For the last few weeks . . .
I've had the strangest feeling . . .
. . . that I'm being watched.
9 years ago
I Can See You
Thanksgiving
Julie and I put on an American Thanksgiving meal on Sunday out at Bobchi's. The food consisted of cornish hens with wild rice and onion stuffing, ham, yams (as sweet potatoes aren't available here, unless you want the white ones -- which we didn't), corn, green beans, homemade pickles (sweet and dill), cranberry sauce, homemade biscuits, and stuffing, with pecan pie for dessert.
Originally, I was planning to make Granny's cornbread dressing recipe, but others insisted that Stovetop has a cornbread-based stuffing that's just like the real thing, only easier to make. Of course, I realize now in retrospect that Canadians can't really say for sure if something tastes like real Southern-style stuffing when they've NEVER HAD IT BEFORE. (Note: Turns out, Stovetop's cornbread stuffing is almost exactly like regular Yankee stuffing -- surprise!) Since my itch hasn't been scratched yet, I'm planning to use Granny's recipe in the near future to show them what dressing is supposed to be like.
In any case, my nifty-ometer just about broke when I realized that I'd just shared my American Thanksgiving with real Indians and second-generation Europeans. In our own way, we replicated the first Thanksgiving meal 388 years ago. How neat is that?
Been There, Done That
Here's an interesting Reader's Digest article on the Canadian health care system. It seems that even as the U.S. considers shifting the burden of health care to the government, Canada is beginning to consider giving it back to the private sector. To the surprise of absolutely no one, some health professionals are beginning to realize that a government-controlled medical system is expensive, inefficient, and even life-threatening.
In other news, an Ottawa cemetery custodian has reported apparent spinnage in Tommy Douglas' grave.
Lights
While I usually don't care to get started on Christmas until quite a bit closer to the actual holiday, certain family members (who shall remain nameless) are ready for the season to begin and have started putting up decorations. This picture is of the lights at Bobchi's. Bonus: My camera takes pretty decent night shots.
Zoo Tree
Shiloh decorated this mini-tree with some animal ornaments we made last year, and some paper ones we made this year. I think it's nifty.
Super Sorter
Shiloh has gotten really good at sorting. We were also surprised to learn that he knows what "striped" means.
Oh, and he actually does know what bubbles are. I'm guessing he was just tired after a long day of schoolin'.
When-ter?
The snow is surprisingly late in coming this year, which means everything gets to look bleak for a bit longer than usual.
The Storage Shed
When Julie and I went into the shed after some Christmas decorations yesterday, we found that we aren't the only ones using it for storage. Squirrels (or, perhaps, a squirrel) have apparently been using it to store these pine cones for the winter. Reminds me of these two:
An Inconvenient Truth
Of course, everything you read on the internet must be true, right? That said, according to Michelle Malkin (and seemingly corroborated by BBC), hackers targeted the email system of a leading climate research unit and posted the data on the internet.
The bulk of the correspondence from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit appears to include conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organized resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.
The bottom line seems to be that Hadley CRU has been faking, covering up, and augmenting data to support their theories of a global warming trend for quite a few years now. Interesting that Al Gore didn't anticipate and correct for this development, seeing as how he invented the internet.
Read more about the alleged cover-up at Hot Air, Shout First, Herald Sun, or James Delingpole.
Grampa
Grampa appeared to be significantly shorter and thinner today. His hair was also mysteriously frizzy.
Business As Usual
Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while. Nothing of particular interest has happened of late, and we've been very busy with all of the usual things. I'll try to drag up something to blog about in the next couple of days.
- C.C.
Waaaah, Eh?
German researchers studied the cries of 60 healthy babies born to families speaking French and German. They determined that the babies began to pick up the nuances of their parents' accents while still in the womb.
The French newborns cried with a rising "accent", while the German babies' cries had a falling inflection, which matches the general inflection of the two languages. The findings suggest that unborn babies are influenced by the sound of the first language that penetrates the womb.
Roo-Roo
Happy Birthday to a sister who doesn't mind laying down the law every now and then.
Love you, Rachel.
- Daniel, Julie, Shiloh, and Baby
I Heard That
Julie was just lying on the bed, and Shiloh crawled up onto the bed beside her. He started laughing at his tv program and making some noise. Suddenly, baby seemed to get really excited and was kicking really hard for several minutes. We think she must know Shiloh's voice, and was responding to the noise. When I held Shiloh close by and tickled him to make him laugh, she started kicking again. She knows who her peoples are!
Wubbzy
Shiloh is now working on a concept called "perception-sharing". This takes place whenever you draw the attention of someone else to something you'd like to talk about. To this end, we've been encouraging Shiloh to point, nod, or otherwise indicate something he's interested in and then offer his opinion about it.
Granny sent Shiloh a great Wubbzy book for his birthday this year that includes a number of small plastic cling-stickers. We've been "hiding" them in odd places around the house in order to encourage Shiloh to point them out when he notices one. It's been a resounding success, as Shiloh gets a HUGE kick out of running around in search of his favorite characters. When he notices one, he giggles and waves at it to show us where it is. And the best part is, we've gotten some great pointing out of the deal.
"Wow, wow, wow," indeed.
Baby Face
Julie had another fetal assessment yesterday. The baby is growing normally, and weighs about 4 pounds so far. Based on the ultrasound, she has quite a lot of hair already. Bonus: the technician decided to fiddle around with the 4D scanner, so we got some really nice pictures of the baby's face! Help us decide who she favors:
Meee!
You have a sense of style all your own.
Happy Birthday, Carrie.
- Daniel, Julie, Shiloh, and Baby
The Taming of the Shrew
It would seem that this part of Canada is abundant in shrews. After several sightings, I did some research and decided that what we've been seeing may be a northern short-tailed shrew. The ones we've seen are usually darker than these appear to be, but in any case must be in the short-tailed shrew family.
From what I've learned, these little critters have voracious appetites and will eat up to three times their own body weight in a day. Their diet consists mostly of worms, insects, plants, and the occasional mouse. They also have poisonous saliva which incapacitates their prey. The interesting bit is that they live as far south as Alabama and Georgia, so odds are good that y'all have seen one, too.
Neat, huh?
And Now For Something Completely Different...
For those of you who bravely dared to hope that I might possibly manage put up two posts in a row about something other than baby clothes, here's a post filled with pictures of -- brace yourselves -- even more baby clothes. We decided to shake things up a bit, though: this time, the photography was done entirely by my lovely assistant, Julie.
By the way, this is my 200th post! Woot!
Dad
I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now; Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart; inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace. For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; That ye may approve things that are excellent; That ye may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ; Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God. ~ Philippians 3-11
Happy Birthday, Dad.
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