What’s On Your Plate Blog Challenge – Feeding a Crowd Edition

I came across a recipe last month that I think is perfect for this month of celebrating, potlucks, and hosting a crowd. It’s pretty easy to make (and make ahead!), can be made vegetarian easily, is gluten-free, is a HUGE amount of food, and tastes even better the next day! What’s not to love?!

Without further ado, I give you:

Riso al Forno recipe

I made this recipe AS IS (I know…who am I?!?!) for the first go-round but I am already planning to make it again with more and different vegetables added in…and maybe (spoiler alert!) cut the recipe in half next time 😉.

The meat sauce, ready to go!
Assembled casseroles!!! If you watch the video, you will see that he makes ONE dish out of all the ingredients. I had so much food prepared, I needed to use a second casserole dish for the overflow!!! (Not a bad problem to have if you have the freezer/fridge space, though!) Sadly, Robert Plant the Fridge (he’s my tall cool one 😎) could not accommodate all this bounty so off to my daughter’s I went with it.
Out of the oven.
What’s On My Daughter’s Plate.
Closeup of all that comforting Italian delicious-ness!

This recipe is a KEEPER, in my books anyways.

As always, my co-host Donna and I are looking forward to seeing what’s been on your plates! Please check out Donna’s post where she transforms one of my garden squash into a delectable meal. Here is how to get to the link up party…and/or feel free to let me know in the Comments!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Rock on,

The WB

The Sunday Schnauzer – Let Go!

The other day I was looking after Bowser and doing something (can’t remember what) in another room. Bowser was in the living room and being a bit too quiet for my liking.

I got to him just in time.

He’d already made a mess of the ball of yarn, and know he was reaching for my knitting work in progress!!!
Bowser: This is the best game ever! So easy to get Oma’s attention now!!!
Me: THIS. IS. NOT. A. GAME. BOWSER!!!!!

I should have remembered that Bowser has already demonstrated an affinity for yarn, as he did here (at his Mommy’s house).

Sometimes I think he is part cat.

We hope you stay out of trouble this weekend.

Rock on,

The WB

The Sunday Schnauzer – Couch Protector

I try to take Bowser out in any weather. But that doesn’t mean I want a soggy dog on my furniture when we come back inside. To protect my Bowser’s couch, I put a quilt down for him to lie upon. It covers most of the couch, leaving an unprotected space for me to sit upon. Easy to whisk off, shake off, and launder when needed.

But if I don’t get to my seat quickly enough, this happens:

Hey!
You know that’s MY seat, right?!
Oh….alright! I can’t resist that face.
Going, going…
Gone. Again.

We hope you find a cozy spot for napping, too.

Rock on,

The WB

The Sunday Schnauzer – Toys

Some days it’s not fit for woman nor beast to be outside (for too long). For those days, I have a stash of toys to keep a certain someone outta my hair interested and amused. However I need to replenish the stash from time to time as that same certain someone is very hard on toys.

Unfortunately while I was unpacking the latest haul of toys, I accidentally made one of them squeak.

Bowser: I’d recognize that sound anywhere! Gimmee gimmee!!!
Yes. I caved and gave him one. Sigh!

And this short video gives you an indication of why the toys never last too long.

Bowser demonstrates with his favourite toy.
The toy: an inside-out deflated soccer ball, that first appeared in this post. In Bowser’s defense (and heaven knows he needs one), he did not deflate the ball. That happened when a truck delivering materials for my garden backed over it.
Bowser guarding another ball so I can’t steal it from him.
After toy time, comes Rest with Oma time. 😁

We hope you have plenty of play and rest time heading your way!

Rock on,

The WB

A Widow For 10 Years

Trigger Warning: I am going to be talking about MY experience at being widowed. If you are experiencing a different sort of grief and/or widowhood you may be offended or otherwise bothered by what I am going to say.

