Lobster Shorts happy mail, lifestyle, pen pals, Sponser child

The Book That Inspired Me

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I bought this book at bookoutlet.ca. I love writing people and this book caught my interest. It’s a memoir of an American girl and a boy from Zimbabwe and how they became best friends through their letters to each other. Martin was top of his class, but his family was struggling financially and he was no longer able to attend school and Caitlin’s family sent them financial aid. This happened a long time ago, but I was so surprised by how little went so far over there. It made me think that I would be able to help someone too.

My spouse Jay and I decided to sponser a child, but we didn’t know which agency to use. I searched on Google and I noticed some of them seemed to really force their beliefs onto the children/families they were sponsering. I preferred to use an agency that allowed the families in need the freedom to practice their own belief system. There were also a couple things I wanted to be able to do as well. I wanted to be able to write my sponser child and I wanted to sponser an individual instead of a community. I’m sure there are pros and cons to either one. I didn’t know where to start and I found a really helpful website: https://www.evanforry.com/child-sponsorship-programs/. They let you know which agencies allow you to communicate with your sponser child and whether or not you’re sponsering a community, or individual child. The summary chart at the bottom of the post was super helpful.

We decided to go with Children Incorporated. A child sponsership program that wasn’t affiliated with a religion and would allow you to communicate with your sponser child through correspondance. We are now sponsering an adorable 9 year old girl from the Philippines. We are so excited to learn more about her. An email with more info will be provided to us soon and I can’t wait to read it. For only $30 a month a big difference could be made in someone’s life.

Lobster Shorts books, Food, happy mail, vegetarian, weight loss

Cookbook Haul!

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I went on a tear at bookoutlet.ca shopping for cookbooks. I love this store. I heard about it from Shannon’s Bookish Musings on YouTube. It’s a lovely store that sells books at discounted prices. I’ve ordered from there several times and each time the shipping was fast and the books in perfect condition. I love it.

This time it was a cookbook spree (I keep hoping From A Buick 8 by Stephen King, will pop up in there one day. I lost my copy in a move and I want to read it again. Stephen King is one of those authors I love to reread. What happened to that book??). Anyway, cookbooks. It was all about cookbooks. I’m not sure where that came from, I don’t buy them super often.

I’m not sure what exactly I was looking for, mostly quick and easy by the looks of it (and clearly cheesecake too. I love cheesecake). I’ve gotten back into bad habits of not cooking and getting takeout all the time. The new rescue dog is home from Turkey now and we’ve been focusing all our time and energy on the dogs. This is probably going to continue until we get our routines established and puppers has settled a little more. I’m feeling a little shell shocked (probably not as much as the dog!). I need to start cooking. For awhile I was making really fantastic, healthy breakfasts. That stopped after the second dog came home. I don’t recall cooking at all except once in the last week. All takeout! It’s terrible..

Something I’m really guilty for when buying cookbooks, is spending hours browsing through them… and then never making anything. What IS that all about? A lot of these cookbooks are hopefully going to check all the boxes, quick and light on dishes. I’ve got a recipe picked out for the sauce recipe book, tonight. I was going to chuck some veggies into the airfryer, add some pumpkin seeds and soba noodles and the top it with one of the sauce recipes. That sounds pretty easy.

This last recipe book Speedy Bosh, has fantastic sounding recipes. I hope they are as quick as it implies. I’m looking forward to trying them (possibly the cheesecake book will come in handy this weekend). I’ll post an unboxing video below, if you are into that sort of thing

Lobster Shorts books, card making, crafting, happy mail

New Hobbies, Books, and Hair Care

The end of the week found me at the mall, shopping for a birthday present. I went to Indigo (I still want to call it Chapters) and saw this book that sounds hilarious. I’m looking forward to reading it. I can’t go to a bookstore and leave without a book.

As for what’s in the Sephora bag, I got some hair care products.

