New Professional Photos - What do you think?

Here are five of my favourites!

Jenna

Michelle

Alicia

Julia

The Girls

Portraits of Honour

Portraits of Honour

I recently had the pleasure of visiting the head office of Kin Canada in Cambridge to see the Portraits of Honour. The mural is dedicated to the Canadian soldiers, sailors and aircrew who have lost their lives in Afghanistan. The latest count is 155 portraits and let us hope that Dave Sopha does not have to add anymore.

Dave Sopha talking about the "kids" in his mural

When our bus load of Kinsmen and Kinette's arrived at headquarters we were greeted at the door by this very friendly gentle man. It was after hours so no day staff were present. I didn't at first but soon realized that this man was the artist of the mural Dave Sopha. It was perfectly normal for him to be in the building after hours as Dave has spent every day, all day, as in 16 hours a day working on his mural since he started it in December of 2008. The mural along with Dave will shortly be taking a cross country tour of Canada.

The goal of the tour is to raise millions of dollars that will support  programs and charities that support the men and women who proudly serve in the Canadian Forces and their families. Dave is incredibly driven and feels obligated to the soldiers and families.

Donations of the many hats worn by the Canadian Forces

When I entered the room the mural is overwhelming at 50 feet across 10 feet tall and all you can spell is oil paint. I started looking at the portraits and the detail is just incredible. As Dave said you can be anywhere in the room and every eye on the mural is looking at you. It is true, I moved around and they were still all looking at me. Dave started to talk about himself and the mural and it was soon evident just how driven and dedicated this man is.

Photographs of the soldiers, sailors and aircrew that
Dave paints the portraits from

He told us about several individuals on the wall, referring to them on a first name basis telling their story. He spoke of many relationships he has acquired over the past couple years. It was evident the emotions he feels for these "kids" as he calls them as he had several of us onlookers wiping a tear from our eyes as he spoke. There is much memorabilia in the room as you can see from some of the photos. You can visit the Portraits of Honour website for more information about the mural, photos, and tour dates and locations. 

Happy Hump Day!

What is Hump Day? The middle of a work week (Wednesday); used in the context of climbing a proverbial hill to get through a tough week. 
The absolute BEST day of the week, the day of maximum hope that maybe, you might make it out of this week alive. A particularly good hump day can last you the rest of the week, and by Doomday morning (Monday) you survive by anticipating hump day. Nothing goes wrong on hump day!
Most other days can be defined by hump day. Tuesday is the day before hump day. Thursday is one day after hump day. Except Friday is TGIF Day, Saturday is Mostly Hungover day, and Sunday is PreDoom day.
Hump day has nothing to do with sex. Unless one wants it to *wink*.
So you have reached the summit and its all downhill from here! Happy Hump Day Everybody!


P.S. Just for you Greg! :-)

Having a Mental block on your Blog? Here is a bloggers suggestion.

Do you have a blog? Are you having troubling with something to write about? They say you should write on your blog on a daily basis. If you are lucky to have followers or subscribers they will look for things to read and if you don't post anything regularly your followers will be bored and leave.

Sometimes you just need a push or an idea. Try Plinky . You have answers and they have questions. It's a free site that you can sign up to and have a question sent to your email on a daily basis. Today's question is, "What are the 3 most significant historic events that have occurred in your lifetime?" Now that question could lead to quite a few paragraphs. I suppose depending on your age, *smirk*, some of us would have more to write about than others.

How to Work and Make Money from home

In the last month I have been learning quite a bit about social networking online. I have had a twitter account for quite some time but never really used it until this past week. To get noticed you have to network with people. There are a lot of programs out there to assist you with getting the exposure you are looking for when it comes to Internet business. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter can be used to get followers to your business. Whether you blog or you just need people to get to your website it certainly can be done and for free. I don't plan on making millions by any means, at this point I am enjoying the learning process. My wordpress blog is connected to my Facebook and Twitter and MSN accounts so that when I make a new post it is automatically posted to said accounts. This blogger site allows me to post to said accounts but I have to do each one at a time which I hope they will change as I personally like this blogger site a bit better. I signed up to Adsense and have the ads on this site now. In the month of March I made $10.04 from people coming to my site and clicking on the ads. I am brand new and just getting started and learning as I go along. I have been reading and trying out all the programs to understand how they work and how they can work with each other. The process has allowed me to check out some viable companies. I am currently in the process of checking out people's websites on twitter. Checking them out to see if they are things I am interested in. See who I have what in common with other people. If I like it, I send them a "tweet" letting them know, "Hey @soandso I checked out your website and liked it, look forward to more." I am in the process of networking to gain followers and to find out who I want to follow on Twitter. There are many programs to assist you with managing your Twitter account. I have tried 3 now and must say I am not happy with any of them just yet. All are free, of course they have the pro versions of each which would then have a monthly cost associated with it but for me in my learning phase I am not wanting to put any money out at this time. If I find one that I like I will definitely pass along my findings. 
Facebook has been a pretty good source to get feedback on my blog as it is comprised of my friends and family as my contacts. I have not advertised on the site, just made posts to come check out different posts I have created here. I will check out the advertising and again post my findings here.
I am still very new and have a lot to learn and from a newbie's point of view sharing what I have been able to find I hope will help others in their quests. I hope others will share with me as well.
Until we meet again

Todays Creation in the Kitchen - Banana Chocolate Pudding Pie.

Sliced Bananas lined bottom of cooked
pie shell

 Well I had some pie crust left over in the fridge from my tarts the other day and I needed to make something with it. I didn't feel like making an apple pie as apples are not in season right now and I just didn't feel like peeling all those apples.

Chocolate Pudding over the Bananas

I glanced over to the fruit basket in the kitchen and noticed the bananas. I thought banana cream pie! Well, I checked my pantry and found vanilla and chocolate pudding mixes. Vanilla or Chocolate, mmm, both are great with banana. I chose chocolate. I also noticed I had one package of whipped topping mix.

Finished Product.

I got the crust rolled out. Baked it in the pie plate. Lined the bottom with sliced banana, made the pudding, four cups of milk later, wow, and then topped it off with the whipped topping. The kids loved it and so did I, I must say. Very simple to make and oh so yummy! You could use a graham cracker crust if you like and use any instant pudding mix. Quick and easy desert.

The Best Pecan Tart Recipe

The original recipe was for Butter Tarts but I changed it as I am not a big fan of raisins.

• 2 tbls. Butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg well beaten
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 cup corn syrup (optional)
• 1 cup pecan halves or peices

I place pecan peices in tart shells so that each shell has the same amount of pecans. Mix the other ingredients together. The optional corn syrup makes them more on the runny side, so it is really your personal preference. I always use the corn syrup. Tablespoon filling into each tart. Enough to make a dozen. Bake at 425 degree oven for 10 - 12 minutes.
*Another alternative would be to use 1/2 cup chopped walnuts with 1 cup raisins instead of pecans*