More flowers at Arts Market

This January I painted some greeting cards with the topics of flowers, like wisteria, daffodil, berries, thistles and so on. They are on sale now at the Arts Market.  Hope the flowers bring up some enthusiasm during this winter time. 

Charlotte L Design

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Belated Merry Christmas Part II

[Continued from Belated Merry Christmas Part I]  Once coming to sleeping, we had no choice but pulled out all the water bottles that we had in home.  Even though we had a fireplace in the sitting room, we had to keep Jaden's curiosity [my 23-month-old son] away from the fire. So we couldn't sleep in the sitting room for warmth. With not much options, we layered ourselves with wool clothes, fur coats, socks and gloves, before we jumped into our freezing Queen-size bed.  Jaden was lying between my husband [Tony] and me and he was so naive about the current situation. I held Jaden's hands and tucked inside my sleeves. Tony and I was worried while lying on the bed. Honestly we had not much to do but pray. I couldn't remember when I eventually fell asleep on the first night.  When I woke up, I saw Jaden's cute face smiling at me.  I was grateful!

In the next morning, i.e. 23rd December, I tried to phone one of my friend's home to see if his voice-message machine was triggered. It meant his house had power back. A good news was his did have power. So, we all fled to his home for a warm stay. With finger crossed, we could come back to our home on 24th, because we needed to bake our turkey for Christmas day.

Unfortunately, our home still didn't have power back on 24th. We reluctantly delivered our 10-lb turkey to my friend's home and continued to marinate it. All we expected was spending our Christmas day to someone's home but not ours.

On 25th December, I woke up with no joy but moved my footsteps to the kitchen to check my turkey. Sigh... might give a last chance to call my home to see.... Wow, my home's answering machine recording was triggered. I was burst into smiles and giggles and stumbled to the bedroom to tell Tony about the good news. What a fantastic Christmas present it was! When he heard the news, his face instantly turned from a dull expression into a big smile.  Right away, we packed everything, including Jaden and the turkey back home.

When we entered our home around 10 a.m., we felt a bit warmth inside, the indoor temperature was around 65 degree Celsius. We checked the clock and calculated that the heat was back around 11 p.m. on Christmas Eve. So it was a good timing. After we settled down Jaden in the playroom, we started putting our turkey into oven for dinner. Tony called his siblings and told them to come to our house  for supper on schedule. Rush! Rush! Rush! Once all the pies, side orders and turkey were all done! It was about 5:25 p.m., Tony and I sipped some coffee and relaxed a bit after the hassle. All of the sudden, all the lights and power were gone. Oh, no! Tony optimistically said it could be a testing. Well, since everything has been cooked, we could have a candlelight dinner.  The bad thing was one of our siblings had done his cataract surgery the day before blackout. He might have a bit difficult to have dinner in such a dark place.   Well well well, as Tony said, it was just a testing. :-)

This was my adventurous Christmas day.


Charlotte L Design

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Animals & Birds

Here is another set of my hand painted note cards.  They are on sale at the Arts Market. 

Charlotte L Design

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Happy 2014!!! Yay!

To my blog readers, 

Whenever or Wherever, Double Rainbows are always in your heart! Be Merry!

Charlotte L Design

Arts Market's Surrounding Part II

Bobbette & Belle Artisanal Pastries is founded by two talented ladies,
Allyson Bobbette and Sarah Belle

Crossing Queen Street East from the Arts Market, Bobbette & Belle Artisanal Pastries is there. A pastry retail shop is famous of luxury wedding cakes and favors. The shop not only offers cakes but sit-in area for some coffee and macarons.  Stepping in the store, full of different favors, wedding cake samples, pastel macaron towers, decorative cup cakes, holiday sweets, confections and cookies displayed neatly on the white painted shelves and weathered wooden tables. This chic-looking interior setting made my eyes so busy to wander. Not until my eyes set on the decorative porcelain plates hung on the wall behind the cashiers.

In spite of price, it is a good hangout place surrounded by an atmosphere of elegance, at least my conscience will stay a brief moment of being Marie Antoinette. LOL.

