My Thoughts on Gowalla

The amazing Gowallaby!

So it appears that Gowalla’s days may be numbered if their acquisition by Facebook means what I think it means.

This is definitely the most I’ve ever been involved with a startup that has undergone such a transformation since its beginning. I got into Gowalla because of my friend Mat, who was visiting one night in April 2009 and mentioned about a certain new iPhone app.

A the time, Foursquare was still completely unknown to me and much of the world as both services had only launched about a month prior at SXSW.

After installing it and taking my first trip around town, I soon discovered that I was one of very, VERY few people using the app yet. Strangely, though, in my smallish town, one lone spot already existed. That spot was Culbert’s Bakery by James W who had visited town not too long before.

Traveling to places like London, ON Kitchener, ON and Stratford, ON was pretty much virgin territory save for a few spots here and there. There were so few spots in fact, that the company sent me free t-shirt just for creating 10 spots. They soon made me part their Street Team which meant I could edit any spot in the world if the name, pin placement or description was a bit off. I used this mainly to keep my hometown of Goderich neat and tidy as spots would sometimes show up that needed some adjustment.

The first version of the app had its share of quirks and bugs. First, when checking in, your required distance from the pin was extremely unforgiving. I remember when I made the spot at Fincher’s the GPS was a bit off (another issue it had) and the ended up 50 feet or so away from where I had intended it. I had to carefully maneuver around until it accepted my placement. Another bug it had (which was great for those of us who loved items) was the ability to re-checkin to a spot over and over until your item pack had been filled. It only took a few minutes. They squashed that bug before too long.

One day my wife and I were in Stratford. I had created a few spots here previously and upon checking into my first spot while there I noticed someone else had checked in! This was a pretty big deal because there still weren’t a lot of people using the service, and even less so as you got away from the larger cities. As we made our way around Straford and I was checking into a few more places (admittedly a few checkins were for places I hadn’t been to – I was trying for sweet items!) I noticed this same person popping up as he had visited all of the spots I had created plus he had created lots of his own. I sent him a friend request.

That user’s name is Blake, and since then, he has become a great friend. We realized quickly that we also both shared a love of roller coasters and collaborated to ‘tidy up’ many amusement parks on Gowalla. Since Blake wasn’t a Street Team member (he later became one) he would often supply me with correct spot names, descriptions and pin placements. It was great team work that we both enjoyed doing and I’m sure many users benefited (without even realizing) from our clean up efforts. Blake and I still keep in close contact and have both recently begun using Path 2.0 (interesting stuff there).

The next person that comes to mind when I think of Gowalla is Ben D. Ben started Gowalla Tools (later rebranded to Wallabee) and was obviously very passionate about creating great products. I cannot even imagine how many times I referred to his map when searching for spots close by to clean up. I vividly remember a few ups and downs relating to Ben and Gowalla. The first big ‘up’ was when he announced he was working a travel edition of Gowalla that would save on data (great for traveling out of country) as well as a gorgeous-looking, data-intensive app. Exciting stuff! Then, I remember the day he made another big announcement. Unfortunately, the announcement turned out to be that he was putting his app development on an indefinite hiatus due to Gowalla’s frustrating API. Another big ‘up’ was when ‘White Guinea Pig‘ appeared on Twitter. Things were rolling again! I’m leaving out tremendous amounts of detail, but suffice it to say, Ben was a huge reason that I loved Gowalla as much as I did. He also did a HUGE amount of promotion for Gowalla through his work — and for no other reason than his love for the product, because the Company certainly didn’t reward his efforts in any way. Ben wrote a very thoughtful post on his blog reminiscing about his experiences. It’s a great read!

A few more notable people that I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know through Gowalla are Anil, Eric and Bobby. Anil takes god-like Instagram pics (he’s aneel on there, by the way) and Eric and Bobby are Disney aficionados in Florida and California respectively. I look forward to keeping up with everyone on other location based services and on Twitter. Thanks, guys!

It’s with much melancholy when I think of Gowalla now. For me, the service just felt soulless since that September 2011 day when v4 launched. The backlash from users to the change in direction was incredible, but more important than that, they simply started delivering a terrible experience. The iOS app was filled with bugs, crashes, and lagged badly. The website was turned into something frustrating and all but useless. I could tell things were in trouble for them when my activity feed reduced to just three people (+ a few Gowalla employees) updating with any kind of regularity.

