Holy Cow! (sacred cow?)

Man, I'm like a little kid. I can't believe I got so excited about the fact someone read my blog. Okay, granted I fully expected Anita to read it, but someone else did too. I kind of find this amazing. It's in the same realm as pet beds. I find those things amazing as well. I have a big, beautiful kitty named Olivya (oli). Anyway, I never did train her to stay off the sofa or my bed etc, however she sheds a heck of a lot and I kinda wished I had. So anyway, I decided to buy these pet beds (basically cushions) and toss them around the house in the hopes that she would sit on those instead of my furniture. The things worked! How, I have no idea. I can toss cushions on the floor and she won't sit on them, but hey if I pay extra money for a cushion that looks exactly the same but has a little tag that says PET BED on it, she loves it.

Okay what else do I find amazing? Well, basically the fact that I can buy this stuff called Just Like Ground (which is a vegetarian, soy based, textured protein), cook it up and serve it as a meat sauce and people think it's meat. How is this remotely possible, it feels diff, looks diff, but no, they believe me when I say it's beef. Either I am an amazing chef, or I have fantastic powers of persuasion, or they could eat cardboard and find it delectable.

So those kinda top my lists of amazing things today. However, I can't forget to mention automatic car starters. Nothing really amazing about them, but damn they are fine things to have in Saskatchewan :)

So at the moment I'm sitting here trying to write while I silently berate myself for having opened my mouth at dinner last night. Yeah yeah I know I was proud of stopping the Saskatoon bashing moment, but I forgot to tell you about the not so proud moment. That would have been the time when my mouth took over and superceded all logical though, dropped open and spilled out the following words, "Hey why don't I just have a party here for New Year's eve instead of us trying to find some place to go, and we can invite a bunch of other people too!" This was met with a chorus of people basically cheering. Uhhh, then I followed up that comment with a few more discussing the lovely food I would make and all the games I would come up with, and the fact that I would do tarot card readings for everyone.

So now I have to go grocery shopping, I'm making these silly cards for this game I've devised, and I have to go to the liquor board yet again! Why oh why does my mouth have a life of its own? And did I mention I promised sushi, tempura, gyoza, stuffed mushroom caps, bruschetta and a host of other stuff? And to top it all off, I'm feeling rather frisky at the moment and am totally not in the mood for being Martha Stewart. Ahhh, the pain of being a single woman in Saskatoon with a brood of hungry people just waiting to stampede through my doors tomorrow.

Yes, yes I did say frisky. Come on, I know you were wondering if I really said that, and if it could possibly mean what it implies. Well it does. What can I say, I'm a healthy woman...not quite normal, but healthy at the moment :)

Er okay, writing about it is not helping the situation. Back to tempura. You know, thinking of sweet potatoes and zucchini is not helping either. Yes, that is a bit gross, but but I can't help it! Okay I'll move on to gyoza, there is absolutely nothing sexual about those. Woohoo, even trying to find something remotely sexual in gyoza is definitely dampening my friskiness.

Hmm, you know I really should be doing more than sitting here thinking of all these things. I find that some action in making them might be in order. So, to that end, I shall depart, even if it is only for a little while. I shall return, most likely with tales of kitchen failures and impending doom for my party!

Fare thee well!

And so it begins

Welcome to my world.

It's 3:33 am on a Thursday night, and as usual I have my night and days mixed up. Rather than tossing and turning in bed, I decided to try the world of blogs. I admit this idea was fueled by a friend who has her own blog, and whom I keep track of through that blog, along with long phone calls and emails of course. In any event, I suppose I should introduce myself in some manner.

My name is Swapna....yes, yes, it really is Swapna. Swapna is a Sanskrit word meaning dream, and it's an apt name for me. As a teenager I was more of a nightmare for my parents, but now, as I age (ugh) I find I am a dreamer. I live in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Canada and run my own marketing/business development company.

I've lived in various areas around Canada and outside of Canada, but somehow I'm always drawn back to good old Saskatoon. This evening I was entertaining and a discussion arose as to the crappiness of Saskatoon and Saskatchewan in general. I made a half-hearted attempt to defend my beloved city, however I was in the middle of cooking dinner and setting the table, so I didn't really put up much of a fight. I did, however, manage to deflect the conversation to health care, thereby allowing myself the pleasure of hearing everyone complain, but not just about Saskatoon...In my chef's mode, I chose to consider this a victory.

By the way, I'm not sure if there are rules as to the proper etiquette for blogging, but frankly I don't care. So be prepared for me to jump from topic to topic, without rhyme or reason. It's how my brain works, and at the moment, Im not in the mood to try and retrain or rethink things. In fact, that happens to be how I feel at most times :)

So having said the above, let's switch topics. Why did I create this blog? Well, like I said, my friend (Anita Thomer) has one, and that kinda made me feel like starting one, plus I'm bored and no one I know is awake at this time of the day. I figure this is better than talking aloud to myself, as that particular practice makes me look a little whacko, while blogging and doing the exact same thing seems to be the "in" thing right now. So now I call myself hip rather than whacked...or er am I supposed to say elite or something? I don't know the slang, so laugh away...my age will eventually become more than apparent to any who cares to slosh through this.

Er...back to why the blog. Well, Anita was one of those unfortunate souls who found herself and her family smack dab in the midst of the latest hurricane, and as such has been blogging about that. Although I haven't been through what she has, I did have a rather rough couple of years with health problems, the death of my father and the subsequent finding that my mother has breast cancer. So I probably will touch upon these topics, but I'm not really planning on this being a place for me to relive the sadness of the past few years over and over, so hopefully this little spot will bring some amusement from time to time, to those who are bored enough to check it out.

Happy reading one and all. Oh and by the way, none of this is amusing, but I promise to attempt to entertain you in the future.