Skywatch Friday

This sunset was taken on the fly tonight on the way home. It was taken while travelling over one of the bridges over Fraser River. No time to compose the picture, we were travelling 50 miles per hour!!! This next picture was taken downtown Vancouver and the mountains in the background are the Golden Ears. The sky was blue and it was very sunny, the sun reflecting off the new snow we had received the day before.

For more pictures of skies around the globe click on http://skyley.blogspot.com/ and enjoy!!

Mexican Chicken Fajita Casserole

My brother Mark had plans of coming over for a few days visit but had to cancel because of a terrible cold he came down with. This was the meal we planned on for his first day of his visit and it is such a good casserole and I had bought all the ingredients for it that we decided to make it anyways.
Here is the recipe for it. I tweak it a little by adding corn kernals to it and also a bit of salsa to the tomato mix. It is very easy to make, looks really impressive, smells wonderful while it is cooking. Your guests will think you went to a whole lot of bother for them and you don't have to tell them otherwise!! Here is the cast of Ingredients. It doesn't take much but it sure looks like lots when its assembled!!

Chop all your fresh vegetables. Grate the garlic cloves. You can use whatever vegetables you like it all tastes good!!

Chop your fresh or frozen boneless Chicken Breasts into small pieces. I used four breasts for this recipe.

In large skillet, add Olive Oil and cook the chicken and the vegetables together.

In a large bowl, mix together tomato sauce, refried beans, Fajita spice mix and salsa together.

Grate together your cheeses. I used a combination of Mozzarella and Cheddar cheese.

Add all your cooked chicken and vegetable mixture to the tomato bean mixture and stir together.

Assemble all the parts and ready to assemble your casserole.

In the bottom of a large rectangular pan, layer first tomato mix, cover with soft tortillas, then layer again the tomato mix and cover that with cheese.

Cover each layer with a good helping of cheese!!

Repeat all the layers until the ingredients are all used up. End with a good thick cheese layer.

Cover with tin foil, bake in a 375 degree oven for thirty minutes. Remove foil cover and continue baking for another 20 minutes until golden brown and bubbly.

Let sit for about 15 minutes to let the juices reabsorb and bubbling to settle, then cut yourself a big slice and enjoy!!!

You can make this spicy if you like that by adding some hot sauce etc to the tomato sauce mixture and you can garnish with chopped cilantro if you like.

You can serve this with sour cream and salsa and chopped avacado as well.

This really lends itself to anything your imagination can dream of.

The Simple Woman's Daybook

For Today...

Outside my window.... It is morning, a cloudy day but the air feels warm and the sun is trying to peek through. I think the day will be dry-a good day to go for a long walk.

From the kitchen.... its quiet there right now but I am going to make my Hubby a big breakfast when he wakes up!! Steak and Eggs and Toast.

I am wearing.... Blue Jeans, a blue striped long sleeve top and my New Balance runners.

I am creating.... Plans for my brother's visit this week. He arrives on Wednesday!!

I am going.... To finish up house chores today and make sure the house is clean and ready for his visit.

I am reading.... Lost by Stephanie Meyer, the same author who wrote the Twilight series.

I am hoping.... That my hubby wakes up soon! I am hungry!!

I am hearing.... the hum of my computer and the occasional tires of the cars outside in the cul-de-sac.

Around the house.... it is a quiet peaceful morning, everyone but me is sleeping. I like these quiet moments, it allows me time to gather my thoughts.

One of my favorite things.... is the Coffee Frother my sister gave me for Christmas this year. Coffee in the morning seems so much more sophisticated when it wears a frothy layer of creamy bubbles.

A few plans for the rest of the week are.... planning my brother's visit here so we have fun things to do and visit. He loves being a tourist in town. And I work for the next two days as well then the rest of the week off to enjoy!!

Here is picture thought I am sharing..... I found this lovely park bench in the middle of a huge Community garden I discovered last week. I just think it looks so inviting to sit down on for a spell and enjoy the sights, sounds around you and contemplate. Life rushes by fast enough it just calls to slow down for a minute and take a breather.
You are invited to participate in http://thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/ and read other women's contributions to the Daybook.
Enjoy your day!!!

Today's Flowers

Winter is just about over, you can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel!! Or rather would you say the light at the end of the day.
Soon there will be flowers everywhere but for now I have gone into my archives to find a few flowers from last year to show. Orchids here.

I don't know what kind of lily this is but its unique and beautiful!

Some more orchids!

For more of flowers from around the world, please go and check out Today's flowers. You won't be sorry!!

10 People - Five Minutes

It's simple:Once you have been tagged, you are supposed to write a list of the 10 people you would like to spend 5 minutes with. The list may include past historical figures or famous celebrities. Or anyone really. At the end, choose 10 people to be tagged.

1) My Creator. I am sure there is an answer to all the questions I have if I asked directly.
2)My Mom. I would ask her the questions I wish I had asked when she was alive. I especially want to know what she was laughing at in my favorite picture of her.
3)My Dad. I just want to have a cup of rock gut coffee with him and shoot the sh***t.
4)My cousins David and Chris. I would just want to know why.
5)Eric, cause I miss my boy.
6)My friend Jane. We have known each other for many years, its time for a glass of wine and catch up.
7)My future grandchildren!! I just want to know if I have any coming. I pray!!
8)Laura Ingalls Wilder, I liked all her books and would like to meet in her time for tea.
9)My Grandmother Milke, so I could learn how to make rootbeer popsicles among other things.
10)Antonio Banderas, cause he is cute and my hubby would be surprised I did not meet him if I had a chance!!

