Virtual Banking or How I Got Free Groceries

I haven't set foot in a bank for several years. I do all my banking on the computer. My bank is a virtual bank. There is no building, lineups or tellers to chat with. There are no monthly fees, no transaction fees (unless I use another bank's ATMs), cheques are free and the interest rates on the savings accounts are very competitive. My virtual bank has an agreement with a major Canadian bank to use their ATMs which are located all across Canada. A major grocery chain also has kiosks for my bank (and bank machines) near their entrances. It's very convenient and I love not having to pay monthly fees, etc. Another benefit is that I accumulate points for every debit card transaction and every MasterCard transaction. I can redeem the points for anything at the major grocery store chain.

This summer I decided we were going to 'eat free' as much as possible on my PCpoints. I had over $800 worth saved up at the beginning of the summer. We have a wonderful neighbourhood grocery store that has great meat and produce departments and they're even open on holidays. However, this summer, I've been doing major shopping trips at Loblaws where I can use my PCpoints. Today, I got $41.23 in groceries for $1.23 (after the first $20, you spend PCpoints in $10 increments. Even the check out girl was impressed with how many I had left (almost $700 worth).

I finished the square inspired by Alice Starmore's Inishmaan sweater.














I only have 3 more squares to go. The next square will be based on a pattern from my new book, "A Fine Fleece".

Cautiously Optimistic

I am hoping the saga of the defective Amana refrigerator has come to a close. The repairer arrived on Thursday with a replacement component (a plug-in circuit board) and installed it. So far, so good. I won't be believe it's completely fixed until a week goes by without the freezer freezing up solid. I am urging people NOT to buy Amana/Whirlpool/Maytag/Kenmore refrigerators. Samsung, LG and GE are fine as they have nothing to do with Whirlpool et al.

I finished the 16th square on Thursday and cast on #17. I wanted to do one of the sweater patterns from the wonderful Alice Starmore "Fishermen's Sweaters" book. It is the Inishmaan pattern. I knit about 5" and didn't like the look of it. I had jammed all the patterns together and it really needed a couple of stitches of reverse stockinette between each stitch pattern.

Last night I ripped it all out and redesigned it using 5 of the stitch patterns with the stocking stitch separating them and it looks much better. Also, since I cast on during the Olympics, it now qualifies as an Olympic knitting item.

Butterfly Epsilon flew away on Thursday or Friday so now Zeta has pupated and we expect Eta to follow suit soon. Theta is still chowing down on milkweed.

We have had a busy and enjoyable weekend. Friday night we went for dinner with several of Skip's golfing buddies and then went to see Mamma Mia! I enjoyed it as much the second time - hey, I love singing and dancing. Yesterday we went to Lorna's for lunch and to visit her, John who is up from Florida and Megan who is home from Ecuador. Today we headed to Taste of the Danforth to meet Skip's cousin, Rosanne and her husband, Chris. It has become an annual tradition for us. There were many things I would have loved to have had but I restrained myself by having one spanakopita (spinach and cheese pie), one chicken souvlaki skewer and a fruit drink. We also went to one of our favourite cheese stores on the Danforth and bought some Lappi, a mild Finnish cheese, and some lower fat Jarlsberg.

In between all of these activities we've been watching the Olympics in French and English on CBC and also on NBC. Whenever there's a commercial we just flip to another one of the stations. If I stay up late enough, I can see a lot of live coverage of morning events.

Photo Update

I took lots of photos yesterday but am just getting them off my camera now. We had Delta hatch yesterday. Its chrysalis was very small but when she emerged (yes, another girl) she was big once her wings had unfurled.




















She stayed on the stick which protruded from the jar for a couple of hours. She flew over to the neighbour's pool and landed on the edge - slipped over and I'm hoping she didn't drown. I was lucky to get this one picture of her open wings.
















Once the butterflies exit the chrysalis, I have noticed orange-tinged droplets beneath them. I'm guessing that it's something that rolls off the orange patches on the wings but I'm not exactly sure what it actually is.
