I haven’t decided if or when I’ll delete my Gowalla account, but from this point forward, I’ll try to focus on the amazing 2+ years I had with the pre-v4 Gowalla. It was a hell of a ride.

Thanks to everyone who made it that way!

Happy 28th Birthday!

Happy 28th birthday to my awesome wife (of more than one year!), Mary!!

Love you, babe!

J.

Happy Birthday!!

Happy birthday to my awesome husband (of nearly 1 year!), Jeremy!!

Have an awesome day!!

Love ya lots,

Mare

SimplyTweet vs. Twitter for iPhone

Let me just start this post off saying if you don’t (a) Use Twitter (b) on an iPhone, you can probably skip this entry as it won’t be terribly interesting or useful. If you do, read on!

I use SimplyTweet as my iPhone app for accessing Twitter. I downloaded version 2.5 a while back while it was free for their one-year anniversary. Previous to that, I had been using Echofon (formerly Twitterfon.) On April 2nd, SimplyTweet received a major update to include many of the features that Twitter had added in the months past (new-style retweets and lists for example.) Since the new version was a complete overhaul and was rewritten from the ground up, it was not a free upgrade — and rightfully so. Since April 2nd, the app has seen two or three more updates fixing bugs and adding other features.

I’m always checking out the free versions of other iPhone Twitter apps, not because I want something different, but because I’m always curious to see if anyone can match SimplyTweet in terms of usability and features. So far, the only one that came close was Twittelator. I was never able to compare SimplyTweet to Tweetie, the preferred app among many, because there was no free version available — until now. Last month, Twitter acquired Atebits, the company behind Tweetie, for the purpose of creating an official Twitter app for the iPhone. It was released, for free, earlier this week. I grabbed it as soon as I could as it is, for the most part, identical to Tweetie. My findings of comparing SimplyTweet to Twitter for iPhone surprised me, as I was astounded by just how many features I missed from SimplyTweet. Check it out:

• Better Hashtag Support: SimplyTweet has a ‘#’ shortcut right on the composing screen, a big time saver (I’m all about fewer taps to complete tasks.) Both apps have a hashtag menu available to select recently used hashtags. However, TFI’s list is only searchable as far as I can tell. You cannot browse hashtags, therefore if you don’t know what’s there, it’s useless. You are able to browse through your hashtag list in SimplyTweet, which is essential.
• Loads Over 1,000 Tweets: This is HUGE and is something I haven’t seen any other app do. You can set SimplyTweet to load an insane amount of tweets upon loading. If you haven’t opened the app all day, it’ll load as many tweets as you’ve missed, up to 1,200 or so! Most other apps will load 200 or so and you have to manually tell it to load more. Most of the time, I have a difficult time telling what is read and what is unread. Not in SimplyTweet — it scrolls right to the first new tweet and I know I’m not missing any. TFI has this ‘tear’ that appears in the timeline to indicate older tweets that have not loaded. Why is this even necessary with a method as good as SimplyTweet’s?
• Home button: Again, this is one of those SimplyTweet touches that doesn’t exist in TFI. Generally, wherever you are in the app, whether it’s in tweet view, browsing a profile or the built-in browser looking at a link, you can tap this persistent HOME button to zip right back to your timeline. In TFI, you may have to tap back two or three times to get back to the timeline. Again, I’m all about saving taps.
• Better Access to Profiles in Timeline View: To access profiles in SimplyTweet, tap the avatar. In TFI, swipe across the tweet, then select the profile button. A single tap is better than a swipe and tap.
• Better Access to View Conversation in Timeline View: SimplyTweet has customizable swipe menu; TFI does not. One of the options you can choose to include in SimplyTweet’s swipe menu is a button to view conversations; that is, if someone has replied to someone else’s tweet, you can quickly see what that original tweet was. To do this in TFI, you must tap the tweet to bring up tweet view, then tap the ‘replied to…’ button. In this case a swipe and tap is better than two taps.
• Contacts — Browsing vs. Searching: This is another one of those ‘HUH?’ things with TFI. Both apps give access to your contacts when composing a tweet, in case you want to insert a username. Both apps allow you to start typing some characters to narrow down your search for the username you’re looking for, but SimplyTweet allows you to browse the entire list. This is huge! What if you don’t remember the characters to start typing with and just want to scan through the list? TFI doesn’t allow this and it boggles my mind!
• Counters for Unread Items: Okay, this is one the biggest strikes against TFI for me — SimplyTweet displays a counter badge in the task bar for unread tweets, mentions and direct messages. TFI only shows a little indicator showing there are unread items. Further, SimplyTweet’s counters decrease as you scroll the timelines. This is very cool.
• Lists Viewable by Username: Both apps give access to view lists, naturally. But only SimplyTweet allows you to view a list by username. This is handy for quickly seeing who is on a particular list and for deleting users from lists as well.
• ReTweet — Old vs. New: I gather that the switch from Tweetie to TFI eliminated the old-style retweet function and only gives the option to retweet using the new style. That’s fine some of the time, but sometimes I might want to add a comment in front. Not possible with TFI. SimplyTweet retains old-style retweet (in either ‘RT’ or ‘Via’ format) as well as new-style retweets.
• Push Notifications: SimplyTweet has the built-in ability to push notices for mentions and DMs to you. With TFI, you must rely on a separate app such as Boxcar to do the job.

