In memory of my sister Callie

Callie Pascal, 4th of July 2008

This afternoon a big piece of my heart was ripped out straight from my chest, when I received a phone call from a dear friend that informed me of my best friend Callie's tragic passing on Tuesday morning.

Callie and I have been "Sisters" for a good 15+ years, and we were in almost daily contact by email or by phone for all these years. I looked up to her, I cherished her, I genuinely loved her with all my heart. We were there for each other, thru thick and thin. Words cannot begin to describe what Callie meant to me, and every email and every phone call always ended with a heartfelt "I love you Sis".

She emailed me on Monday morning, less than 24 hours before her tragic accident, and this would be the very last email I would ever receive from her.

Her last words to me, in it, were:

"...Hugs and kisses with much love,
Cal"

I would like to dedicate this poem from one of my favorite authors to my Sister Callie:

Farewell (Adieu)

Farewell to thee! but not farewell

To all my fondest thoughts of thee:

Within my heart they still shall dwell;

And they shall cheer and comfort me.

O, beautiful, and full of grace!

If thou hadst never met mine eye,

I had not dreamed a living face

Could fancied charms so far outvie.

If I may ne'er behold again

That form and face so dear to me,

Nor hear thy voice, still would I fain

Preserve, for aye, their memory.

That voice, the magic of whose tone

Can wake an echo in my breast,

Creating feelings that, alone,

Can make my tranced spirit blest.

That laughing eye, whose sunny beam

My memory would not cherish less;

-And oh, that smile! whose joyous gleam

Nor mortal language can express.

Adieu, but let me cherish, still,

The hope with which I cannot part.

Contempt may wound, and coldness chill,

But still it lingers in my heart.

And who can tell but Heaven, at last,

May answer all my thousand prayers,

And bid the future pay the past

With joy for anguish, smiles for tears?

- Anne Bronte

Adieu, "Sis"... je ne t'oublierai jamais...

Farewell, "Sis"... I will never forget you.

May you delight in your journey with the Angels...

"I love you Sis!"

Rest In Peace

Nath xoxo

Do you get recurring headaches?

We're getting into the 'busy' time of the year when most of us are going nuts preparing for the Holiday Season.

A few of my friends were complaining about having recurring headaches, and I've suffered as well for years and years, so I know the pain. But in the hussle and bussle of life these days, we tend to forget some basic things, and although the following isn't the answer for everybody, I know that these things helped me get rid of severe recurring headaches over the years, and as I passed on the information to my friends, I figured I should also post about it here on my blog, and hopefully this can help others on the web too:

1) For those that suffer from recurring headaches, I just want to remind everybody that certain foods will trigger/retrigger headaches and migraines.Things like Cheese, coffee, chocolate...Here's a pretty comprenhensive list from WebMD

If you have a tendency to get headaches and migraines, make sure to read that list and print it to help you find the culprit(s) in your diet.

2) Also, stress headaches, we're all overworked, and we tighten up our neck and shoulders and that shoots up and will also cause tension headaches.

One great way to help get rid of this is to stand in the shower and put the shower on nice and hot and target the neck, then slowly start doing a few exercises:

• Head side to side (ear to shoulders) slowly and stretch out gently.
• Put your chin down towards your chest, then slowly turn your ear to your shoulder (alternating shoulders and keeping the chin down towards the chest)
• Keep your head up high, looking straight ahead, and then turn your head to look over your shoulder as far as possible (be gentle).

Do this for about 10 repetitions per 'side' for each exercise under nice hot water, and that will help also.

3) Another thing is your jaw. When we are stressed, we tend to clench our jaw during our sleep especially, and also during the day. We don't notice it, but we do this and the jaw has the most powerful muscles in the body. It is hard to relax the jaw muscles, and they can cause some nasty headaches.

One easy way to relax the mucles of the jaw is to take your thumb, put it inside your cheek in your mouth, and take your index finger and put it on the outside of your cheek and gently massage with your two fingers against eachother with your cheek in between. Go slowly, it will be soar at first. Massage all the areas that are soar gently to get them to relax.

I hope the above information will help everyone relax a little and enjoy headache-free holidays this season!

I'm proud of myself :-)

I did it! I'm so proud of myself - I figured I should share my accomplishment here with you.

Now, this might not look like much, but this gorgeous 'Extreme' blue flash Labradorite ring is the very first time that I attempt doing a 'tear drop' bezel setting ever, and I'm very pleased with how it turned out - It's trickier than setting a round or oval stone because of the pointy part at the top.

I'm self-taught, and I have a lot of books on silversmithing, but oddly enough, nobody really teaches you how to do one of these settings (gee, I wonder why! LOL) . Anyway, I attempted it on my own - I took my time.. and it came out PERFECT. I'm happy :-)

This ring has already sold :)

Canadian Rockies Giveaway!

My Sterling Silver "Little Rocks"

Good Sunday everybody!

This past week I received a really sweet Email from a woman named Tara. She was the lucky winner of a Little Black Box, and in it, she found a pair of my Little Rocks Sterling Silver Earrings and she was kind enough to send me a note to let me know how much she enjoyed wearing them.

We exchanged a few emails and, you know, you gotta love the magic of the Internet - I would have most likely never met Tara if it wasn't from this connection that we made via The LBB, and she is such a wonderful warm sweet person, I decided to offer a FREE pair of my Little Rocks earrings (pictured above) to her blog readers.

It's easy, you can participate and read the details by clicking here

I hope you will all enjoy the contest!

The draw for the lucky winner will take place on Saturday, November 1st, so make sure to visit her blog before then - Good luck!!!

Ground beef with a bit of a kick!

My dad is a very picky eater and basically, if the meat in the dish isn't ground beef or pork saussages, bacon or hot-dogs, he won't touch his dinner plate. That's pretty narrow in terms of protein selection and not the best choices either (for some of those items).