I woke up this morning feeling pretty damn fantastic, realizing I have been a widow now for 10 years. Becoming a widow probably saved my life because the stress of being married to my second husband had a high probability of killing me eventually. (I did have a couple of mini-strokes a few years later as I was still dealing with the mess left behind by his death.) A lot of this stuff is on ye olde blogge, if one cares to search…

Proof of That Stress…

I had been living in Crazytown (as I called my life then) for quite a few years already (and it was getting steadily worse). I knew my health was being negatively affected by the pressures of living with this man and I was considering getting my own space to live exist survive in, when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. So my plans changed. The next 6 months were a blur of doctor visits and hospitalizations until he breathed his last a few minutes after midnight on November 14, 2013.

A few months later, as I was going through his papers I discovered that he had been having an affair with another woman (who also thought he was true as well as single) for 18 months while he was living with me (before we got married) and making me endure weekly (pointless, I thought) lectures on his thoughts about people who cheated on their loved ones and how awful and wrong they were. Hypocrisy, much? Guilty, much?

She had found out about me and kicked him to the curb but made the decision NOT to interfere in our relationship by informing me that he was cheating on both of us. I know she thought she was doing me a kindness but I deserved to have that information. Remaining in the dark of who this man truly was, I proceeded to marry him.

Did he really want to be with me or was I just the only option available now that the other relationship had ended?

I wonder sometimes how my life would have been different if I had known about his cheating at the time. It might have been better, it might have been worse. I am certain it would have turned out much differently. And my family would not have been so hurt by my relationship with my strange, secretive husband in the process.

This put me in a tailspin of confusing emotions. I had thought that – despite his mental illness (OCD), his love was something I could count on and draw strength from. After all, he spent a lot of time telling me how honest and virtuous and moral and good and Christian he was (subtext: a better person than me, in his mind.) And now that was proven to be false and all the memories that were supposed to comfort me in my widowhood ruined, by this discovery. And the worst part? I couldn’t even confront him with this knowledge and try to get some answers and closure for myself.

I’m truly sorry that my second husband had to die so young and of such a terrible disease as lung cancer. When he died though, my most prevalent emotion was an overwhelming sense of relief and that is the saddest thing, isn’t it? But it is my truth. My ordeal was over. My grief was very complicated and made even more so when I learned of his unfaithfulness.

The first few years of my widowhood were spent dealing with these emotions as I was cleaning up his hoard, selling my place to clear up the debts he left behind, and incurring more debt as I fixed up the decrepit building he left me with, and completed the MBA program we had both started. All while still working full-time at my career. Therapy helped; fixing up the building and making it profitable (finally) helped; becoming my alter-ego The Widow Badass helped (a lot). Friends helped too, although I had kept the knowledge of his infidelity to myself for many months after discovery because it took an awful lot of time for me to process, accept and acknowledge what I had learned and the full extent to which I had been manipulated and duped over the years.

Making the decision to retire at 60 and move to Vancouver Island was also very good for my mental health. I was no longer bombarded by memories every time I walked on a familiar trail or into a different room in the building my husband and I had spent so much time in. It was and is a fresh start and a new beginning.

Today I wake up every morning with a smile on my face and in my heart and look forward to the day ahead. This is me – a widow of 10 years. I’ve done my best to absorb all the lessons that can be gleaned from my travails and experiences so far and I am grateful for them all. I’m pretty sure I still have some revelations/a-ha moments in my future, though 😉…after all, if life has taught me anything it’s that I am a stubborn thick delusional SLOW LEARNER 🤣 per my marriages.

Rock on,

The WB

The Sunday Schnauzer – First Frost

Believe it or not, the rain turned to snow I featured in the last post did not include a frost. That (our first frost of the season) happened the day after the snow fall (October 26). Only on Vancouver Island, you say? 😉 Yes! At least in my little corner of the world.

Frosty oregon grape leaves
The heavy rain followed by wet snow followed by frost meant that a lot of trees and tree branches now littered where we used to walk so freely.
Yesterday’s puddles now covered in a thin layer of ice.
All of that rain and snow means the creek is now almost back to the size and ferocity it was in the spring.
And our formerly dry summer crossings now involve wet feet, again.
But we don’t care. (These puddles are no longer icy because the sun was shining on them.)
So long as we are outside, together!

Rock on,

The WB

The Sunday Schnauzer – Rain Turns to Snow

On October 25, we woke up to snow. We had experienced an atmospheric river event the day before and as the temperatures dropped, the rain turned to the white stuff.