Now, let me say there are a couple things I do appreciate in TFI:

• Smoother Timeline Scrolling: TFI’s timeline scrolling is smooth. Very, very smooth. Smoother than SimplyTweet. SimplyTweet is still no slouch, but TFI’s is just a bit nicer.
• Timeline UI: TFI’s timeline (as pictured above) looks a bit cleaner to my eyes. Geotag/picture indicators have a nice little spot without upsetting the flow of the tweet.
• Reply/Reply All: In TFI’s swipe menu, when Reply is selected, if there is more than one username in a tweet, it pops up with the option of replying to just the author of the tweet, or everyone mentioned. This is nice as it basically gives you two features using one button. SimplyTweet requires two buttons on the swipe menu for these features (and SimplyTweet’s three swipe menu options vs. TFI’s five are already at a premium.)
• Attachment Viewer: The attachment viewer while composing is nice for seeing what pictures have been attached. SimplyTweet has a similar feature that works pretty much the same, but the picture thumbnails are more difficult to see.

There are lots of minor features I didn’t touch on, but there it is! I love SimplyTweet! I have yet to find another app that does everything this one does.

My grandpa…

Today, March 21st, would have been my grandpa Fincher’s 90th birthday. He passed away in May of 1998 at the age of 78. I think lots of him and my grandma even to this day. I spent A LOT of time with them as kids. Many of my very early memories involve them. I learned so much from them and have many wonderful memories. Both of them were amazing people. Let me tell you about my grandpa, also known as “pa”.

He was born in England. His name was Dennis. He was the oldest of three children. His younger brother, Eric, passed away in the 70s. His sister, Betty, is still alive and living in England. I last saw her when I was 11 but I continued to write her letters every year up until a few years ago. On a side note, I want to start doing that again with her.  During World War II, he was sent over here to Canada  to train in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. I remember him saying he arrived in Goderich by train in November and it was raining and muddy! He was stationed at Port Albert, not far from Goderich, where he learned to fix planes. Now, the story of him and my grandma deserves an entry all its own and I shall save that for another time. I will just say he met my grandma in Goderich and they were married in the fall of 1942. After this, my grandpa was sent back to England and was stationed in the south of England in Kent. My grandma went over as well, by convoy. I’ve always admired her for this (again, more in another entry!). My grandpa fixed planes during the war, such Tiger Moths. He never spoke much of the war but he did have a few stories he told us. Many were sad. He lost a lot of friends.

He remembered  trains of injured soldiers coming through the town where he was stationed. He also remembers all the bodies of the dead soldiers that were brought back. It was tough for him to talk about.  He remembered the siege at Normandy (D-Day) and the planes leaving the base he was stationed at. He said goodbye to his friends and they said “We’ll see you when this is over”. Many he never saw again. All of this was tough for him to talk about and I understand why now.

He had lots of happy stories as well, from his childhood growing up on the English countryside to all the times he spent with my grandma. One of the funniest stories he ever told was from when he was a kid. It involved a guy with a stutter who was trimming a hedge along the road side and a conversation that took place between said hedge trimmer and my great-grandfather (the subject matter was the road signs that had just been posted for a speed limit of 30 miles an hour). I won’t recite it here because it’s a story that needs to be vocalized (if you get what I mean). I’ve told it to Jeremy and he laughs. No one told it like my Pa though. I  can still hear his voice in my head telling me the story. I laugh every time I think of it!

He came back over to Canada in 1947. My grandma and dad had flown over first. My grandpa stayed in England to work to save up enough money to buy passage on a freighter. One of his first jobs in Canada was at Dominion Road Machinery, later Champion and finally, Volvo. The company has since closed up shop in Goderich. He was a painter. In 1956, he opened Fincher’s. The store is still open on the square in Goderich and is owned and operated by my uncle Tom.

