(Serves 2, 450 calories per serving)

Ingredients

• 4 hard boiled eggs (cooled)
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise (+1tbsp for extra creaminess, I used Hellman's Light Mayonnaise)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons mustard of choice
• 1 green onion thinly sliced
• 1 rib celery finely diced
• salt and pepper to taste
• 4 slices of bread, toasted (I used Dimpflmeier Prebiotic Multigrain Bread)

Instructions

Cut the hard boiled eggs in half. Chop and set aside the egg whites. In a medium bowl, mash the yolk, mayonnaise, mustard, salt & pepper until smooth and creamy. Add the egg whites and the remaining ingredients and stir well. Serve on toasted bread.

How to make hard boiled eggs

Put eggs in a pot, fill with cold water until water covers eggs. Bring to a boil then remove from heat. Cover and let sit for 12-13 minutes. Rinse with cold water until eggs are completely cooled.

I say this all the time but you're the best kid any parent could ask for. Keep being who you are, you will go far in life. I love you more than 🌻 sunflowers love the 🌞 sun.

Super simple:

• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• dash of Italian seasoning¹ (to taste)

Mix well in a bowl. Serve immediately or refrigerate overnight for full flavour.

¹Next time I will try adding a bit of dried dill instead of the Italian seasoning.

Canal is opening today. John and I are heading out to get some pancakes.

Although I love my Pixel Watch and Fitbit, I am momentarily back to a traditional mechanical watch. I bought a Hamilton Khaki Aviation Pilot Pioneer Mechanical Chrono (quite a mouthful) on Jomashop.com for an incredible deal and I've been wearing it nonstop. I love winding it, breathing life into it every day. Mine is accurate to +4s/day consistently (some I've read are -+2s/day). It has a silicon balance spring which is something I swore would be a prerequisite for every "real" watch I buy since I owned a Tissot Ballade.

I cooked up my take on this recipe for dinner tonight and it was a roaring success. John suggested adding bacon so I fried up some of my dad's smoked bacon--diced to small bits--and added it towards the end. (We've been adding a bit of meat back into our diet here and there.)

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp butter or oil of choice
• 1 medium red onion, diced
• 1 cup carrots, diced
• 1/2 cup asparagus, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 4 cups chicken broth (or vegetable broth)
• 1 cup water
• 3 medium tomatoes, diced
• 3/4 cup orzo pasta
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 1/2 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp Italian seasoning
• 2 cups fresh spinach
• 1/3 cup black beans, canned
• 2-3 slices smoked bacon, diced (optional)

Instructions

1. Heat butter or oil in a pot over medium heat
2. Add onion and garlic (optionally smoked bacon can be added here), sauté until tender (~4 minutes)
3. Add carrots, asparagus and sauté (~4 minutes)
4. Add stock, water, orzo, tomatoes, thyme, basil and Italian seasoning and stir to combine. Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally.
5. Reduce to medium-low heat and simmer (8-10 minutes)
6. Stir in spinach and black beans at the last minute
7. If you didn't add smoked bacon in step 2 but fried some up separately like I did, this is when to add it.
8. Season with salt and pepper to taste

Serves 3-4 people.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this space in 2024. I've been neglecting it for months. I've also been neglecting photography, sketching, journaling, reading, working out... It's almost like I should make a resolution to correct all of that. "I'll do it in the afternoon!"

Was planning to write a review about my new Pixel watch but I can't be bothered to now. I'll just say I never figured myself being into smartwatches or fitness trackers before this year. That all changed when I got the Fitbit Sense 2.

Then later in the year I had the chance to try the Pixel Watch 1 before the Watch 2 was released. It was missing some features from the Fitbit I was used to and the battery on it barely lasted a day--whereas the Fitbit Sense 2 lasts a week!--but it still integrated so well with my phone that I started to like it a lot.

I said to myself I would only consider the switch from the Fitbit Sense 2 if the Pixel Watch 2 addressed those issues. Well, it did, so I did.

Nikki inherited the Sense 2 and I'm super happy she is able to use it. I hope she loves it as much as I did.

In conclusion, I like these devices a lot.

Last week I received a letter from CBP indicating I no longer need to chase after a waiver, I am free to cross over to the US whenever I would like.

(I'm downplaying the [20 year] gap in my life and the journey to get here and how big and important of a deal this is to me personally. It's been life-altering.)

To test this newfound access, Pircsi and I decided on a quick trip to Target, then to Olive Garden for dinner. Great success! The border was no hassle. We got through in less than a minute. I took a moment to take it all in, and it all seemed very surreal. It still does this morning.

Oh, in less important but just as exciting news, I pre-ordered a Pixel Watch 2 and it arrived yesterday. I'll do a separate post on that in a bit.

Everything is coming up Milhouse.

Except for dropping my phone in the Target parking lot last night and shattering the screen.

Junior Brown. The best brown dog to ever step foot in Lake Erie.

He was made for this.

Another beautiful morning on the island.

Nikki's favourite season. 🍄

This was the third encore for the Civic Day fireworks. Port Colborne knows how to put on a good show. Canal Days was a blast this year, we enjoyed it a lot and made lots of new memories.

Found this song today and I'm loving it.
https://on.soundcloud.com/tX8pk

And John popping a wheelie.

Android Auto stopped working in Nikki's 2018 Honda Civic tonight out of nowhere. For anyone who has this issue, for us a reset on her audio system was the fix. Going to Settings, System and doing a Factory Reset. After that, when we plugged a USB cable into the Android Auto-compatible port and connected her phone it successfully started setting it up again.

It actually didn't entirely set it up properly until we also manually paired HandsFreeLink, by disconnecting the cable first, then pairing it through the car's Bluetooth menu.

I should've learned by now to shut my mouth and not say things I can't commit to.

In my defense, I really was set on not using Instagram again, as well as never owning a smartwatch. But a few months of isolation from the world -- Instagram being the last thread tying me to the masses -- I started to feel like this guy. I mainly missed the chat and the passing of nonsense posts back and forth to friends and family.

So I got a shiny new Instagram account -- I'm even on Threads and Messenger -- This new account is not tied to my old one in any way. I had to get a bit clever to pull that one off because no matter what they have you believe when you delete your account, Meta doesn't forget about you or any of your details. I also did my best to restrict the new account, denying but a drop of permissions, but I am sure they still collect it all. I did keep the account public because so is this website I suppose. I will not be posting as frivolously as I did on the old account though.

Secondly, and this sort of came out of nowhere -- I got a Fitbit. What happened was a few weeks ago I found the old Fitbit Versa that used to belong to my dad (we inherit their old technologies) and charged it up. I gave it a trial run for a couple of days and really liked the heart and sleep monitoring features.

So much so that I ended up buying the Fitbit Sense 2. I've been wearing it for about 2.5 weeks now, and it's been a great tool and a very useful addition to my aging existence. It's also curbed my need to want to buy -- or even browse -- any other "real" watches. I guess that's an added bonus.

So yeah, two of three things I said I'd never use [again] in my life... What's next? Chat GPT?

Not. Bloody. Likely. That one I can say with 1000% confidence. Everyone around me keeps telling me stories of how it has saved them time or helped write things for them... I find it bit disturbing to be honest. We no longer have to think or be challenged? No thanks.