So Much Snow

Pretty confident that the last time we had this much snow was February 2004, in the storm that was dubbed White Juan.

Here’s a few pictures of the front yard so far this month, where’s my bench?

Watching the wind blow around this morning made me try to wait as long as possible before going out to clear the driveway.

It also gave me the idea to set up a webcam looking at the backyard. Not sure how long I’ll keep it up but for now you can see it here: Backyard Cam.

It was still howling when we did get out there, but wanted to at least get the first bit done while it was still light.

The snow at the end of the driveway is now above my head, but the snow blower worked great.

Caile is still not feeling well, the chicken pox have started to crust and hurt her. She’s a trooper though and for the most part staying in good spirits. We’ve watched some TV and some movies. Caile has had a few soaks in an oatmeal bath as they seem to help her.

ClueSo far we’ve played a couple games of Clue. I’m so glad we picked it up. The kids already really like it and so do I. We’re planning another game of it before bed time too.

Here are a few more pictures of the driveway during the storm and it cleared.

Always Something

It really seems like there is just one thing after another that comes along. Just two weeks ago it was poor Alex at the hospital with an awful migraine. Last night it was Caile’s turn to end up there because she had a bumps all over her. It started with just a couple but before long there were many more.

Yup, that’s right the vaccine for chicken pox vaccine doesn’t completely prevent you from getting the disease. Now that I process that I’m sure I knew it at some point but for some reason I had gotten it in my head that it did. Though it isn’t 100% preventative even those who do catch it have milder cases than those without the vaccine. Hopefully as both Jen and I had mild cases anyway she will have a real easy time.

If this had to happen at least it had OK timing as it is a long weekend thanks to the new holiday this year in Nova Scotia. She will miss a Birthday Party and a Wedding but so far she seems OK with that. But now I have a purple shirt I’m wearing to the wedding and won’t have Caile to match with me. But I’ll wear the  shirt anyway because apparently a WordPress hoodie isn’t appropriate.

But other than those things we’ll have a nice quiet weekend with another storm called for on Sunday. I’m predicting lots of games and some movies on the addenda. Jen is out now picking up some things, one of them is hopefully the game of Clue. I haven’t played it in many years but it was always a favourite and I think the kids will like it too.

Things Not Working? Change It Up!

Last week was the first week at Automattic that I was starting to feel stressed and a little burnt out. This weekend I took sometime to try to figure out why, because nothing had changed.

Reflecting back it seems like it was a combination of things. Luckily all the things are in my own control to resolve. The first thing that I changed was that I was obsessing a bit about my stats. Trying to push myself to do better and be more efficient, the funny thing is that this pressure was all coming from me. We all set goals for our selves, I take them very seriously. I try to set reasonable goals but because of that if I don’t hit them it’s disappointing and frustrating.

One of the great things about this position is that I get to make my own schedule. One of the downsides to this position is that I’m responsible for making my own schedule. That sounds dumb but having all those options can make it difficult to find what works best and there is no one else to pass it too, it’s you’re responsibility to make it work. So I really looked at how I was typically spending my day and how I can make it work better for my personable life and be more efficient at work.

In the afternoon my day can be broken up due to picking up kids from school and getting them to where they need to go. So this morning I started with a new approach. I moved my tasks that are better suited for uninterrupted time to the part of the day that is less broken. Today, felt much better again and it flowed really well. Previously I felt like I was working a lot of hours to meet my goals. Where today I met and exceeded my goals and worked a much better portion of my day.

I’ll keep trying this schedule for a bit and hopefully now that it is better organized I can work at just getting more efficient.

Another change I’m working on is becoming a more efficient typist. All of my communication with users and colleagues is done in text, so any improvements I make in this area will have longterm benefits. So I’ve been teaching myself to use the Dvorak keyboard layout. Right now my speed is much slower than it is with QWERTY, but from what I’ve seen the speed will come and my fingers seem to move a lot less. That can only be a good thing my fingers and wrists. Right now I’m only using it during personable time as I’m way to slow to use it at work.