I have many good memories with him. There was the time he brought apple wine when I was 8 or 9 and we had a drink together. I recently tried apple wine at Epcot Centre on our trip to Florida and the taste brought back the memory of when my grandpa and I tried the wine together. When he and my grandma looked after me, he’d let me stay up with them. One night, him and I were up quite late watching a Frank Sinatra concert together. To this day, Frank Sinatra is still one of my favourite singers. He taught me to fish. Pa and I spent a lot of time together in Florida and we would often get up early in the morning and go fishing together. We’d go back in the afternoon, often spending our time just sitting together. It wasn’t about catching the fish; for us, it was relaxing and a way we spent time together. I remember us going fishing a lot more in Florida after my grandma passed away. To this day, fishing remains a pastime that is extremely relaxing for me. Sometimes on a Friday night, he’d buy rainbow trout (my favourite type of fish), give me a call around 4:30 and invite me for dinner. No one else in my family liked trout except him and I. He taught me how to make traditional chips (a.k.a. french fries). After dinner, we’d go on a drive.

He taught me about woodworking when I was four. I remember wandering down to his workshop one day and he set up me with some pieces of wood to nail together. After that, him and I started building different things together. Often, my job was to sand the wood smooth or hammer the pieces together. I designed this wheel thingy and together we built it. I’ve got it somewhere still. When I was eight, we built a sandbox together for my brother. We made the design, bought the wood, nailed/glued, and painted it.

When I was 10, a year after my grandma passed away, Pa and I went to England for the summer. Just the two of us. It was an amazing trip and one I still think of often. We stayed with his sister (my great-aunt). We went to Blenheim Palace, drove around the English countryside, went to Stratford-Upon-Avon and ate traditional English fish & chips.

Pa loved Johnny Carson. He loved to go bird watching. One of his favourite songs was Tennessee Waltz by Patti Paige. He was a hard worker,  a smart man, had a knack for small business, loved wood working, fishing and birdwatching. He was a great story teller & teacher.  He was my pa. So, Pa, wherever you  may be right now, Happy Birthday. I miss you. Thank-you for everything you taught me, all the time we spent together and for being a wonderful, awesome person. I rarely said to you in person, but I love you and always will.

This summer, I’ll catch a trout for you & go birdwatching. I’ll do the things you & used to do together that I still love to do.

Namaste,

~Mary~

Kitties

Jeremy and I going up to the Huron County Branch of the OSPCA today to look at cats. I am very much looking forward to getting a couple of kitties. I really loved having Ollie & Zoe around and I still miss them. I’ve always had cats as pets and I certainly do miss having a couple around.

Originally, we were going to adopt a couple of kittens but we are now leaning towards adopting a couple of older cats. I really feel that the older cats don’t get as much of a chance when it comes to adoption. Many of the older cats in the shelter are already spayed or neutered. Ideally, we ‘d like to have one that is declawed. I know that some people see declawing as inhumane but I like my furniture. Ollie and Zoe were both declawed and it did not affect their lives in a negative way. Mine and my brother’s cats, Chance & Shadow, were both declawed, too. At one time, I wouldn’t have declawed but I’ve seen the destruction done by my mother’s cat at my parent’s place. Mind you, Missy is incredibly intelligent, gets bored easily and when she wants attention, uses her claws on furniture and carpets. Missy needs an entire blog entry all to herself since she’s the first “mute” cat I’ve met. While most cats communite with humans through meowing, Missy does not. She wasn’t socialized properly so she never learned how. No, she communicates through staring, and if that doesn’t work, by scratching furniture or knocking stuff off tables, etc. But I digress…

So, yes, we will start the ball rolling on the cat adoption process today. I’ll probably post about how it goes. Both of us are still deciding on names as well. I’ll wait and see what the cat’s personality is like before I decide.

I’ll close the post with a picture of my cat, Chance. She passed away about three and a half years ago at the age of 13. We often referred to her as “Miss Thang” because she was so full of attitude and personality. She was a beautiful-coloured tortise shell cat that my dad rescued, along with her sister Shadow (Shadow, by the way, is still alive. She’s nearly 17 now),  from up at his office (where they were born). Chance was a big cat and you always knew when she was in the room because she would make her presence known. I still miss her quite a bit. I have many awesome memories of her though.

