New Year’s traditions

People get together in someone’s home or in a restaurant for a big celebration. Good food, good friends, good times. That’s what the New Year celebration is all about. There is no set food to have at New Year’s, though lots of families repeat the Christmas menu (turkey, romeritos and Spanish-style cod).
The only tradition kept in my family, is eating 12 grapes at the strike of midnight, one for each month of the year. It’s lots of fun, since it’s usually difficult to have all those grapes in your mouth.
Some families go to church to thank for all the blessings received during the year that is ending.
Now the more fun traditions are those of superstitious nature, among them:

• Sweeping the entrance to your house at the strike of midnight, this will keep the bad vibes away.
• Walking around the house carrying suitcases, better if you do it around the block. This will increase your chances of traveling during the coming year.
• Putting 8 coins by your house’s entrance, this will keep money coming in.
• Wearing brand new red panties, to attract love.

Does anyone have any New Year’s traditions that are a bit out of the ordinary? Leave a comment!

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Christmas weekend recap

I took the 7:45 VIA train to Ottawa on Saturday. I arrived there just after midday. James was already waiting for me at the station wearing his Santa hat. We drove to his parents’ house and proceeded to wrap all the presents and put them under the tree. Later that evening we all went to James’s sister’s apartment for dinner and then we went to a dance club called Heaven. We had a riot and got home at about 3:30 AM!Sunday we slept in and then went shopping and to visit some friends of James’s. We hung out and didn’t do much.
Christmas morning we woke up for the presents. It was the first time that I had a stocking full of presents. We just don’t do that in my family. It was really nice and I had great fun. We went hiking (the original plan was to go cross-country skiing, but there was no snow). We had a delicious pasta and mushrooms dinner. Later we watched the Queen’s Christmas broadcast.
It was snowing on Boxing Day so all the kids (OK, James, his two sisters and me, if you can call us “kids”) made a gigantic snowman. We had an early delicious roast dinner and then took the train back to Toronto.
On our way back, we had the most hilarious adventure, there was smoke coming from the bathroom and someone got busted for smoking there. Really, I don’t think it’s worth $1,000 fine and a criminal record for a stupid cigarette, but go tell that to smokers!
All in all we had a marvelous Christmas and I loved my presents and James loved his!

(click on the pictures if you want to see them bigger).

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A question to my readers

I recently (like 2 weeks ago or less) changed to the “new Blogger beta”. Have any of you had problems with RSS. I think it may not be loading correctly, and I can’t even find the RSS address to update it. Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated!
MARIA

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5 facts about me: fact #4

5. I volunteer in a hospital almost every Saturday. From 12:00 to 16:00 on Saturdays I am usually volunteering in a hospital. I work at the Gift Shop. I also sit on the Volunteer Association Board of Directors.
I started volunteering 3 years ago because I wanted to keep myself busy, I also wanted to do something that would help the community, and I live in the neighbourhood.
It is sad to see that I am the youngest volunteer. There are like 3 more that are in their 30s. Everyone else is older; and when I say older I mean really old. I believe young people should volunteer more. It doesn’t hurt to give your time for a good cause. Giving your time is much more involved than giving money. It is easy to write a cheque, but time is also very valued and very much needed. Some people say they can’t do it because they’re busy with work. I have a full-time job too and that’s why I do it on the weekends.

If someone is interested in volunteering at St. Michael’s Hospital please contact me and I will guide you with whatever is needed.

Of the readers of this blog I know Anthony volunteers in a soup kitchen. I also know that Riri does a lot of fundraising for The Weekend to End Breast Cancer.

Is there anyone else who gives their time for a good cause? I would like to hear from you.

Previously:
Fact #3: I have a really bad stomach
Fact #2: I love food
Fact #1: My blog’s name

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5 facts about me: fact #3

3. I have a really bad stomach. Bad bad bad. I get sick all the time. It is so bad that it rules my life. There are things that I absolutely won’t do because I am afraid of getting sick.
My stomach wasn’t this bad when I was a kid. It just started about 10 years ago. In 1997, after I had my gallbladder taken out, I went through a round of tests. I have a spastic colon, or IBS. It’s just something I have to live with. Also I have hiatal hernia, which causes acid reflux. I take prescription drugs to control acidity every single day.