I tried using cornstarch for dry shampoo, but it just doesn’t work very well. It does help, but left white powder in my hair, even through the next day. So, I’m giving real dry shampoo a try.

I tried the hair scrubby thing this morning and I loved it! I have a problem with shampoos building up on my hair and collecting on my scalp (I also found out your not supposed to use a handful of shampoo, you’re only supposed to use two dime sized amounts. I tried it, it’s true, that small amount of shampoo will clean your hair. I was basically doing everything you’re not supposed to, insert video here). This scrubby felt amazing, my scalp felt better, and it did feel like it helped with residue. I think with time, I will love it even more. It had great reviews on Sephora. I must have seen it advertised somewhere, like a lot of other people, because the salesperson at Sephora said it was super popular lately. I don’t even know how I was brainwashed into buying it, I don’t remember where I saw it advertised, but I like it.

Also at the mall, I got shampoo and conditioner from LUSH, to try. I haven’t tried many of their products. These are tiny bottles and they were really expensive for the size. Maybe I’ll love them and since I don’t use a handful of shampoo anymore, it will last a long time (I still use a handful of conditioner).

The box with Paper Pumpkin on it, is a card making subscription box. I haven’t opened it yet. I’m always really excited these kits and happy when it’s delivered.

I’m about to take on a new hobby, or really pick up an old one I haven’t done in a long time.

Making soap! I used to really like it. This kit is the melt and pour glycerin based soap, that I got at Michaels. With this style youbasically melt ready made soap in the microwave and add fragrance and colourants to it. I used to make the oil and lye style soap, and I will be again. I’m waiting for a loaf mold and soap cutter to come (it’s going to take a long time to arrive). I’ll also need a stick blender, which I am positive will be easily found at the thrift shop. I got this kit to play with until my loaf mold comes in. It also takes over a month for lye soap to cure, before you are able to use it. I’ll be using natural colourants, like turmeric and beet root powder, when I make my own, and scenting them with essential oils. I’m so excited!

I also want to learn to sew, all because of this video. what a beautiful dress! But I don’t have that much time to add another hobby at the moment, and that would be taking on too much on top of all my other much loved hobbies. One day though. How amazing would it be to make your own clothes!

Lobster Shorts Food, happy mail

Boreal Forest Tea Unboxing and Tasting October 2020

I’ve read tea is loaded with pesticides (I’ll post the article here), so I’m searching for alternatives. I found Boreal Forest Tea, with its wild harvested and organic ingredients. I’m hoping it’s a safer alternative. It’s a Canadian company, located in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Each bag of tea was $16.00 and shipping was $16.00.

The tea is on the pricy side, but really good and there is a lot of tea in the bags. The package also came with a sample of cranberry mint to try. My favourite is the Evergreen. It says caffeine free on the website and packaging, but this is likely a mistake, since it’s green tea. I even called the store, and they said it shouldn’t say caffeine free. So be aware of that. I have ordered 40 Below and Evergreen from this company before. I’ll definitely be ordering from them again. They had lots of other flavours to try, but most of them contained chamomile, and of that I am not a fan. I plan to keep my cupboard stocked with Evergreen and 40 Below. I did like the other two flavours as well, but these were my favourites.

Below, I’ll post a video of the tea unboxing, if you want to see it.

Lobster Shorts happy mail, The Great Outdoors

Wildwood and Surprises In The Mail October 12/2020

It was such a beautiful weekend! The sun was shinning and the weather was beautiful. I went hiking through the woods at Wildwood Conservation Area. It’s such a pretty walk there. The trail does a loop to make it 24km long. I only went 10km this time. I love walking here.

There’s lots of interesting things to see and the trails are easy to walk on.

To make the weekend even more wonderful, this unexpected package was waiting for me in my mail box. It was from my friend in England. She sent me this adorable hot water bottle.