One of the last pictures taken of Chance. She has her white kitten with her, a toy she carried around with her all the time.

Namaste,

~Mary~

Lake Lizzie Nature Preserve

If I could pick one place to go back to (okay, besides Magic Kingdom, which is my absolute favourite place in the entire world!), it would be the Lake Lizzie Nature Preserve located in St. Cloud, Florida. It was about a 30 minute drive from the second resort we stayed at. The nature preserve covers about 950 acres and is part of the Great Florida Birding Trail.  As mentioned on Waymarking.com, the site is perfect for hiking, horseback riding and just watching nature in general (particularly birds!).

Before I go further, I should give some background…

I spent a lot of time with my grandparents when I was younger (my dad’s mother & father). I’ve mentioned before that I get my love of baking from my grandma. As my dad says, I could probably make her apple pie blind-folded.  I was very, very close with her. I was also quite close with my grandpa, too. When I was 10, we went to England together for an entire summer (it was the summer after my grandma had passed away), we would go on drives together on Friday night, go fishing when we were in Florida and in general, just hang out together. He loved bird watching. While I’ve never done much bird watching, I always enjoyed looking at the books he had. I never got a chance to go bird watching with him and it is something I wish I could have done. Flash forward to now. One of my very dear friends is an avid bird watcher. Her father, who just passed away a few months ago, was also an avid bird watcher. At his funeral, I learned about birding watching life lists, and the number of birds he saw was just amazing! I realized the passion my friend had for birdwatching and where she got it from. I really started to respect and admire this passion of her’s even more. It also reminded me that my grandfather had enjoyed bird watching. While I don’t know if he made a list of the birds he saw, I still know he loved birds.

Very cool bird poster at the Lake Lizzie Nature Preserve. Quite faded from the sun!

When I found out about the Lake Lizzie Preserve and that it was part of the Great Florida Birding Trail, I decided that would be my beginning to bird watching. I would take notes, pictures (as best I could with my camera; I don’t have a telephoto lens…yet), and in general, just pay more attention to the sounds of nature and be more aware of what surrounds me. I also feel that bird watching gives me another connection to my grandfather, much like baking gives me a strong connection to my grandma. Even though he is not hear anymore, I find comfort in doing something that he enjoyed. I also hope it is something my friend and I can do together when she visits. I feel like I can learn a lot from her. She’s already helped me identify a few birds we saw in Florida.

Onto the trail itself…

On to the main trail...

There are two main trails. One is three miles long and we did part of that one. While hiking a long this trail, we heard lots of different birds. I saw a woodpecker and a few other birds. The other smaller trail is called the Marsh Loop and it is one mile in length. While we didn’t see any birds, we certainly heard quite a few. There were so many different environments at this preserve: marsh, swamp, forest, grassland, etc. It was amazing! While at the preserve, I also started my list of birds. While it is small, I’m happy to have started it. It’s very basic and I definitely need my friend’s help in improving it. Here it is:

• Woodpecker (do not know which species)
• Hawk or Eagle (do not know which species)
• Mockingbird

A great shot of the trail. It was a beautiful day.

Spanish Moss is quite prominent in Florida. Yes, I am quite fascinated with it

The preserve was beautiful. Jeremy and I went on a day when the weather was perfect for hiking. We were the only ones there and it was just so peaceful. We enjoy going on walks and hikes together. We always have. This time, I felt like both of us took in more of what was around us on this hike. It was awesome! Hence the reason we both want to go back. Next time we go back, we’re definitely going to do the entire three miles (six miles in total). I am very much looking forward to it! I certainly hope I’ve got my telephoto lens by that time, too. I can say I enjoyed bird watching and I’m looking forward to learning more about it, through my own reading and from my friend. It was relaxing and I loved that I was doing something my grandfather enjoyed. While I wish I could have enjoyed it with him while he was still here, I still feel quite a connection to him when doing this.  My grandpa taught me to fish when I was eight. Him and I went fishing all the time in Florida. I always feel very calm when I fish because it reminds me of him and I have such good memories of it. I found when I went bird watching, I had the same feeling of calm. It was great!

We were in a grassy area of the Marsh Loop trail when we took this picture.

I am very much looking forward to heading back to this nature preserve. Next time though, I will have a better camera. Oh, and a pair of binoculars. Also, I’m hoping I will have my grandfather’s bird book with me, too.

Namaste,

~Mary~

Home!

Jeremy & I are home! We arrived safe & sound on Sunday night.