Fun life, eh?

Previously:
Fact #2: I love food
Fact #1: My blog’s name

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Santa James

Santa James
Originally uploaded by Maria in Toronto.

Yesterday we went for a sushi lunch. It was really delicious and, as always, I ended up eating triple what James ate. At the end of it James mixed all the remaining wasabi (all of it!) with his soy sauce and dipped his last piece of sushi in the resulting concotion. It was so funny to see him make faces and almost cry because it was so hot. I took this picture just after that. You can see that James is hiding his face, maybe in shame, hahaha.

Note: If you click on the picture, you’ll find a Christmas surprise.

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Nintendo Wii

Ah, such a nice time we had last night. Rannie and Jay picked me up at Yorkdale mall and we went shopping for a while. I finally got the buttons for the green sweater that I finished like 2 months ago. I don’t think I will have time to sew them on before Christmas, but I will before the New Year. The sweater is really cute and I am looking forward to wearing it.

After shopping we went to La Mexicana, a really good Mexican restaurant on Bathurst and Wilson North of Lawrence, apparently it is no good to go there during the summer, though, because there is no air conditioning. I can just imagine how horrible that must be.

Rannie had beef tacos.

Jay had chimichanga.

And I had the combo platter, which includes one chicken enchilada, one beef burrito and one quesadilla. I was a bit disappointed that the quesadilla had yellow/orange cheese. That cheese does not exist in Mexico. Usually they are made with white cheese that melts like manchego (sort of like Monterey Jack) or Oaxaca (string cheese).

I do want to go back to the restaurant, though. It is pretty good and authentic, despite the crappy salad they serve with the food (with a crappy slice of the crappiest tomato of them all, plum tomato, oh how I loath it).

Afterwards we played with Rannie’s Nintendo Wii. It was so much fun.
We played bowling (click on the pictures if you want to see the bigger size).

And Tennis.

And then we played Rayman Raving Rabbids.

Here is a link to a video of me doing the Rayman Raving Rabbids dance. Enjoy (YouTube link).

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Apple-garlic pizza

James prepared this pizza on the weekend:
The ingredients are (sorry I don’t have specific quantities, we just improvised the amounts):
Granny Smith apples
One bulb of garlic
Margarine
Tomato paste
Grated cheddar cheese
Dried rosemary
Pizza dough (homemade or Pillsbury)

Chop the apples

Chop the garlic

Fry the garlic and the apple in margarine

Have the pizza dough ready. We used homemade, but I don’t know how it was made, you can also use Pillsbury, it’s really good (you can also show your tattoo while doing that, like James did in this picture).

Spread the tomato paste on the pizza dough, arrange the apple+garlic mixture and add some shredded cheddar cheese. Sprinkle with chopped walnuts and rosemary.

Bake until the cheese is melted. Enjoy this delicious pizza.

UPDATE: OK, so James says Pillsbury dough would not be an acceptable substitute. So homemade pizza dough it is.

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It’s a fu**ing chopping board

Spanking paddle
Originally uploaded by Maria in Toronto.

I insisted it was a spanking paddle but it ended up being a chopping board. That was my gift last night at Kari‘s Christmas potluck. We had so much fun playing drinking games and doing the gift exchange.I cooked enchiladas, and there were lots of delicious dishes, among them:

Stuffed peppers:

Cheese fondue:

And James’s special apple garlic pizza:

I took pictures of the pizza-making process and will soon post a recipe with pictures. I will be cross-posting it with Garlicster.

We all had a great time among good friends, good food and good times.

Note: after being tagged for Zoey‘s 5 things about you meme, I was tagged for Kelly‘s weird things about you meme and then Wendy tagged me for the book meme. I will be blogging about these things before the end of the year.

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Today is reveal your blog crush day

Postmodern Sass is promoting reveal your blog crush day.
Ah well, this blog is already happily married to Logan’s Dave. We had a blog wedding and everything.
So no blog crush for me!

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