Happiness is ........

discovering that "unoaked" is not necessarily the devil of white wines. We enjoyed our trip to Strewn (as previously blogged) but right now I'm mellowing in a glass of their unwooded chardonnay. Usually I go for th big, buttery, bold taste of a heavily oaked California chardonnay, but this Strewn find is absolutely exceptional!

So I'm watching NINE

And beyond the mostly naked female superstars, it's really not much more to me than a fabulous high school musical. Now ... I totally LOVE Fergie in this.

Perhaps a reason I like th visual candy that is this movie is that it's not porn. There's no gratuitous nudity (not that I have ANYTHING against nudity), but rather adorns the women in feathers, and fishnets and sparkles to enhance their beauty and remind you that often the most fun, is unwrapping the gift.

I'm watching one of my favourite shows ....

and all I can hear is the door creaking upstairs. The youngest gift is standing at his bedroom door opening and closing the door. I plan on letting him play this game until he comes out .... then I'm getting the duct tape!

This is your warning ...

It's my birthday on Thursday. I'm 19 (on my second time around). I'm being spoiled like a princess and plan to party like a rock star.

Just in case you need a reason to celebrate ... this is it!

*blows a kiss*

My poor liver ... but BOY it was worth it.

Wow, back from the 24 hours of solid liver abuse. Here's a summary of where we when and who helped contribute to my liver damage.

Angels Gate Winery

Is always one of our favourite places to start. It's a beautiful location in a beautiful building. When we showed up it was pretty early but within 10 minutes the place was packed. We tried a couple of flights, and the lovely blonde girl who rang us threw comp'ed our flights and gave us a free tote bag. Honestly it wasn't that much, we only dropped about $50 there, but it was a pleasure to start with.

Legends Estates Winery

This was a new find for us. It's the ONLY winery that is actually ON the lake. As a result their growing season is a bit longer and they're able to grow some of the more complex varietals. We were there with a couple of other young couples who were quiet friendly and we discussed some of the different aspects of the white wines. The other cool thing about Legends is that they have a "Diva" series which proceeds go to the local Women's Shelter. Although I'm typically not a fan of blushes, their Malbec Rose (under the Diva label) was spectacular so we purchased it.

Coyote’s Run Estate Winery

Our first winery in Niagara-On-The-Lake. It was a bit of a bitch to find (GPS didn't like the address much) but they were marked on the route markers so we found them. They're unique in that they have 2 distinct types of soils. Their red claw earth and their black soil. As a result they can grow the same grape, for the same duration, with the same treatment and still come out with dramatically different wines. I tried their 2008 Cab Franc in both the Red Paw and the Black Paw. As I prefer softer more robust wines, I like the Red Paw, but a couple tasting next to us, preferred the Black Paw. I asked the girl if she typically liked Shiraz, which she replied it was her favourite, made sense with the smoke and spice found in the Black Paw. We brought home a bottle of each to share with our friends.

Lowrey Estate Vineyards and Winery

This was the crown jewel of the trip. It was an absolute BITCH to find, but we stuck to it and found it. Wesley greeted us with excitement and enthusiasm of someone who truly loves what they do. He's a young guy, but he's making SPECTACULAR product. We bought one of each of the wines we tried and will be registering our bottles on his site so that can get the feedback and track it. He's got a blog, which I will become an avid reader of. I plan to support this young winery because they make product which is the BEST of Niagara!

Reif Estate Winery

OMG Reif grew up! The last time I was there, it was crowded and small. This time it rivaled any of the big houses. This time we actually PAID for our flight, and it was worth it. I did a "sensory flight" where the girl matched 4 wines to 4 herbs. The herbs brought out different qualities in the wine, it was much like food pairings, but rather simplistic. This was a fantastic learning for one of our wine nights.

Strewn Inc.

Ahhhhh Strewn, once again, we paid for our samplings but it was OH SO worth it. This has long been one of our favourite wineries, and the win on this one was their Winter Red. This Cab Franc was to be their red ice wine of the year, but when the winds shifted, the temperature rose quickly during harvesting and due to the strict VQA rules, it didn't have the sugar content to be classified as an ice wine. As a result, its a soft, mellow and darling late harvest that was a STEAL at $25 per bottle.

Hillebrand Estates Winery

Ralph saw me coming! He's the sexy silver haired, Latin Lothario! I remember him clearly from my last trip to wine country, the guy is fabulous. We ended up becoming wine club members with Hillebrand and proceeded to drink enough flights to make the first two months of the membership paid for. We were then informed that we could receive complimentary flights at their "sister" winery Peller. I'd never visited Peller before so off we went.

Peller Estates

Well wasn't this an awesome little treat. It's stunningly beautiful and had a VERY busy tasting bar. I ended up striking up a conversation with the couple next to us. Judy was from Burlington and her boyfriend Andrew from Kitchener. It was obvious he was the wine expert and she was along for the ride. After chatting for a bit, I discovered she was in the same class in high school sweetheart. Wow, what a small world. They mentioned they were off to Inniskillin .... but 8 wineries in a day was enough for me. I needed to get out of there and get some food in my belly before I lost the ability to form words.

We were staying in a great little Inn that had an Asian restaurant called Gingers. It was simply divine. http://www.orchidinn.ca/

By the time I woke up Sunday morning, I marveled that I wasn't hung over .... I think I was still drunk! I can't WAIT to do it all over again!