Natural History Museum – Dinosaur Exhibit

We’ve been trying for a while now to find the time on a weekend to get into Halifax to do something fun with the kids and get some errands done at the same time. It seems like there has just been one thing or another get in the way though. There have been a few storms, and last weekend Alexandria was sick.

We waited a bit before we left just to give the roads some time to melt off but besides that we had a smooth day. It was also very cold, but the sun was actually shinning so it was a nice drive. There were a couple shopping stops first, but then on to the Natural History Museum to see the Dinosaur Exhibit which is visiting.

On the way home we made our last stop at Costco. That’s always a fun trip especially on a Saturday afternoon. It helped remind me how much I don’t miss living and commuting in the city. Even short distance drives can take forever because of all the traffic. The one good part of stopping at Costco though is the fact that I was able to sneak away and grab a hot dog without anyone noticing. Because of the time we left we ate an early lunch and I knew that we would end up having a late supper so the hot dog was a smart move.

We still had some left on a gift card from Christmas so we had Swiss Chalet for supper. It’s always a nice treat to not have to cook and clean up after at home. We were even treated with a table side magic show by Al Bernard.

All and all it was a great day spent with my family. It seems like things have been leaning heavy to the work side of the work life balance, so this was a welcome day.

Weekend Emergency Room

Heading out in the middle of a cold, snowy Saturday night to take a child to the emergency room is never a fun thing. Oh wait it’s Sunday morning, I always forget the day changes even if you don’t sleep.

Poor Alexandria seems to be suffering from a migraine, at least that is our best guess based on the symptoms. For a while we thought it might be the flu, or an over reaction to a bad headache. Once 4:00 am rolled around though, and she was still awake and crying in pain, the pain meds we were giving her not seeming to help, it was time to go.

Now we are in a hospital room, her with an IV for pain meds and to replenish her liquids. She’s now dosing in and out of sleep so I’m guessing this is working. I sure hope this takes away her pain, it’s awful watching one of your children and not really be able to do anything to help.

Winter, I’m sorry

Winter I’m sorry. I may have been a little too harsh on you yesterday, because today you are simply beautiful!

I still prefer sand to snow though.

Winter Arrived

Over the past two days we’ve received our first taste of winter this year. There has been a bunch of snow and school has been cancelled the last two days. Tuesday was blizzard like conditions so there was lots of wind and blowing snow. 

It’s made me even more thankful again to have a job that I don’t have to commute anywhere. As long as we don’t lose power or internet I can make my way to my home office in my cozy clothes, nice and warm, watching the snow outside and start working. 

When things outside finally slowed down I could then go out and start to clear things away. We bought a snowblower this year so this was the first time I had to use it. If I have to live here in a place that gets so much snow I’m very glad to finally have a snowblower to use. 

But wait, I don’t really have to live here anymore. I can work anywhere with an Internet connection. Jen hates winter too, so why do we live here?

I do love Canada and in particular the Annapolis Valley but I could do without winter. 

Wintery Wet Basketball

We were looking for something to do today that would get is outside. The temperatures were above freezing, even if just barely, so we wanted to take advantage.

We talked about going for a walk, or to a playground, but Noah decided he wanted to play basketball. We didn’t know what the court would be like so we headed to a playground with a basketball court just in case it was flooded or too wet.

Luckily it worked out and we got to play. It ended up turning into a boys vs girls game which didn’t seem overly fair to me, but Noah and I held our own!

Donairs and Donair Pizza

While I was away in Spain meeting my new team one of them, Simon, asked me about food in Nova Scotia and if he came here what he would have to try. The first thing that came to mind was donairs.

Truthfully I don’t actually eat a lot of donairs, but when I do I enjoy them. It is much more common that we will make a donair pizza here at home and eat that instead.

So in case anyone is interested I thought I would share the recipes we use to either make either donairs or the pizza.