My husband, my mom and I pretty much eat anything (except fish... eeeek) but other than that, we're always happy to try on new recipes. But with dad being such a picky eater, it's a challenge to find recipes that he will actually try instead of eating one bite, grimacing, and then turning to stuffing himself with white bread & crackers with margarine (he's diabetic, not good at all! And yes, we have excellent whole grain bread at home, but this is for another story).

Anyway, last night I made a new recipe inspired by one of my cookbooks but I modified it a fair bit to suit our taste and what we already had in the fridge in terms of ingredients.

Everybody enjoyed it, including my dad! So I figured I would share what I made.

The pictures show one portion of the kicked-up stuffed lean ground beef patty (2nd picture shows the inside), along with vegetables (onions, green peppers, mushrooms) and 1/2 cup of rice. That's my plate :)

Nathalie's Kicked-Up A Notch Ground Beef Patties - Serves 4

1 1/2 lb of Lean Ground Beef (or other ground meats, your choice)
3/4 cup of Hot Jalapeno Cheese, cut in very small cubes (or use your favorite strong tasting cheese like sharp Cheddar, crumbled Blue Cheese, etc)
1 tbsp of dry Parsley (or use 1/4 cup of finely chopped fresh parsley)
2 tsp of Dijon Mustard
1 tsp of Worcestershire sauce
3-4 Garlic cloves, minced (we love garlic, put in less or omit if you're not a fan)
1/4 tsp Salt
2 tsp Olive Oil
1 large onion, cut in large chunks
1 bell pepper, cut in large chunks
8 large mushrooms, quartered

Optional: A brown gravy, or sauce of your choice to top off the meat and vegetables. (that's the option for my dad and husband, they're 'gravy' kinda guys)

*****************************

First, shape the beef (or other ground meat) into 4 patties. You can either make them flat and thin, or do what I do, I make kind of a 'cup' shape with them, so that I can stuff them and fold over the sides to lock in the stuffing.

Combine the cheese, the garlic, the mustard, the Worcestershire sauce, the parsley and the salt together in a small bowl. This mixture gives a lot of nice 'kick' to the patties.

Divide the cheese mixture between the four meat patties and seal the meat so that the cheese stuffing doesn't leak out.

Heat half of the oil in a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Add in the onions, peppers, mushrooms (and other vegetables of your choice to stir-fry). Cook and stir until the veggies are cooked to your taste, sprinkle a bit of salt or Mrs. Dash seasonings, and set the veggies aside, keep warm.

Add in the rest of the oil in the same skillet, heat it up and then cook the stuffed patties on medium-high heat for 5 minutes. Add a touch of salt & pepper (to taste). Flip the patties over, top with the already cooked vegetables, and finish cooking the patties for 4 minutes, or until the patties are no longer pink in the center (160 degrees F).

Serve with a garden salad, or with half a cup of cooked rice or other side dish of your choice.

Enjoy!

Something different!

I've got one super nasty head cold right now, so I'm sort of laying low, but I wanted to share a new pair of earrings I recently did (I just managed to take pictures of them yesterday). Meet "Urban Life" 100% handcrafted by myself from scratch using solid copper and sterling silver. I have oxidized them to give them a rustic look.

Available for purchase on my website.

A new sweater for my furbaby

Diesel proudly showing off his new handmade sweater - made by his momma :)

Happy smilling puppy face - He kept coming over to check the progress on his sweater while I was making it. He couldn't wait to slip it on, even if the weather was too hot for him to wear it.

Diesel (3 yrs old, blue and blonde Yorkie)

and his half sister Trixie (4 yrs old, black and tan Yorkie)

Diesel in his beloved grass :)

Diesel and Trixie, always looking for something. They don't stand in place for pictures much.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends and customers :)

This Thanksgiving weekend, I've been busy knitting a new very thick sweater for my furbaby-boy Diesel. He had outgrown his sweaters and snow parka I had bought for him last year... while Trixie remains at the same weight, he sort of developped some more this past year. He's not fat but he's definitely a big framed Yorkie boy.

I gave them a baby Yorkie cut this weekend. They were long due for a very short cut, and so I went all the way and they were quite happy and sat very still (to my surprise). Their hair grows back quickly and Diesel's is so thick he gets too hot and loves the short 'sporty' look.

While Trixie has a truckload of sweaters and coats that fit her at the moment, he was in need of a thick warm sweater before the cold started up for good here, so I made it for him this weekend. Trixie will be getting a similar one but in shades of tropical hot pink, mangoe and yellow :)

I'm on StyleList!

This morning, Kim from TheLittleBlackBoxes.com contacted me to let me know that her Little Black Box (media box) had made it to the StyleList, and that my Little Rocks Sterling Silver Studs had received a great review by them!

Here's what they had to say about my Little Rocks Sterling Silver earrings:

We were stunned by the sheer amount of cool jewelry found in The Little Black Box. The first thing we found was the perfect pair of simple sterling silver stud earrings, handmade by Canadian Rockies Art (they were kind enough to include a 25% off coupon for a future purchase - actually, a majority of the products also came with coupons good for future purchases from the participating designers).

You can read the entire article here.

I don't know if you are familiar with the StyleList website, but they really have their finger on the pulse of fashion, so reading this great review about my Little Rocks Sterling Silver Studs was really exciting for me this morning!

If you would like your own pair of Little Rocks, visit the Earrings section on my website and don't forget that on my website I offer a special FLAT shipping rate of US$2.95 per order to the US and Canada (no matter how many items you order, you will never pay more than US$2.95 for shipping in total). I also ship Internationally at slightly higher flat rates.

I add several new items every week in various categories, so check out my site often!