I don't know who to tag, so if you copy this and put it in your blog, let me know and I will check it out.

Today's Flowers

Today's addition to Today's Flowers are signs of spring coming.
This is a new bud on a tree I found yesterday. I think it also looks like a bug as well!! But for sure it promises that spring is almost here and new life is blooming!! Another sure sign of spring is Pussy Willows!! I love thier soft puffy bodies.

This is a sign of fall past I know but I thought it was so beautiful and delicate I had to add it here. It is a dryed seed pod of some plant, I don't know but I thought it was intricate and golden with its little hidden treasure inside.

For more pictures of flowers from around the globe check out Today's Flowers.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

From my heart to yours, I wish you all a wonderful Valentine's day!! I hope you get to spend your day exactly how you like to spend it.
Spend it with the one you love!!

That is how I spent my day today, with my love doing exactly what we love to do!!

Lists

Continuing on from my last post and a few posts back where I posted my 25 random things about me list. We did this at our last staff meeting the other day and had everyone post 10 Random facts about themselves, and then read them out to the rest of the participants. I specifically said nothing negative in the lists and it still managed to sneak its way into the odd list in one form or another. Something like I hate the snow. Instead of putting down something like making angels in the snow is a lot of fun. Anyways everyone laboured long and hard on thier lists, grumbling about how tough it was and what could they write about themselves. Some folded them up in the end and tryed to hide them away. Shyly when it was their turn to read their list they quietly and quickly tryed to speed through their list fast enough that the others just might not hear. We all learned something about each other that day, not only by what was on each other's lists but also about the ways we went about filling out or trying to not fill out our lists. And everyone also agreed that it is harder to write positive things about ourselves and takes longer to complete than it would of if we were writing negative things. In fact some of us filled in our blank spots with negative things when we couldn't come up with any more positive thoughts.
My original reason for giving this exercise to my staff to do was so that they might learn a thing or two about their fellow staff members and in end of this exercise I ended up learning a thing or two about me too.
Funny how that happens!!

Photography wisdom

I have been thinking a lot about this hobby of photography I have developed in the past year lately. A couple of problems at work that have come up and my having to manage the situations of it have got me thinking of correlations with photography about it.
I am a visual person so it really helps me to find something that resonates with me to help me work out things that are bothering me.
I have a fairly new Nikon D80 camera and a couple of lens to go with it, and am also learning Photoshop. I have a vision in my head of what I see when I go to take a picture but somehow the vision never seems to match what the actual picture ends up out of the camera looking like. I wonder sometimes if I am really seeing through the lens what my mind thinks it sees or if thats false and the end picture is really out there. Maybe instead of adjusting the buttons, fooling around with the picture in Photoshop I should really be looking at how I seem to be seeing things. Maybe what I see and what turns up are both the right things. Maybe I am just not seeing it. So how does this relate to the problem at work I am trying to solve??
One of my staff is having real personality problems with another staff member. When you cut through the layers both are really having communication problems with the other. They are passionate about their version of the same coin but they each see it in totally different ways. Neither one of them are wrong but they are both having problems expressing it. Like me with my camera pictures they see one thing and not the other and don't see where it is both the same thing. I don't know if any of this makes any sense. I guess if it makes sense to me and how I am seeing things right now then it must.
I need to be able to look at my photos through the eyes of people who say to me, wow, that is a really cool picture when I am seeing ho-hum or totally not what my vision of it was to start with. Communication is like looking at what other's are saying and trying to understand that perspective with it too.
Enough of this rambling. Onward we go.......

Happy Birthday Lora!!!

Meet my firstborn!! Her name is Lora and I can hardly believe that today she is her 33rd birthday. I don't know if she would like me telling her age but oh well.
It sure does not seem that long ago that she entered the world. I was just barely past 20 years old, hardly grown up myself having a baby. I didn't have a clue how to care for babies and from day 1 Lora has taught me by trial by fire. I remember being wheeled up to the neonatal nursery to see her for the first time and taking one look at her and thinking, she can't be mine - she is too beautiful!!! And she still is gorgeous and I don't think I am a biased mom saying that. Lora has always been a 0 to 90 mile in one second child. There was never any negotiating with her. She took it to the limits every time. I often thought if she could just make it to about 20 years old she would live for the rest of her life.
And she did. Today she is 33 and she has turned into a wonderful young lady.
So Lora, I wish you a wonderful day and a very Happy Birthday. You are my girl. I love you very much.

Skywatch Friday

We had the opportunity this week to go into Vancouver and spend some time at Granville Island. This is a small island under one of the main city bridges that is home to a huge public market, lots of arts and crafts shops, art galleries and live entertainment venues. We enjoyed lunch on the public wharf with the city of Vancouver as a beautiful backdrop. A lot of the shoreline condos are built in such a way as they look like the huge cruise ships that travel up and down the coast. Note the graduated balconies of each of the buildings.

It is somewhat of a joke in this area that the national bird of Vancouver is the Crane. You can see one of these construction cranes just peeping out from behind one of the condo buildings.

The skies this day were slightly cloudy but the day was warm and dry and a beautiful day to be out enjoying the sites of our fair city.

For more skies please click on http://skyley.blogspot.com/ and enjoy some lovely skies around the globe.

Today's Flowers

Here is a couple of flower shots I took of my neighbour's Bouquet at her place last Christmas. Roses are one of my favorite flowers.

Gerber daisies look like sunshine to me!!

For more flowers please go visit Today's Flowers.

Enjoy!!