We tried a few different variations of the donair meat and sauce recipes, but our favourite came from this site by Glen Petitpas https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~gpetitpas/Links/Donair.html.

Donair
Image From: https://www.flickr.com/photos/40726522@N02/8600781370/

As I mentioned we usually make a pizza instead of the donair pictured above. To do this we cover the crust with the donair sauce, break up the meat into little chunks and spread it out then you can add onions and tomatoes over top of that if you like. To finish it off cover it with grated mozzarella cheese. Cooking time really depends on the crust but for us we usually do 450 degrees Fahrenheit for about 10 minutes.

If you happen to try out any of the recipes below let me know what you think. As I’m writing this we have donair meat cooking in the oven for pizza tonight and I’m looking forward to it already.

Donair Meat

  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

  • 3 pounds lean hamburger
  • 3/4 cup bread crumbs
  • 2 tsp pepper
  • 1-2 tsp cayenne red pepper (depending on your taste)
  • 1 1/2 tsp oregano
  • 3 tsp paprika
  • 2 tsp onion powder
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt

The original recipe recommends seeing if you can have your butcher or meat shop triple grind your hamburg, but we’ve only done this a couple times and didn’t notice a huge difference. We now just grab packages from the cooler in our supermarket.

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Knead for 20 minutes. Shape into two tightly formed loaves. Bake on broiler pan for 2 to 2 1/2 hours at 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Cool loaves and slice into thick slabs. Meat can be frozen for future use. You may find that the inner parts of the loaf are not browned enough. This can be remedied by re-heating the meat in a frying pan. This browns it nicely and gives it that slightly chewier texture.

Heat donair meat in a frying pan. Dip a pita bread in water and fry in frying pan to soften (this is VERY important). Place a generous amount of sauce on bread. Top with meat, chopped onions and tomatoes and finish off with lots more sauce. Put on some old clothes, then roll up or serve open face on a plate.

Donair Sauce

  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

  • 2/3 cup canned sweetened condensed milk
  • 1/4 cup white vinegar
  • 1/2 tsp garlic powder

(Or for a 14oz tin of sweetened condensed milk, add 1/2 cup vinegar, and 1 tsp garlic powder)

I usually mix the garlic powder in with the vinegar first and then add the sweetened condensed milk. Stir it up until it is a consistent thick texture. We find it best to chill it in the fridge for a while before using.

Pizza Dough

  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

  • 1 1/2 cups warm water
  • 2 tbsp sugar
  • 1 pkg yeast

Mix together & let yeast rise, then whisk in:

  • 2 eggs
  • 4 tbsp oil
  • 1 tsp salt
  • Add 4 cups flour

Knead.
Put dough in covered bowl in oven with light on for 1/2 – 1 hour. Makes 3 round pizzas, or two large square pizzas. Knead in a little flour if sticky. Oil pans & stretch dough to fit. Add toppings. Let sit at least 15 min. before baking. Bake at 450.

Barcelona Team Meetup

I was extremely fortunate enough to spend last week getting to meet and work with my new team in Barcelona Spain. It really was an invaluable experience. Being so new to the company I really appreciate being able to build in person connections with them.  

I’m a pretty introverted person but I really tried to be open and be in conversation with people, but I’m much more comfortable sitting and taking things in. Hopefully I wasn’t to quiet. 

I took some pictures and have shared some below but the don’t really do the city justice. It was beautiful. Even though I don’t speak any Spanish or Catalan everyone was still very friendly and patient with my attempts to communicate. I did end up with some things I don’t think I ordered at restaurants but I was up for experimenting anyway so it worked out well. 

Jen and the kids were surprised that I ate things like octopus and little fish heads and all, but it was all really good. Oh and the ham. There seems to be a whole lot of ham everywhere. 

Many of my co workers have written about our meet up and shared much better pictures than I took. Here is a good roundup. If I missed anyone let me know and I can add it in.