And in the 'nursery' - a medium sized mayonnaise jar - the babies are growing. Here are Zeta, Eta and Theta. Who knew learning the Greek alphabet as a sorority pledge would come in so handy? You can see the difference in sizes.




















They have grown half as much again since I took this photo yesterday. I think Zeta is getting ready to pupate. Before they pupate, they shed their exoskeleton for the last time as larvae.

The black thing is Epsilon's shriveled up exoskeleton. We expect Epsilon to emerge today or tomorrow.







I think all this excitement was too much for Ollie.
















Finally, Nicole, my personal trainer, weighed me today. We were both pleased with the 4.4 lb. weight loss. I have about 16 to go to reach my first goal which is my Weight Watcher's target weight.

Stitch 'n Pitch

Tonight was the Jays' Stitch 'n Pitch game versus the Oakland A's. The A's lead until the 9th inning and lost 4 to 3. Three sections of the 200s were filled with knitters. Amy Singer threw the first pitch. I wondered why Stephanie wasn't there with her family and remembered that she was on vacation. I finished the short row heel of the 2nd black ribbed sock and am now half done the foot. I'll be glad to get that sock done and move on to some other sock patern.

The third butterfly, Delta, hatched this morning. She sat on the twig in the jar for a couple of hours and when I was trying to get a good photo she flew over to the neighbour's yard to the edge of their above-ground pool. I saw her go over the edge and was worried she might have ended up in the water but couldn't see from my yard so I just had to 'let it go'. The next chrysalis, Epsilon, will probably hatch tomorrow. The three other caterpillars are growing quickly and Zeta could pupate in the next day or two. There were some eggs on the leaves they were eating but I haven't looked close enough to see if they're going to hatch.

The saga of the defective refrigerator continued today. To recap... it was delivered on July 15 an one week later the refrigerator ceased to cool to 40F. The first repairer I called couldn't get to my place for several days. The 2nd guy I called arrived in 1/2 hour and immediately diagnosed the problem. He told me a stop-gap measure to limp the fridge along until he could repair it. This involves putting my hair blower in the freezer on low and melting the ice that builds up because it is not defrosting properly. A few days later I called him to see if the replacement part had come in and he said it had not and that he would call me when it did. It is now almost 2 weeks and the part is still not in.

I called Home Depot and they wanted to send a technician out. I explained that a technician had already been to my home and the part was backordered. To make a long story short. I am now demanding that they replace this defective refrigerator with a new one. I have been passed from one person to another at Home Depot and I'm fed up. I paid for a fridge that should work and I want a fridge that works - not a defective fridge that doesn't work. As Skip says, "it's a big toaster". If a brand new toaster goes on the fritz after a week (as did my fridge) it would get returned for a replacement. That's all I want, a replacement for this fridge. The Home Depot people are 'seeing what they can do'. I will be on the phone with them again tomorrow morning at 9am. Stay tuned.

Trailing Leaves

I'm quite pleased with the latest square which I designed. The trailing leaves up the middle were surprisingly easy to execute. On the bottom left I went the wrong way with the second leaf so I just copied the 'design feature' on the top right.


















Another butterfly emerged from a chrysalis today. I call it Gamma. I'm not sure if it's a male or female yet. It takes a few hours before it's really ready to fly. We have two more viable chrysalises and another caterpillar that has hatched. We're now equal to last year's yield with Gamma's appearance.

Today is a statutory holiday which is generally called the 'Civic Holiday'. This was a made-up holiday a few years back so workers could have a long weekend on the first Monday of August. In Toronto, it is called Simcoe Day so it could be tied to the founding of Toronto and is called other things in other jurisdictions. However the province of Ontario has not officially recognized it as a holiday so provincial workers do not necessarily have the day off (liquor stores, beer stores) but federal employees do.

As a retiree, long weekends don't really have much of an impact on my life or even weekends for that matter. There are fewer people shopping on long weekends and lots more people shopping on regular weekends with the accompanying increase in traffic - which is a real consideration here in the Greater Toronto Area.

