haven’t really got around to fixing it in the past year.
But the surefire way to kick my ass into high gear is to make a batch a beer.
I made a batch of scotch ale using my old equipment and to get back into the swing of things. It was a little hard to remember all the little steps, but it wasn’t an arduous task.
Sierra helping with our first batch of beer for the year.
The next week, I decided to get rid of a lot of my old stock that I had sitting around. A lot of grains and hops that have been accumulating for the past few years needed to be used!
I went to Brewtoad and figured out how to search by ingredients and found an interesting ale…the Christmas Ale! It also asked for cinammon sticks, ginger root and nutmeg. Sounds intriguing!
For Black Friday I splurged a little and bought myself a wort chiller so I can cool down the wort quickly (instead of letting it sit overnight). Mike also hooked me up with his old eight gallon brewpot which has a thermometer and a drain valve attached to it.
Come brew day, I was excited and ready to go! Sierra and I were on our own as Vero had gone for a haircut. We did have to drop by DeFalco’s to pick up a piece of PVC tubing for the wort chiller and a few hose clamps along the way, but that was a minor detour.
It’s always better to get all the ingredients ready beforehand!
I have to say, I learned a few lessons that day using some new equipment and having a helping hand from Sierra.
Lessons Learned
While not impossible, it’s pretty well near impossible to make a batch of beer on your own while looking after a six month old. At one point I timed the addition of hops to the wort with the addition of milk to my baby’s belly! It was an interesting exercise in time management. 1) Add hops. 2) Run to couch and feed kid. 3) Burp kid while running to wort to add more hops. Repeat.
I have to remember to wait for a good rolling boil…not when I see a few bubbles. Don’t be afraid to get that thing rolling like a stone.
When you have a new toy to play with that involves a drain, DO NOT FORGET TO PUT IN THE WIRE MESH BAZOOKA TUBE THAT PREVENTS THE DRAIN FROM GETTING CLOGGED! Not only did I get a clogged drain while draining the boiling hot wort, but this was surely going to happen with the addition of all these ginger roots and cinammon sticks in the mix! MAYBE I would have been alright if I had made a regular old batch of beer, but NOOOO, I had to be all adventurous like! The wort was trickling out slower than those old guys who can’t seem to urinate like they used to.
I had a very small leak from the drain but it seemed to stop after awhile. I’m not sure what to make of this but I’ll look into tightening the connections before my next batch.
The wort seemed to have scorched at the bottom. I can only imagine this was due to me adding the liquid malt extract and not stirring it enough. Why wasn’t I stirring it enough? See bullet point #1.
The wort chiller needs a good spot to be rinsed after being in the wort for the 23 minutes it took (not bad actually!). Perhaps I should rinse it in the shower in the bathroom?
All in all, I can’t complain too much about the brew day. I got to test out some new equipment and while the clogged drain could be considered a disaster, it didn’t ruin the beer.
The new setup.
Up next: get that compressor working on the bar fridge, fill those kegs and enjoy some beer while dreaming up the next recipe!
Not only is it the first snowfall here in Ottawa, but it’s Sierra’s first snowfall ever! I’m pretty satisfied with everything we got accomplished around the house this year to winterize it. The only thing we didn’t get around to was cleaning the chimney but honestly, I think it’s better to do that task in the spring when there isn’t some snow on the roof!
Not all photos are fantastic.
There, that’s better.
She’s loving it!
Two minutes in, and already a mitt has been lost.
I was honestly surprised at how well she stayed on the sled!
Vero trying to pull some G’s for fighter pilot training.
We had a great Hallowe’en considering the Yoda outfit that Emilie bought Sierra fit like a glove (well, except for the hat that kept falling into her eyes). We decided to hang around the house and hand out candies with Sierra while she was in her costume. She was doing good for awhile and then I think the hat was starting to bother her so we stripped her from the costume.
For historical reference, we had 100 bags of chips and 120 chocolate bars and between 5:30 and 7PM we had just under 100 kids. I was freaking out thinking we would run out of candy so I want to get a bonus 50 bags of chips next year just in case. Vero was the calm voice of reason through all of this and she assured me no more than 100 kids would show up. She was right! I thought it was super odd that only two kids showed up after 7PM.
POW!
We ended up watching an old Hammer horror film called Scars of Dracula which was decent. Next on the block was A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master which was pretty good as well. We had never seen the entire Nightmare series so we are getting through them now.
Sierra turned five months old on October 28, 2016. Let’s recap what’s been going on.
This was Sierra five months ago.
At age five months, Sierra is super interactive with us. When I come home from work, I smile at her and she smiles back. It’s an amazing feeling.
When we pass her a toy, she can hold it and generally puts it in her mouth.
She is drooling quite a bit so I’m assuming she is starting to grow teeth.
Vero has seen her roll over onto her stomach from her back. I have yet to see this. This is clearly the beginnings of a super hero.
Speaking of superheroes, Sierra really loves with when we fly her through the house like she is Superman.
In the past month, we have introduced the jolly jumper and the activity chair and she is enjoying them. She has to get the hang of the jolly jumper but Vero says that she started jumping the other day.
The doctors currently think Sierra has an allergy/intolerance to cow’s milk protein. That’s not cool! So Vero is on a strict diet of no dairy and while she’s at it, no soy as that intolerance usually happens at the same time. So Vero is pretty much suffering (believe me when she says that vegan cheese has no place on a pizza!) for the past month. We will see next week what the doctor says is the next step as we don’t really see a difference in her after four weeks of this diet.