Getting ready for the trip

Like any athlete, I'm preparing for the trip to wine country in the most appropriate way possible. If you were going to run, you stretch. If you're going to exert a great deal of physical energy you warm up.

I'm limbering up my liver .... heading into "I love you man" territory. :-) Happy Friday!

Taking time ...

It's been a crazy week. The impact of one coworker being off on his honeymoon hit me hard this week. While I'm typically swamped with dealing with China and various retail people, this week I had to pick up some slack and deal with designers, contractors and shipping people ... ugh, I'd rather hide in a spreadsheet or chat with industrial designers.

So, with the sudden death of poor Jude this week I decided it was time to slow down a bit. The boys love hanging out at their cousins, and their home is half way to wine country. So this weekend, hubby and I will take time to stop and smell the roses ... or fine merlots and crisp sauv blancs.

I'll back Monday with a wicked hang over and a smile on my face!

Living off the grid ...

Every night on my painfully long commute home from work, I pass a good sized working farm that has a huge solar panel in front. It was installed about a year ago, and I wonder if the owners are working towards living "off the grid".

Obvious with a moniker of "TechnoMum" I'm pretty hard wired into the matrix. I doubt I could life off the grid, but it got me thinking. What if it could help reduce the drain I'm putting ON the system. What if I can help generate energy to become less of a harsh user to beautiful Mother Earth. It's something I need to look into.

Then again, with what a blow-hard I am some times ... perhaps a windmill in my backyard would have more impact!

The fragility of life

Among the mundane tasks of a mother off for the weekend, I got to enjoy some special one on one time with my youngest monster ... errrrr child this afternoon. Parking my keister on the couch, I decide to work on some of the photographic gifts sent to me by my two favourite photographers. First one is a mother from San Diego, second one a blind gentleman from Toronto. He's unique beyond his limited eyesight, but rather the amazing quality of his work.

I realized I needed a smaller image of one I'd requested from him, so I fired off my typical begging email. His works can be sold in galleries, but for some reason he's kind enough to share the images with me for free. I'm very aware of this and am likely over the top when asking for even more favours, like resizing images, and resending them, like today's request. He's never turned me down, nor ever made me feel like I'm an bother, but I still try my hardest to be Uber nice.

I was almost ill today when he quickly answers me back that he's not sure when he can get to the request as he found his significant other had passed away some time this morning in her sleep. Rather suddenly and without warning. From what I knew, she'd experienced some back problems that had her off work for a while, but the last I'd heard, she was planning to return to work.

I honestly can't fathom what it would be like to wake up next to your beloved and find they're no longer of this realm. I can only imagine this poor friend is devastate and completely lost. I expressed my sympathies, but as always feel woefully inadequate.

Remember folks, hug your loved ones, you NEVER know when their (or your) ticket is up. I'm so very sorry Richard, for the loss of your beloved Jude.

They say

That the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome .... or something like that. Seriously, when am I going to try something new or accept that this insane ride is simply my lot in life?

*sigh*

Not so graceful

Today at work, I was heading back from my boss's office and in an effort to maximize my time, I hurried along the highly polished floor right in front of my office area when one leg began to slide. Then the next one went, then the hallway was spinning as I was gaining a new perspective on my surroundings.

WIPEOUT!

It wasn't pretty, and I'll be in pants for a week or so until the enormous bruise on my leg subsides.

Happy humpday!

Oh ... My ... Virgin Scribe!

So, I've started my journey on listening to books on CD. I've started with JR Ward's Lover Avenged. This book has captured my attention. I failed with the twilight series, but YEOWZA'S ... this is somewhere between Twilight and Jackie Collins. WOW. Seriously, I had to crank the AC driving home this afternoon and it had nothing to do with the humidex!

Lost in the rainforest?

So Chapters didn't have my book. They had a pretty impressive selection on the rest of the Author's books, but not the one I was looking for. I love my technology. I immediately sent an email to hubby telling him to order it from Amazon.

That was Monday.

This is Wednesday and they haven't even given us notification that the book has shipped.

WTF?

Seriously, does the order get shipped along the river? In my usual impatient way, I went on to Kobo to read the first chapter for free. It's a beautiful book and I'm eager to get my paws on it. But nothing. Grrrrrrrr .....

Joining a book club

Ok, while I've previously assumed (and commented) that book clubs are for little old ladies with knitting and lots of cats.... time to eat your words bella!

I've begun hanging out (virtually) with a pretty diverse and dynamic group of women. I've had a group of working mother friends for almost 5 years, and while this new group (smaller about 15 of us) came from the same website as my working mother friends, it's from a debaters board, so it's a pretty high caliber of women. I've begun playing scrabble on line with a couple of them, I've rediscovered my desire to blog, and I've joined a book club.

This month we're reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and I'm still not entirely sure what the book is about. A few of the DA members have commented that they were assigned to read it in school, somehow I doubt it's much like Farley Mowatt and the Call of the Wild, but these are some of the American Mom's so it's an opportunity to be exposed to something I never have before.

Good times ahead, I'm heading out shortly to go to Chapters to see if they have it. Wish me luck, it'll be the first book in a while that doesn't rhyme, have pop up characters or more pictures than words!