Dreams... not the good kind

I don't dream.  Or at least I never remember my dreams.  There are those who are much wiser than me that tell me that you always dream when you are asleep, but I can honestly say that I never remember what I dreamed about in the morning.  That is, until I learned about Baby McC.  In the last week I have had two dreams about babies that I remember vividly the next morning.  The first was one where I was very excited about having a baby, I would touch the growing belly of my wife, I would talk to the baby, I would tell it all the things we were going to do together... the problem was.... Niki wasn't the mother!  In fact there was this really awkward tension between us.  It was so awkward to try and talk into the belly when you didn't really know the person, and weren't at all sure how you felt about them.  Which sort of makes me wonder why people touch random pregnant ladies bellies... HELLO! That is just weird (unless you know the person well and ask permission).  Anyway, I just felt weird when I woke up after that one.  And then the other night I had this dream where Niki and I were camping somewhere, and this raccoon climbed into our babies graco crib and started to eat our baby, picking the flesh off it and stuff.... Terrifying! I actually woke up, told Niki about it, and swore that I would never take my child camping!  I also decided that I wouldn't watch Bones before bed anymore.    All of this is to say.  How do you parents do it?  My child hasn't even been born yet, and I am having these crazy dreams.  Yikes!  Niki may have the changing body, but these dreams are starting to make me feel like I'm crazy.  Ok, enough sharing, back to my Bib Inter paper.

Wishing

I want to go snowboarding.  Watching the Olympics hasn't helped.  Even if I can't pull a Double McTwist 1260... or even make it down the hill without snowplowing the whole way, I am still inspired by it.  I want to go down a mountain on my board.  The worst thing is we are actually pretty close to some really good mountains.  However, due to space we left all our boards and boots in storage, and we just don't have the money for lift tickets and rentals.  *Sigh* So instead I will just look at these pictures of what Niki and I could be doing instead of homework.

Beer Butt Chicken

So today I made supper on the BBQ.  When I was working at Cargill the guys all talked about how this is the absolute best way to have chicken.  So I bought a Foster fresh chicken and turned on the BBQ.  I have to say, it was the best chicken that I have ever had.  The skin is crisp and tasty, and the meat is incredibly juicy and moist.  So if you are interested here's how to do it.

1) Get a can of beer, or in my case I used a Pepsi can and just filled it half way.  (the other day I found some Molson Canadian in the store so I used that.  I've heard that you can also use Pepsi... and a Dr. Pepper could be really good as well)

2) Use a can opener and cut off the top of the can.

3) Make a nice dry rub.  Today I used some brown sugar, garlic powder, chili powder, oregano, parsley, Montreal steak spice.  I mixed it all together and then put a few scoops in with the beer in the can.  Use the rest to rub on the chicken.  It is also important to remember that the skin won't let a lot of flavor through so you have to rub it in between the skin so it is right on the meat. It is messy but pretty fun.  Once you have done that, sit the chicken down on top of the can.    

4) Preheat the BBQ to about 300 place the chicken down on a pan and start cooking with indirect heat.  Today it took me just over an hour until it was done.

This is what it looked like when I was done.  It was INCREDIBLE!!!! 








You can see the can inside of the meat.  It was so much fun to come out and look and see how it was bubbling and sizzling.   I highly recommend this as a new way to cook your chicken.

Oh Canada!

The other day in my North American Religious History class we were discussing the differences between Canada and the United States (of which there are many).  As the sole Canadian in the class I thought that the best way to explain the differences was like this...

February

February!  Did you know that February means spring in California?  It's true, the trees are budding, the flowers are starting to bloom, and the fruit trees are producing like crazy.  February is a wonderful month to be living down south.  February is also a great sports month.  First there is the Superbowl which means a great party with friends, and the night before the Superbowl is the start of Nascar season.  Also this year the Olympics are on this year, although with all my homework I am just hoping to catch a few of the hockey games, and maybe some snowboarding.

February is also Valentines, so gentlemen... you've been warned.  The question is how much to do?  Niki and I are going to stay pretty low key.  One of the results of struggling with infertility as a couple is that it makes Mother's day incredibly difficult.  As a result we are more aware of the pain that some of these holidays can cause on those who don't have a special someone in their life.  So I'll probably try and do something for Niki, but nothing to big.  May 14th... that's the day to go big! 

 

First Day of Class

So today is the first day of class for the semester!  I have just 1.75 hours left of freedom!  In just under two hours I will receive my first (of many) Syllabus.  Of course since I've had almost two months off, I have done some reading and I am sitting in a pretty good place for the start of the semester.  And I am actually pretty ready to get back in the class room.  Sitting around is nice, but it will be good to be busy again.  However, I can tell already that Monday's are not going to be my favorite day of the week.  Class all afternoon, just enough time to work out and grab a quick something to eat, and then class until 9, and then work for an hour or so cleaning the school.

Fortunately I was able to finish reading all the books I bought from Amazon with my Christmas money.  I had to read pretty fast the last two days to finish Miroslav Volf's Free of Charge, but I finished it this morning and now I am ready to just read school books for a while.  Free of Charge was excellent.  Because pretty much everything I read I relate to the subject of God's wrath, there were a few things that I wonder about.  However, if you are looking for an excellent book on the topic of giving and forgiveness this is a must read.  In church on Sunday they were talking about giving money and that sort of thing, and I kept wishing that the person preaching would have read this book.  It would have offered so much to his sermon.  Anyway that's all for now.  Peace

She Says She Loves Her Life

Niki always tells me that she loves her life with me.  So I thought that I would show you what that life looks like.  Here is a normal day in our house!  Reading, internet, homework!

And yes that is Karl Barth Church Dogmatics IV.1 on the shelf.

YIKES!!

Ok, so it's been a while... ooops by bad. There hasn't really been a lot going on though. Work and play, that about sums it up. On Saturday Niki and I went shopping. I got some sweet new threads... and tried on this hat, saw that my hair was disgusting, remembered what Scams says about my long hair and promptly walked into the hairdressers and got it cut. So now I look really nice and stylish. Yesterday was a very nice day off, I quite enjoyed it. My highlight was for sure washing Lennox (an adventure in itself) and then sitting outside on our step with Niki watching Lennox dry himself. There was just a peace and a calm about it. Sitting outside, warm watching our dog play in the grass... it was one of those moments that makes you say, yes.... this is perfect.
Oh yeah! On Sunday night I went and saw some of my youth/former youth play a show at the station, that was really awesome, if you weren't there you really missed out. (thanks to Ryan for the pics)