We had an AWESOME vacation in Florida. I can say it is my absolute favourite place to vacation in the entire world. I love it there! I think Jeremy does as well.

Apologies for the lack of entries in our last week there. The internet connection at the second place we stayed was spotty at the best of times. It made updating the blog and uploading pictures rather frustrating! I’ll try and get some updates done, too, of the second week of our trip.

We are getting back into the swing of things now (yes, even the colder weather!).

I was happy to hear birds chirping outside yesterday, a sure sign spring is on its way!

Namaste,

~Mary~

Epcot Center

On Wednesday, we went to Epcot Center, which is part of Walt Disney World. Last time I was at Epcot Center was in 1995 or 1996. Jeremy was last there in 1988! So yes, it has been a few years for the two of us since we were last there. Both of us were very much looking forward to it and I’m happy to say that Jeremy & I had an amazing time!

We started our day off by riding Spaceship Earth. This very cool ride takes you in a “time machine” back to the beginning of our time as humans right through to the future. It is very cool and very well done, as is everything at the Walt Disney World parks. My favourite part of the ride was in ancient Egypt, Jeremy’s was the “walking-on-the-moon” vingette. We ended up going on this ride three times and we got some great video! Jeremy’s going to edit it together once we get home. We also hit up a few more rides while we there as well, including a Viking Boat ride in the Norway Pavillion, which was very cool, “Mission: Space” (a very INTENSE ride; I don’t normally feel motion sick on rides and with this one, I did!), and a few other ones.

We also wandered around to each of the different country pavilions. Our favourites were definitely Japan and China! All of them were so well done but the Japan & China were exceptional! Both had lots of cool tea related accessories, too. I was also quite impressed with the China Pavilion because not only was I able to get a very delicious vegetable stir-fry for dinner but it was also served with Oolong tea! For those who don’t know, Oolong is my favourite type of tea. At the German Pavilion, I sample three different wines, one I which I ended up picking this one: a Liebfraumilch white wine. I wasn’t going to buy it but than I got to thinking that the LCBO back home probably does not carry this particular wine. I checked when we got back to the hotel. They don’t! Neither of us was surprised about that.

The China Pavilion at Epcot.

Mary sampling wine at the German Pavilion

Jeremy sitting by the very cool fountain in the Italy Pavilion

Overall, we had a very awesome day at Epcot! We will definitely go back there when we’re in Florida again. As with all the Disney parks, it is so well done and just plain old fun to go to! We’re going to hit up Magic Kingdom in a few days. It is my absolute favourite of all the Disney Parks!

Namaste,

~Mary~

Dinner Last Night…

Okay, I lied! No Epcot entry yet. Sorry, folks! I will do an entry about Epcot soon though .

Onto this entry…

As I’ve said a few times, one of things I love about staying at the Super 8 is the fact there is a kitchen in the room. While there is no oven, there is a stove top. I’ve been able to make pretty much everything I make at home. Normally, I would cook the chicken in the oven marinated in balsamic vinegar. Since I have no oven there, I had to change things up a little. I’ve been cooking chicken in a frying pan lately and it is delicious!

So, where am I going with this? I ended up getting creative and throwing together something new for us to try. We decided we wanted chicken. Normally, we would have it with rice or quinoa (okay, I have quinoa…Jeremy’s not a big fan of it! He’ll come around eventually Hee hee…) and asparagus. I don’t have rice down here (been meaning to pick some up!) but I did have veggies, salad, chickpeas, etc. Dinner ended up being grilled chicken and chickpeas with mixed greens & spinach, mushrooms, onions, Roma tomato, etc. It was delicious! I threw the idea together in about 30 seconds and was quite happy with the end result! We enjoyed it so much we might put it into our regular rotation of meals.

Accompanying the meal, I had a white wine: Monkey Bay Sauvignon Blanc. This is quite a lovely wine from the Marlborough Region of New Zealand. On a side note, I first tried this wine when Jeremy and I visited his aunt Karen & uncle Marty in Florida last year. It is one of my favourites! Jeremy had a Miller Chill (a very delicious beer with lime!).

Dessert was strawberries that were grown not too far from Orlando in Plant City. They were great! I’m hoping I can get some more of them before we head back to the Great White North.

Maybe this is not the most exciting entry but cooking is one of my passions and I love to blog about it when we try something or I come up with some new dish for us to have. Maybe it’ll inspire some of our readers as well!

Namaste,

~Mary~