Fun and Games Bucket List

 Following is my bucket list... things I'd like to do sometime in the near future.  As I actually complete each item, I will post pictures of me proving I've done it.

Here's the list:

Item

buy and cook with an ostritch egg

try out a new recipe

make ice-cream with Sylvia

invite a friend to "high tea"

make a picnic lunch to eat outdoors

make a 7 course meal

make a fruit salad with hand picked fruit

have a "book" dinner

learn about a new (to you) herb/cook with it!

learn to make butter icing!

figure out that mustard paste!

try out a new restaurant

go for a walk somewhere new

go for a drive somewhere new

visit a park you've never been to before

visit the museum in Kamloops

watch a sunrise or sunset

build a new room for Hal

complete a room in the apartment complex

take Hal and friends out in the snow

visit the art gallery in Kamloops

visit the library in Kamloops

spend all day exploring the north shore shops

spend all day exploring downtown Kamloops

complete a plastic canvas project

make a piece of furniture for Hal

make a piece of furniture for the apartments

complete a painting

bake some homemade bread

make some cards and give them away

work on stamp collection

plant a "fairy garden" in a large vase

create a mini-golf "hole" for Hal

plan (and do!) a winter photo shoot

paint with watercolours

fall themed arts/crafts night

make and fly your own kite

plant flowers for indoor pots

visit an historical site

collect as many different coloured leaves as possible

go for a hay ride

go for a scenic drive

rake the yard

trim the hedge and trees

go berry/fruit picking

visit Sun Peaks and explore the shops

walk one of the local trails

go somewhere and go rock hunting

Time to get busy and start posting again!

 Well... I'm finally gettiing around to posting here again.  This blog "HouTep" will be for basic family and "me" stuff, as usual.  I will (hopefully) start posting again on my other blogs.

Maternal Grandparents

On my mom's side, as noted previously, her parents never married. Initially raised by her dad's side of the family, here is a photo of the house where se grew up. Mom considered her grandmother as her mother for the longest time. Ruth's dad was Konrad Ihle, born in Germany on Sep 5th 1897. The next photo is of Konrad and his wife Helene Staudt (mom's step-mom, whom she really liked) and was taken in the 1980's. Konrad and Helene had 5 daughters, mom's half-sisters: Lieselotte, Margarete, Martha, Margot and Isolde. Margarete is the only one I've managed to sort of keep in contact with... at least, I send her Christmas cards each year and sometime (though infrequently) she writes back. Helene died in 1981 and Konrad died on Aug 21st 1984. Konrad's family coincidentally also owned a bicycle shop, the same as the Houben's. Auguste Tepper, my grandmother, didn't meet mom after she was born, until mom's 15th birthday. Mom remembered the day very well. She got out of a school assembly to listen to Hitler to go to meet her mom at the train station. Auguste was very nervous to meet her daughter, too, and while waiting for the train to arrive at the station she apparently shredded her train ticket! The conductor (or whoever it is who collects the tickets on the train), very kindly issued her a replacement when he heard why she was travelling on the train and why she had shredded the ticket. Auguste had a bad limp, a congenetal defect in the hip in her left leg... I inherited the same defective gene, but have it in my right hip. (Hence the limp if you've seen me walking.)

On Auguste's side of the family, her father, Wilhelm Tepper, came from Denmark originally. While Auguste did marry, Ruth was her only child.

What fun!

My sister Sylvia and I both had the day off yesterday, so we decided to have a whole bunch of fun!  We drove up to 100 Mile House (just over 1 hour away from where Sylvia lives in Little Fort), and did a bit of shopping.... including what we needed for this:

This is the "before" -

This is the "During" - gosh it was smelly stuff! -

And this was the "After" - 

 Next time I'll make it just a little darker.....

😄

Friday, the 13th

Well!  Friday certainly tried very hard to live up to it's reputation.

Two days ago it was January, Friday the 13th.  Went to work as usual, but the day went decidedly strange once I'd gotten there... maybe the full moon the night before gave the day an extra 'whammy'.

I found out that the Little Fort store apparently has several power lines giving it power.  (Presumably because of all the fridges, coolers and freezers, plus all the other electrical gizmos like the tills and the coffee makers and such.) 

Well, somewhere in the North Thompson Valley, not entirely sure what happened, but one of the lines lost power.  Possibly a tree down over the line or something similar (haven't heard yet for sure what caused it)....

In the store, the back half of the store - the lights went out.  We checked the breakers - nope, they were fine.  Along one wall was a F'Real machine (makes milk shakes), a pop machine, two coffee brewing stations, a microwave, and a cappachino machine.  The only thing working was the cappachino, which sits smack in the middle of the lot.  Go figure!

Up by the tills, the lottery machine and the computer were down, but the tills were fine.  Along the 3rd wall were two freezers and one cooler.  They were fine.  In the middle of the room was the coffee stand which had one item plugged in - the Keurig machine.... it was off.  The gas pumps, luckily, were still on.

The water for the building (including the washrooms) runs on pumps from a well.  The ladies washroom had no power, but the men's did.  (The wiring in this place must be really interesting!)

Then, about 20-30 minutes after the initial loss of power, the rest of the power went off... at this point, likely because the Hydro crews had found the issue and cut off the power so that they could safely fix the issue.  It was reported to us that they expected it to be off for 2 hours.  Outside we went to the pumps to put ribbon around blocking them off so customers driving up would see something was going on.  Also put a note on the door and locked the door.

Then we started to move some of the more sensitive stuff to the big walk in freezer... and had just finished doing this, when, and hour earlier than expected, the power came back on... so back went the stuff,  and back outside to remove the ribbon from the pumps and the note from the door. 

Wheeeeeee!  What fun!

Sure made for an interesting day!

😀

January 11

Well, so far so good.  Today I worked on my current plastic canvas project.  I also just finished uploading the first 10 patterns.  Check out my new blog - keepingbarbieinstitches.blogspot.com - you'll find a link for it on the left hand side bar of this blog.
Enjoy!

Resolutions 2017

Well, here's to a new resolution for this year - or two resolutions, actually.

1. To work on my plastic canvas projects at least once a week, and to (eventually) scan and post all the patterns here in a new blog (I still have to think up an appropriate name for the blog).

2. To post a new message in any of my blogs at least once a month, preferably once a week (or more if I can manage it).

We'll see how well I do.

  -  Oh  -  and Happy New Year to everyone!