How perfect for the weather! I’m always cold, this is going to so helpful. I have the sweetest friends ❤

Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, happy mail, The Great Outdoors

Mail, Fish, and the Blues

This week has been filled with beautiful cool weather and sunshine. And I… have not felt like going outside. It must be the times we’re living in, as I seem to have the blues, and lack of drive. I always love this time of year, and an energy boost always came with the cooler weather, but not this year. I have not felt like going outside at all, lately. I just want to sit in my chair and watch YouTube. I’m really not sure how to pull myself out of this funk. I know being outside and some exercise will lift my mood, but I can’t seem to make myself do it.

These cutting dies and stamps came in the mail this week, along with a letter from a lovely friend. It will be time for Halloween things soon, this came at a perfect time.

I made it out to visit family this weekend and they took me to see the salmon run (I’ll post a quick video at the end). I’ve never seen the salmon run before. It was really enthralling to see tons of huge fish, swimming up the stream, but also sad because they were there to spawn and die. Some of them looked so healthy and vibrant, that I hoped they made it through to live for years; a lot of the others looked like zombie fish.

Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, happy mail

Paper Pumpkin September 2020

This month’s Paper Pumpkin was both Fall and Halloween themed. The box costs around $35.00 Canadian, including shipping.

This months ink was a really pretty orange/brown colour. The ink covered the stamp really well, and stamped great. The only Fall/Thanksgiving sentiment was Give Thanks, the rest were Halloweeny.

I was disappointed this month’s box was for candy boxes. Not that I don’t think they aren’t cute, it’s that I don’t have enough people to give these to. I think my friends and family would find it strange if I handed them a candy box and I only have two grandchildren. If Halloween happens this year, these would likely just get trashed in the kids’ candy sacks. As cute as these are, I don’t have enough recipients for them.

They give you a lot of options to decorate the boxes with.

The boxes were double sided so you had a choice of these colours. I went with the decorations pictured on the box. I’ll fill these two boxes with candy and give them to my grand kids. I posted a video below of me opening the kit and putting these two boxes together.

Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, happy mail

A week Of Mail – Sept 14/2020

I managed to save all my mail and Amazon packages for an entire week, to open in one big opening adventure. I get so excited getting mail, that I usually have it open before I get to my front door. There was a lot of craft supplies and pens.

I love watching YouTube videos of people opening their mail. This time I put myself on YouTube opening my own mail. It was a little awkward, but I enjoyed doing it. I’ll post the video below.

This pen set came.

It looked really cool, but I managed to break the tip within the first hour of using it.

I can’t fault the pen for this, I was tapping it on the bottom of the water jar, and I knew I could break it.

The bottles were super messy.

I got ink all over both hands. I STILL have ink stained hands, several hours later. I managed to try every ink before I broke the pen. I also sampled the ink with a dip quill to compare it with the glass pen.

I liked the quill better. In defense of the glass pen, I was probably using it wrong and didn’t have a chance to get the learning curve down. I think I had too much ink on it and most of the smearing in the photo below, is due to me being a left handed side writer. I found the ink bled a lot with the glass pen and not so much with the extra fine nib on the quill. I do believe these inks aren’t the greatest quality, but they did have their charm.

The shimmer in the blue ink was incredible. The others have some shimmer to them as well, but it’s not showing up in the photo. The bottle design could should be different. The ink pooled inside the lids. If you’re going to get a glass pen be very careful with it. Apparently, glass is breakable 😀

Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, happy mail, weight loss

Mail and Crafting Sept 9/2020

Two packages came in the mail today.

The smaller package contained these cutting dies. They were much smaller than I had expected.

The bigger package had these HUGE cutting dies.

They were bigger than my hand! I wasn’t expecting them to be this big. I’ll be able to do a lot of different things with them.

I didn’t use the new dies today, instead I used these sweater dies, to make a card.

The card is a little plain. I should have staggered the words more unevenly and used a less bright ink colour.

For the second card, I used a baking themed stamp and die set. I really love this set, but I don’t love the card I made. I’m not sure how to use this set in a better way. The set is perfect for gifting baked good.