The morning’s walk looked like this.

Hey Bowser, do you remember snow from last year?
Between heavily laden tree branches bent down low and the deep ruts turning into mini-ponds, it was a tough slog at times on our normally open trail.
Bowser of course was up to any challenge.
Adventure boy!

We hope you are having adventurous weather too (but not too adventurous!).

Rock on,

The WB

What’s On Your Plate Blog Challenge – Harvest Festival Edition

The second Monday of October has been designated (since 1957) as the day Canada officially celebrates and gives thanks for the annual harvest. Although it has been recognized as an annual holiday since 1879, there wasn’t an official date to celebrate before then and sometimes it was celebrated in November instead of October. I don’t know if we ever shared the same date as American Thanksgiving however we did adopt their customs of making the meal centre around turkey, pumpkin pie, and squash!

This year’s Thanksgiving was even more special to me because it included some food that I had grown or harvested myself (which I am truly thankful for!) AND because it included a special cranberry relish made by my challenge co-host, Donna. Donna and Richard were able to join us at my daughter’s house for this special meal (another in the long list of things I am thankful for!)

Donna’s delicious cranberry relish (photo stolen from by Donna)

Kabocha squash (aka buttercup; aka Japanese pumpkin) is hands-down my favourite squash. This was my first year attempting to grow it and for some reason I had it in my mind that it was difficult to grow, or maybe that it couldn’t be grown in my climate. I’d only even seen imported kabochas in the grocery store and never seen it at farmers’ markets either so I had incorrectly surmised this. Thankfully I found some seed and took a chance, anyways! The plants ended up almost taking over my garden, like some kind of alien life force 🤣.

Kabocha squash spreading like the tentacles of an octopus all over the garden. Clearly not difficult to grow!
Most of this year’s kabocha squash harvest. One of these beauties ended up on the Thanksgiving table.

Another item featured in our harvest celebration was the blackberry! We had as a family gone blackberry picking on several occasions in August, and some of this hard-earned bounty ended up being featured in a trifle.

Blackberries from my freezer. I think most of the scars on my legs and arms from the harvesting of these have faded by now 😩 😉.
Blackberry jam made by my talented son-in-law being spread on the sherry-soaked cake as part of the assembly process for the trifle. The name on the jar says it all.

And here are some shots of the harvest feast:

Some of the dishes on the breakfast bar – turkey, stuffing, Donna’s relish, mashed potatoes, roasted brussel sprouts with pancetta, kabocha squash. Photo by Donna.
What was on our plates! Photo by Donna.
Ready to enjoy this feast! Photo by Donna.
My blackberry trifle and a fantastic pumpkin pie from the Wild Poppy (a delightful gluten-free bakery in town), for our harvest celebration dessert.

Bonus content: Last month there was some fun discussion in the Comments about my drawer of shame. I thought I would include a photo, so you have a visual…

A chaotic, chronic mishmash of mostly useful kitchen gadgets. STILL not organized.
For contrast and comparison, this is the drawer above the Drawer of Shame. Much more civilized.

That’s it for me for this month. As always, please join in the fun in the Comments section and/or join the Link Party.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

And please check out Donna’s blog, where she “goes bananas”!

Feeling thankful for all my readers and contributors to this challenge…💕🙏💕

Rock on,

The WB

The Sunday Schnauzer – Fall Colours #walktober

Nature has a more limited colour palette here in the west, than it does in the eastern part of Canada. But Bowser and I are appreciating every day, just the same.

Big Leaf Maple leaf.
I believe this is called toadflax. One of the few plants flowering at this time of year.
The odd bit of red comes from dying salal leaves.
It’s hard to get close-ups of Bowser as he is eager to trot ahead and explore.
Oh, looks like he finally remembered I am on this walk too 🤣.
Brilliant blue skies provide a great backdrop for the changing colours.
Bronzy ferns.
The rains mean return of puddles in all the ruts.
Still plenty of green to be seen.

We hope you are having a great and colourful weekend! This is my post for Change is Hard’s Walktober Challenge.

Rock on,

The WB