Charlotte L Design

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Belated Merry Christmas Part I

Hello, all my blogger readers,

Merry Christmas, especially to those who restore from the days and nights without electricity and hot water in Toronto and other impacted cities!

Icy budded branches are cascading against the fence

Creeping frozen boxwood stiff outward 

As you may heard of Toronto's power outage, my family had no exception to escape this bad luck. With outburst joy, my home had finally electricity power back on around 11 p.m. on 24th. Patiently waiting at my friend's house for a few hours, my family swiftly moved back and continued cooking turkey for our festive dinner on Christmas Day.

Turned out my turkey was delicious as well as apple pies, blueberry pie and mini butter tarts ...

Yummy turkey with water mouthing stuffing

Homemade mini butter tarts made by a friend from Regina,
homemade apple pies and blueberry pies made by my husband. 

It was a wonderful dinner with all the siblings and in laws, whose homes have been restored from the electricity disconnection.  One of the in laws flew from Regina for this dinner on 24th. There was an explosion at Regina refinery. Gratefully, she was able to come to join us safe and on time and nobody was hurt at the refinery.  My brother in laws had done his cataract surgery last Friday and he tried to take it easy and rest at home but it was out of power on Saturday's night. Through God's mercy, his Christian in-law offered a nice warm place for him to stay.

For me? My home was out of electricity only last Friday's night and the hot water tank still worked. So, I still could have a good supply of hot water. I have an outdoor BBQ propane grill at my porch and a portable stove fuelled by Butane gas cartridges, some hot water bottles, a Thermos Shuttle Chef and a fireplace and one firelog. So, my husband and I got up early in morning and fed our 23-month-old son quickly. We started driving to the less-impacted areas for shopping some firelogs around 10 a.m. By the time we got there, big signs, stating "all the firelogs are sold out",  was posted at the entrances of  Walmart and Home Depot. Finally, we got some at Canadian Tire. The lady there was a bit upset of  too many visitors asking the same question, "Where does the firelogs locate?" We all grinned!

Dripping ice popsicles hanging across the bottom of the Canadian Tire sign

Back to home, I started to ponder how I can cook with the left-over at refrigerator and my existing equipments, i.e. portable stove, thermos Shuttle Chef and outdoor BBQ propane grill. Honestly, I didn't want to set up my grill outside my house in approximately -10 degree celsius. So, the grill was checked off from my list.  Without Internet Access, I recalled a Cantonese live show at Hong Kong Radio, which I watched a few days ago. It was called "Rich Mate Poor Mate III".  That episode depicted an ex-investment banker elite and a first-honour student of Le Corton Blue Paris spent a few days living in a poor family with shabby kitchen. She wanted to promote how to cook a nutritious meal with a tight-shoestring budget. Of course she had a headache to cook a proper meal with a portable stove at the beginning; she figured out steaming food and cutting food very fine could save a lot of gas and fuel. So I adapted this theory to cook my first meal without electricity. Here is my menu,

Steamed black bean pork short ribs

Steamed egg tofu

BBQ pork [left over at regridgerator]

Trying to do most during the day time when the sun is still bright, I started cooking at 1:30 p.m for a dinner of two plus an infant. First, I freshly chopped garlic and minced black beans and marinated short ribs for a while. Then I used the Thermos' inner layer saucepan to cook my marinated pork short ribs on the portable stove.  After brought it to boil, I let it simmer about 10 minutes with medium heat.  In the meantime, I steamed the 1/2-inch sliced egg tofu and BBQ pork. By the time the short ribs was done, I put it into the bottom of the Thermos Shuttle Chef, then placed the BBQ pork dish on the top. On its top, I put the egg roll dish supported with a thin stainless steel plate. Each dish was covered with an aluminium foil. At last, closed the lid and let them sit until the dinner time. 

At the dinner time, when we opened the lid of the inner containers and steams vigorously came out because the rooms got a lot of colder than before. Anyways, we had a happy candle-lit supper on that night and my little one had a very good appetite. 

Although we had fixed the dinner problem part, how about our sleeping...?

Continue...

Charlotte L Design

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