Flowers and Chocolates and a sticky kitchen floor

Happy Valentine's Day to you all.

The hubs gave me red roses and we exchanged chocolates and cards. Pretty nice day!

This has nothing to do with Valentine's day (as you will see). But I found a great recipe the other day and tried it out last evening. When I have chinese food (at home) I love to have sweet pickled ginger with it. The sweetness is great with the soy of the chinese food. The recipe said when you get sushi at a restaurant you are given washabi (hot enough to kill a person) and the sweet pickled ginger (nummers). I recently purchased a small container of the sweet pickled ginger at the grocery store. Its a bit spendy. So I went searching on the internet for a recipe so I could make my own. There were lots of recipes to be found. I got the ginger and a large bottle of rice vinegar at the local asian store - they have the best prices. It took quite a while to peel the skins off the ginger and then to slice it up. At first I thought I'd try slicing the ginger by using a potato peeler. HA! That made it too thin and it would have taken toooo long. So I got my sharpest paring knife and started slicing. It ended up making about a quart. That should last a few days :-> Below is the recipe, in case you are interested in making your own.

Sweet Pickled Ginger (gari)

Thinly slice about 1/2 lb. fresh ginger (young or mature - doesn't matter) and place in a non-reactive saucepan with 1 cup unseasoned rice vinegar, 2 Tablespoons cider vinegar and 1 Tablespoon distilled white vinegar. Add 1/2 cup sugar and 2 teaspoons kosher salt (or sea salt). Stir over medium heat until the sugar and salt are dissolved and the liquid is simmering. Turn off heat and allow ginger to steep and cool to room temperature. Pour into a clean glass jar, cover and refrigerate. Ginger should be completely immersed in liquid.

"The Adventure of the Container of Ginger" (boo, hissss)

I went to the fridge to get the container so I could take this picture - show you all my hard work. I should have left it alone. When I reached for the container it slipped from my fingers and crashed to the floor, cracking the container. The ginger stayed in the container (plastic) but the sweet (super sticky) liquid leaked thru the cracks all over the floor in front of the fridge. I picked up the container and put all the ginger in another container. Luckily I'd saved the extra liquid from last evening in the fridge and it was enough to cover the ginger in the 2nd container. Now I get to clean up the super sticky from the floor! Don't you just love it!!! Thank goodness for Dawn dishwashing liquid. It did the trick.

HP33 has arrived!

HP33 arrived today from MonkeeMaker. He made pretty good time, considering how far he had to travel.

All the boys had to have a close look at the package before we could open it.

Once I cut the tape little legs emerged from the package.

Then a very cutely HP33 emerged and he had a package in his hands. What could be in there?

Oh, choccies!! HP33 would have helped himself, but since he has no fingers, he couldn't open the chocolates. Poor little guy. I'm afraid mom and dad finished them off. I think I've heard somewhere that chocolate is not good for primates, so we were just keeping him safe by eating the chocolate.

He hasn't told us his name yet. I guess we will need to get to know each other a bit first.

Thanks Monkee Maker - he is grand!!

Small Autumn

Just finished another small cutely monkey.

Next monkey will be for grandson Miles. I think I'll make it in bright colors.

Just received a few more pix of baby Miles. Boy am I envious of the grandparents on the other side - they get to hold him. He is back east and we're in the northwest.

What a sweetie!

New Ears

Its all better now. He looks like a monkey and not a mouse. What do you think?

Monkey/Mouse

Just finished a new pattern for another Monkey. There seems to be a problem. He looks like a cross between a Monkey and a Mouse. His ears are too large. I made them just as the pattern said but - see for yourself.

Next time I will have to amend his ears. Maybe make comepletely different ears. He is cute but he looks related to Dumbo!

He is actually a true red with variegated red, but the camera made him very orange.

Please meet our Grandson Miles

Please meet Miles Douglas North Watson

(less than 1 day old).

Miles Douglas North Watson

Our son and his wife had their baby today. We are grandparents!!! Don't have many details - they were a bit busy. More later.

Well, well

I just lined up the "Boys" and have come to the conclusion that they may not be as cute as 007 by Monkee Maker, but they are pretty cute in their own way. Have a look.

New Munkeh on the block

I finally finished my latest attempt at an ITV Munkeh - including the changes from Monkee Maker. I was hoping this Munkeh would be a bit cuter and possibly resemble 007 by Monkee Maker. Fat chance!! This one does look better than GM but not by much. You can tell they are from the same family! Poor babies. This will be my last attempt to make this pattern. I just don't have the knack!

Please say "hey" to Autumn. This poor boy. I hope no one makes fun of him. It would really hurt his feelings. He is a sweetie boy.

Oh my!

I'm afraid this doesn't bode well for the future.

New Friends

Munkeh has a new little friend.

He will go by LM (Little Munkeh).

Cheeky Munkeh

Look what someone has learned to do!

Real Munkeh (aka ITV)

Just received him from England. A real honest-to-goodness Munkeh from ITV. How cute is he?!!