Vero is doing great at caring for Sierra while I am at work. When I say she is doing great, I mean that every night I come home I still find Sierra there in one piece and she is happy. Clearly Mom is doing a great job!
I think that this age might be the best…she is interactive yet not mobile yet. I feel that right around the corner is when things will get a little more tough and I can’t just sit and watch Star Trek with her to keep her entertained!
I help Vero out by sleeping in Sierra’s room on Friday and Saturday nights while Vero is nice enough to let me sleep in another room during the work week. This just means I have adjusted the nights where I want to have a beer or two!
Some nights Sierra wants to talk a lot, some nights she does not. Perhaps I am interrupting her too much?
I received some bad news that Mrs. Townson had passed away so it was time to hit the road and head up North for an impromptu visit. I will share two stories about Mrs. Townson.
The $5 Bet
When I returned home for the summer from college in 1998, Wal-Mart was nice enough to give me a job to get me through the summer (this was, of course, I found a better paying job at Ontario Hydro later on). Unfortunately, the only position they had for me for the first while was as a greeter.
Now, the Wal-Mart greeter is an interesting position and one that I took pride in. If my job was to greet people when they entered the store, by jove, I was going to do that! “Bonjour, allo, hello, goodbye!” was part of spectacular vernacular that month of May.
However, they had implemented an interesting new policy. If people were entering the store with a shopping bag, it was up to me to ‘tag the bag’ with a sticker with my initials on it. Someone must have believed that this would somehow reduce shrinkage (a hilarious retail term you should look up!).
While this wouldn’t be too much of a pain in a regular stand-alone Wal-Mart building, it did pose a problem for a Wal-Mart part of the Model City Mall. There were tons of other stores that you could buy merchandise from and then you would want to cut through Wal-Mart on your way out of the mall.
This was probably the biggest controversy to hit Kapuskasing back in the summer of ’98. In fact, I’m sure if someone has saved a copy of the Northern Times back then, there were probably public complaints every week about it. Now that I think about it, it probably worked at cross purposes of the goal of the store…to get foot traffic and sell merchandise. People went out of their way to avoid the store when walking around the mall if they had a bag with them.
How do I know this?
Because Mrs. Townson make it her life’s goal to avoid me at all costs. You would hear stories of her taking the back hallway to avoid having to get her bag tagged.
But it was my job to make sure it happened.
One fateful evening, I was sitting in the Townson’s living room.
Mrs. Townson: “You will never tag my bag. I will make sure you never get the chance!”
Me: “I will hunt you down and make sure that the security polices of Wal-Mart are enforced! I will send the hounds of hell to get you!” (My memory may be a little hazy as to what was actually said.)
Mrs. Townson: “I bet you $5 that you will never tag my bag.”
Me: “I’ll take that bet.”
The hunt was on! My eagle eyes were trained for one target and one target only that month of May. I would hear her cackle when she managed to rush by me when I was helping (aka tagging) another customer. I was shake my roll of stickers furiously at her and vow revenge each time she snuck by. I’m also pretty sure she would just camp out of sight and manage to swoop by when I was otherwise occupied. She was a valiant foe. She was the Joker to my Batman.
But then, a larger paycheque called and I decided to leave Wal-Mart and go work for Ontario Hydro.
Some time later, I remember sitting at the Townson’s house and she came in and said “So…where’s my five bucks?”
Me: “What do you mean?”
Mrs. Townson: “You lost the bet. You never managed to tag my bag.”
I stared her down for awhile and realized my villain had bested me. There was no way I could get out of paying this $5 bet.
Me: “Oh, you’ll get your 5 bucks.”
I went on a mission and that mission was to deliver her 5 bucks in the most grueling way possible. There was really only one option.
I decided to glue 500 pennies to a piece of wood and apply a nice coat of varnish to it. As Spock would say, it was the logical choice.
I found a piece of wood in the workshop that just happened to be an excellent size to glue 500 pennies to. I can’t remember the specifics of how many rows I had but I do remember that I figured I should put some effort into it and make one row as heads, and one row as tails. I also remember finding an older penny; I cannot recall the date on it, but it was very old so I remember placing it in a specific spot out of the ordinary in the tails row so you could see the date.
After spending an evening gluing these to a board, I varnished it and let it sit.
The next day I went over with my board and found that no one was home so I propped it up on a chair in the kitchen without a note. You don’t need a note pinned to a piece of wood with 500 pennies glued to it.
I wasn’t there when she received it, but I can only imagine the laugh she had at it as I have heard about the board of pennies for years later. It was our ongoing story. Every friendship has a story like that. In my heart, I know that a teenage boy earned some respect and love from a friend’s mother that day I paid my dues to her.
Christmas Eve
Hanging out on Christmas Eve
I found out early on that in Carol’s house, Christmas didn’t stick around too long. Mrs. Townson did not like Christmas and those decorations were probably taken down shortly after Santa visited.
I make it a point to visit their house every Christmas Eve when they have a little gathering of friends and family. Every year after church, I head over for a visit…sometimes long, sometimes short (if Mom and Dad were hosting their own party), but it is my one time of the year to visit the Townson household. With a rye in hand, we will watch the greatest of all Christmas films: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.
While I know that Mrs. Townson didn’t have much love for Christmas, I would like to think that deep down inside, she loved Christmas Eve because of the people that came and visited. That’s why I made it a point to come and visit…to make sure she got a little Christmas cheer in her even for the briefest of moments.
