Oreo Flavored Blizzard

To many an Oreo flavored Blizzard is a yummy ice cream treat from Dairy Queen. It consists of ice cream combined with chunks of oreo cookie.

To us an Oreo Blizzard has a slightly different meaning:

BLIZZARD

Blizzard

OREO

We adopted both kitty’s from SHAID Animal Shelter. We’ve had Oreo a little under a year and Blizzard has now been with us for almost a week. SHAID (Sheltering Helpless Animals In Distress) provides temporary care and shelter to helpless animals in distress, be they abandoned, homeless or relinquished and they try to place as many as possible into responsible and caring homes. They are always happy to accept donations whether it’s cash or food/litter, etc.

Visit their website today – SHAID

Tartan Totes – Our first craft fair

Last weekend, Jackie and I loaded all our bags into the car and headed off to our first ever Tartan Totes craft fair. The fair was held at an old school in Beach Meadows (near Liverpool), which has now been turned into a community centre.

The weekend proved an excellent opportunity to hear what the public thought of our bags – they loved them! People were impressed with the different variety of tartans that we stocked and many wanted to know more about their Scottish ancestors and their clans. Lots of people were impressed that we had Scottish accents too!

We’re looking forward to attending more craft fairs soon! Keep an eye out on our facebook page to see where we are and what we are up to!

Meanwhile Jackie and I are going to be busy cutting and stitching in order to make sure we have plenty of stock to fill any Christmas orders – get yours in soon!

To inspire you, here are a few of our recent designs…

Remember: www.tartantotes.com

Tartan Totes

Well as many of you may or may not know Jackie (Cameron`s Mum) and I have been working on a business idea for the past few months. We are now ready for the launch so I thought I would tell you a little bit more about what we have been up to.

Logo

As it says on our homepage of our website, we wanted to make something that was unique, original and which utilized recycled fabrics. We wanted something that reinforced the connection between our past and present, old Scotland and new Scotland – and what better than tartan to do this. We think the tartan we source for our totes is colourful, fashionable and practical – we do hope you agree!

the ailsa

The Kirsty

For more bags and styles please check out our website at www.tartantotes.com and let us know your thoughts.

Bulls, Bears and the rest of the Farm!

Wall-Street-Bull

As you all know Cameron is now working trading the stock futures and forex markets and, being keen to understand what he is actually doing, I did a little research. Now I’m not going to go into details, as unless you have a thing for numbers and a keen eye when it comes to graphs you’ll probably end up even more confused. What I do want to tell you about, however, are the Bulls, the Bears, the Chickens and the Pigs!

Above is a picture of the famous Wall-Street Bull. On Wall Street the Bulls and the Bears are in a constant struggle… Bull(ish) traders think positively and try and drive the markets upwards by buying stock, whilst Bear(ish) traders take the opposite stance and sell the market to drive it down.

Bulls & Bears

A bull market is when everything in the economy is good, there are plenty jobs etc and stocks are rising. Picking stocks during a bull market is easier because everything is going up. However, this situation cannot last forever and sometimes it can lead to stocks becoming overvalued. If a person is optimistic and believes that stocks will go up, he or she is called a “bull” and is said to have a “bullish outlook”.

A bear market is pretty much the opposite, the economy is bad and stocks are falling.

I believe that there is only a Bull on Wall Street (and no bear) because of Wall Streets perceived aggressive nature. Lots of positive trading! I did manage to find this photography of a bull and a bear but I’m not sure where it was taken or which stock exchange this is near… does anyone know?

B&B

Swimmer’s Itch

Notice

Recently Cameron and I were having a discussion about swimming in the sea. As you all know Canada borders the Atlantic and it takes a bloody lot of sunshine to warm it’s water up. Conclusion: reserve swimming for the lakes.

Well that was until we stumbled across the above notice. Swimmer’s itch, duck itch or cercarial dermatitis (for all you geeks out there) is is a short-term, immune reaction occurring in the skin of humans that have been infected by water-borne trematode parasites.

The trematodes that cause swimmer’s itch are parasitic schistosomes that use both snails and vertebrates as hosts in their life cycles. Most cases are caused by parasites that use waterfowl as the vertebrate host. These avian schistosomes cannot complete their life cycles in mammals, but can accidentally infect humans, giving rise to mildly itchy spots on the skin. Within hours, these spots become raised papules (a circumscribed, solid elevation of skin with no visible fluid, varying in size from a pinhead to 1 cm) that are more intensely itchy. The papules are caused by localized inflammatory immune reactions, each corresponding to the penetration site of a single parasite, which dies in the skin within hours.

The good news: it’s perfectly harmless so long as you don’t scratch too much and cause any secondary infection. Symptoms usually disappear within a week.

Just the thought of it is making me itch, I’m off out to buy some calamine lotion…