Happy New Year to all!

Merry Christmas!

Just a quick note to wish all a Merry Christmas. Its a bit early for any Christmas pix - check next week - after we return from our trip to Indiana. We're visiting our son and daugher-in-law and almost first grandchild (due in January).

But I do have a pix of our cutie-boy Harry Barker.

That will have to do for a while.

Merry Christmas & God bless you.

What do you mean I can't drive?!

We were heading out to get groceries and before anyone could call "Shotgun" there was GM (Green Munkeh) sitting in the drivers seat of the car. He was a bit miffed when told he would NOT be driving. I tried explaining that besides a very large booster seat (to be able to see out the front window) his legs were just a tad too short to reach the pedals.

Once we got to Wally World GM wanted a look-see in the toy section. He had a great time sitting in the Elmo chair. WHen he sat down the whole chair vibrated (tickle-me Elmo). Munkeh tushes had a bit of a massage.

The store was way busy with lots of shoppers and before I knew it GM had snagged a pack of cookies from the shelf. I've no idea what flavor they were but they were an exact match in color to GM.

Last evening was DH former work's annual Holiday "DO". Eventhough DH is retired we still get invited. They had wonderful food - huge smorgasbord and the dessert table was obscene (but nummy). Later in the evening there were door prizes. But alas, this year we didn't win anything. The grand prize was a 37inch LCD tv.

Time to get ready for work. TTFN.

Munkeh - take 2

I finally got around to fixing green Munkeh's face. I think he looks better. I only need to finish his 2nd leg, then he will be finished. To the right is Munkeh (first time around)

Below that is the slightly revamped face of Munkeh. I'm happier with version 2.

The 3rd pix is of Munkeh with his winter hat. We are supposed to get lots of rain, wind and some snow this weekend. I figured he needed a hat.

Now that Munkeh is more to my liking, I'm not sure who will be going on our vacation in December. I may have to take some of the plastic beads out of Munkeh's tush. He is a bit heavy.

Better go, need to get some sleep, get to work tomorrow.

Exciting Movie!

Today DH, Bucket & I headed off to the movies. One of the perks of being retired is being able to do most anything we want, when we want. Bucket watched the cars along the way.

Once we got there Bucket had to try out the bucket seats. Who knew the theatre had Bucket sized seats for monkeys.

We saw an exciting movie called "Hitman" with Timothy Olyphant. Lots of shooting and such but we like the exciting movies. I hope Bucket hasn't been scared for life!

Better go, DH needs me to install a disk for him on the computer. More later.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving.

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After the turkey dinner DH and I and our dog Harry went for a walk along the Columbia River. It was quite brisk and just what we needed after lunch. In fact we had a pretty heavy frost this morning. Made me think of a house we passed yesterday. They had a huge persimmon tree in the front yard. It had no leaves but was covered in lovely bright orange persimmons. It was all I could do not to go begging at their door. Persimmons make wonderful cookies. I've heard they are better after the first frost so they should be perfect now.

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Do you like tea - well really, herbal tea? I've never liked tea or coffee but recently tried herbal tea and was pleasantly surprised with all the wonderful flavors that are out there. I've been stocking up on some that sound good. I've tried nearly all of them and what wonderful flavors. I got a box of Celestial Seasonings Tangerine Orange and in the box was a 2-bag sample of Madagascar Vanilla Red herbal tea. Its made with Rooibos (roy boss) from South Africa. Wow, was that good! That gives me another flavor to search for. Now I can be like everyone else out there - carrying around my "cup of something" to drink.

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This afternoon I finished up wrapping Christmas gifts and got all the out-of-town boxes packed and ready to UPS after the first of the month. I'm so happy to have that taken care of. Only thing left is to send a few Christmas cards and I even have stamps.

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As you can see everyone is present and ship-shape - saying TTFN. See you soon.

Another family member

Happy Thanksgiving to all! Our turkey is in the oven.

I really need to stay away from the Goodwill store. They just have toooo many cute things.

We found another new family member for the primate side of the family. Please say "hey" to Tang (short for tangerine). Is he cute of what. He nearly glows in the dark.

Gotta go work on lunch. Have a good day all.

New friends

Went to the goodwill today - with Bucket navigating the way. We checked out all the shelves of Christmas decoratons, purses (one of ny favorite dept.s I got a Coach purse last time for only $15 - its dark green (fav. color). Made me happy!!

Then we went to the stuffed animal and doll aisle. We saw several monkeys of different types. Nothing really jumped up and caught my eye . . . until I saw this little guy. I guess he is more in the orangutan family. He is so darn cute, he had to come home with us (specially since Bucket kept saying "Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom until I had a look at what he wanted.) Which was Congo. We love his "do" .

Had a look over at Vicious Chicken. She just finished Hairy Lee. What a cutie he is. I'm really hoping VC will sell the pattern for the "smash primates". I woud love t make a few for myself.

This is Wilmington - the first smashie primate VC mad. Don't you love his lips?