We are taking it easy today and just puttering around the house. Tomorrow evening we're attending Stitch 'n Pitch at the Rogers Centre. The Toronto Star reports there will be about 1,000 stitchers at the park tomorrow including 11 of us Kniterarians. We attended last year and found the experience to be great fun. I think I'll take the black ribbed cashmere/merino socks I've been trying to finish all summer.

On the weight loss front, my morning weigh-in showed me numbers I haven't seen in quite a while. I may have lost between 4 - 6 lb.! I'll be officially weighed on Wednesday so we'll see if my estimations are correct. I still miss my Stacy's Cinnamon Sugar Pita Chips (sniff!). They're actually quite a healthy choice, snack-wise, but they are to be avoided until I've reached my weight-loss goal which is about 16 lb. from my weigh-in this morning.

Geek Alert!

I bought a new laptop today. It looks pretty normal, doesn't it?




























It has 1GB cache memory and a 16GB SSD hard drive. It also has a built-in webcam.

Here it is on top of my other laptop.

























It's teeny weeny! Skip said that I should tell people I washed my laptop and it felted.

It's an ASUS Eee PC 900 and I got it here in Markham. I had never heard about the Eee PC until my sister bought one yesterday. Ever the competitive one, I had to have one, too. It has an 8.9" screen, measures 8.86" x 6.69" x 1.33" and weighs 2.18lb - a little less than a kilogram.

The real motivator was the weight limitations on our upcoming SunWing flight to Halifax. They only allow 5kg (11 lb.) for hand luggage (other than a purse) and 20kg for checked luggage. My other laptop weighs 3kg and my back pack weighs 3kg (it has wheels) so I was going to have to get a huge purse to put the laptop in. Now, I can slip this baby into my purse. Woo hoo! AND it connects wirelessly to the Internet. I can send and receive e-mail, update my blog, upload photos, etc., etc. Practically anything my laptop can do the Eee PC can do.

On the knitting front, I have started the 16th square. It has traveling leaves up the centre and leafy columns on each side. On my first attempt, I neglected to notice the centre panel had row 1 start on the wrong side. After a few rows I figured this out and frogged it back to the garter stitch and began again. This time, I think I've got it. I'll post a photo tomorrow.

Another Butterfly

Last year Skip and I hatched two monarch butterflies. Following them from the egg stage when I brought them in on milkweed leaves, to larval stage watching them increase in size 2000 times. Then they pupated and made beautiful green chrysalises. After two weeks they hatched. They were both girls. I named the first one Chewy and the 2nd one Chewy II.

Our first hatchling, Alpha, emerged from her chrysalis today. I know she's a 'she' because females don't have black dots on their wings and do have thick black lines between the orange sections. I found her hanging upside down in the bug container so I took her outside. She just wanted to stay put or on my finger.
















I finally got her onto a milkweed leaf and took some photos. She stayed there for about 3 hours and finally flew away.
















Beta will not be hatching. The chrysalis did not attach properly to the lid of the container and ended up on the bottom. Greenish goo spread out from there and the chrysalis turned a dark colour. However we have three viable chrysalises still literally 'hanging in there' and they should hatch next week sometime.

I also finished the 15th square of the Aran afghan designed by Ada Fenick.
















It was an easy knit on 5mm needles. I added two reverse stocking stitches between the garter stitches and the celtic braid on each side to give it a bit more width. Only 5 squares to go!

When I arrived for my workout today, I realized I had cleverly left one of my shoes at home - duh!!!! So I did everything in sock feet much to the horror of my trainer. I even did 20 min. on the elliptical trainer and another 15 min. on the treadmill in sock feet. I don't have a training session on Monday because of the holiday so the next one will be Wednesday the 6th. Nicole wants to weigh me and see what she needs to 'tweak' for maximum fat/weight loss. The training diet isn't really different from how I used to eat except I'm consuming more fibre and am not eating sugary snacks in the evening although I really miss my Tracy's sugar and cinnamon pita chips (sniff). Portion control has been important and I've been measuring all the meats and cheeses. I still have to remember to have my snacks which consist of an apple, yogurt, fudgesicle or some other nutritious 80 - 100 cal item. If I can get my butt out of bed early on Sunday morning, I'll go and do the Body Pump class at the gym.