The perfect treat, one no one else in the house can stand!

Wolfville is home to http://www.justuscoffee.com/, a really cool Fair Trade Co-op. Along with amazing coffees, teas, and chocolate, they have recently started to make really great organic, fairly traded hot chocolate mix. My favorite is the Spicy Mexican blend. It has hot peppers in it along with cardamon, cloves , nutmeg, cinnamon and big chunks of milk chocolate.

Everyone else is disgusted by it, so my bag of it will last and last.

And here's a funny story, at least it seems funny now...

I went to get hot chocolate with the kids the other day and forgot my wallet! I realized this outside the Just Us! Cafe. I was drooling the whole 3 km walk. So I went to the post office instead, and as soon as I stepped inside the warm post office I started having a massive asthma attack (which the hot chocolate would have helped alleviate, might be why I was craving it, for the cayenne and caffeine.)

I had planned to drop into our new medical coop with the releases to have our files transferred, but decided IN A MEDICAL EMERGENCY that instead of walking 500 metres to the doctor's office, I'd walk the 3 km home UPHILL to get my puffer. I made it halfway and a student passing by flagged down another student who drove me home - sans stroller (I ditched it in someones yard) - and I found my puffer was empty - so I ATE SOME COFFEE GROUNDS for the caffeine, and called Papa Pan, who was done work but still an hour away. When he got home I went to the clinic and got a new puffer.

Subsequently, we now have spicy hot chocolate mix at home. The kids may never want to go get hot chocolate with me ever again!

An Early Christmas Present

Papa Pan got me this for our secular celebration of Christmas/Winter Solstice/New Years!

I'm not sure if you can tell the scale from this photo, but the womanspirit is 18 inches tall. I absolutely adore it. The artist is Jan Oosterhoff, from Newtonville Nova Scotia. She also makes beautiful organic furniture that incorporates burls, bark, and the spirit of the wood she's working with. I've been drooling over her womanspirit sculptures for a few weeks now. She was showing them at the Wolfville Farmer's Market and at the Ross Creek Arts Centre.

I think this is the perfect "housewarming" piece don't you???