Ride to eat and doing 'The Loop' - twisty nirvana island style

Yesterday we went for a really long ride.  On our anniversary which was the day before I finally insured the Duchess.  We went for a little tootle with a friend, of course it was a 'ride to eat' jaunt.  This is the first time I have looked at my bike and sat on it since last October.  I usually go to the parking lot before I venture out, but it didn't work out that way.  Coffee and goodies was a very pressing matter at that moment. The wonderful thing is that with in a few minutes I was feeling the groove of riding again and the first test was the right hand turn onto the rather large hill by my house, all of that went smoothly. I was riding a little gingerly to give my bike the respect it deserves and for me to get the feel of it again. Very quickly I was getting used to the lean and the familiar feeling of leaning into the curve.  I still love my NC700, although secretly I am coveting my husbands BMW F800GT which he got about a year ago.  It came with a lowered seat and I have been heavily hinting that I would like to take it for a spin, but he seems to conveniently not hear my hint or ignores it.  I get it, it's his baby.  I was pretty picky about who rode the Duchess.  I think what he is afraid of is that I am going to like it so much that we will end up hunting one up for me.  I am perfectly contented with what I have.  *wink wink*

The hubs Beemer

Yesterday was the perfect day for a ramble out into the countryside to our favourite coffee place Shirley Delicious, which is aptly named because it is in the unincorporated town of Shirley.  

It is an eclectic coffee place offering a wide variety of meals from vegan, gluten free, and regular, if not exotic choices of food. They make the best deserts and their sandwiches are artisan quality it is worth the hour ride out there.  We tend to laze around in the sun chatting out side.  Covid19 has changed the way  everything is done on the island, and it takes. a bit of intimacy out of the experience.  The island is a very foodie place, lots of fabulous places to eat and explore different cuisines.

They have a very eclectic menu and it caters to just about everyone from vegan, gluten free options, to the rest of us omnivores.  Sorry about the picture tint, I was too hungry and wanted to grab a quick food porn pick before it got scarfed up.  It was a fresh turkey sandwich with cranberry chutney, brie cheese, fresh herbs and greens on house made foccia bread.  OMG it was worth the hour drive! 

I'm not sure how many in my blog world know that I have discovered a new passion during the pandemic, art.  I have been going through massive changes before the pandemic with my job and am in the middle of a job hunt. The changes started well back in December and ultimately it meant the medical practice I was working at for the last 27 years closed in June.  It has been a topsy turvy time, and a bit of emotional roller coaster, but I am now unemployed and looking for work.  During this time I needed something to channel my energy into and I started rock painting for fun.  Things have rapidly changed with this and an I am delightfully enjoying this new creative outlet and I am being daring and have moved onto painting small canvases.  The reason I mention this is I left these two little rocks out with the owner of Shirley Delicious and they were thrilled to get the  crow and snoozy bee. So back to the road trip part.

 After we finished our delectable goodies we were just going to pop down the road to Jordan River, where I just wanted to pick up a few rocks for painting. 

This is the lead off point for the Pacific Circle Marine Route  affectionately known as 'The Loop' to the locals. I could hear it calling my name and we decided to ride! 

Map credited to Cowichan Valley Tourism 179 miles of twisty nirvana

The Loop winds through the beautiful Cowichan Valley on paved logging roads and it's very remote and you lose cellular coverage through quite a few parts of it.  The road is narrow and twisty and have some very high sharp turn areas and many a rider has come to grief out there and it is a little unnerving because essentially you are probably 2-4 hours away from help of any time, so you have to be pretty cautious and follow the road advisory signs.  Anyway that being said it is a magical ride, through beautiful west coast wilderness and forest.  We have being experiencing an abundance of bears on the island, although we didn't see one this trip we did find bear scat several times in the middle of the road.  You kind of don't really want to pull over to the side and whip out your picnic lunch in really isolated spots.  You have to be bear aware in just about all remote regions of BC.  We have had a few grizzly bears swim over from the mainland and they really aren't a native species to Vancouver Island.  

The Duchess waiting for the Beemer

If you were wondering what I was waiting for, hub was adjusting his suspension on the Beemer because he and the daughter were out the other day.  We also took a quick break just to enjoy the cool ocean breeze.  Once you get into the Loop back country the temperature is usually a good 7-9 degrees higher than oceanside. 

This is the start of the drive up a steep hill and the road gets progressively narrower and very twisty/. Yay Twists! It is 179.63 miles of twisty goodness (300km for us Canucks).  Past this point there aren't many more pictures as we tend to keep riding.  We did not stop at Port Renfrew out of courtesy to the residents, during the pandemic we are limiting our visiting to island spots, particularly remote places as they do not have any medical facilities and we want to respect their communities;  It is also home to the Pacheedaht First Nation, they are known as the people of the Sea foam.  They have the most beautiful campground on their traditional land, wide open to the ocean and it is spectacular.  We thank the Pacheedaht First Nation for allowing us to visit their traditional territory.  

After you leave the Pacheedaht First Nation there us a lake with a little lonely tree growing out of a stump, that is the only place we stopped to take a picture.  

After our picture stop we completed our lovely ride through to Lake Cowichan and then headed to the Trans Canada 1 to get home.  Traffic has been rather light as most people are just staying with in their communities as our restrictions have lifted a bit.  Our provincial authorities are asking us to keep our travel local and within our provincial borders.  We did flatten the covid curve, but we are all very anxious about new cases and we really aren't all that friendly to people from outside Canada at the moment and even inter provincially Premiers are asking Canadians not to travel to other provinces.  

All in all if was wonderful to get back on two wheels and have a little wind therapy with my life bestie and we enjoyed ourselves.  We were tired when we got home,  but had big grins on our faces, they type of grin only a two wheeled jaunt produces.  

Blogging again

Blogger has changed a lot since I last used it.  One of the reasons I had given up on blogging is that I couldn't get blogger to work on my iPad or my PC, and it was an exercise in futility trying to get anything posted or upload a picture and I all but abandoned the blog.  Yesterday to my surprise, there is a new version of blogger and it works!  

I have a new iMac which integrates all of my apple products - yay!  I take a lot of photos and it's nice that pictures automatically show up on my desktop, and I can happily and easily upload pictures of my adventures to the blog without a struggle.  So here's to blogging again! 

Here's to more adventures!  

PS - Comment moderation is stilll on this blog.  

With every season there are changes.

It has been quite awhile since I have visited my blog, I do keep an eye out for spammers and zap their posts because the notifications come to email.  

It has been well over a year since I have blogged anything, the reason is that life has gotten so busy, that there just was not enough time to do anything other than work, eat, sleep, survive.  So here we are today after experiencing a pandemic and still in the midst of it. This has brought change in my life by way of finding time at home to be peaceful and filled with art.  I have taken up painting, mostly rocks, but canvases and drawing.  We have been asked to stay at home and not do any non essential travel and to physical distance.  I was still working through this time period as I was the only one in my office. 

Covid did pay a visit to our house and I had one very sick family member, but all is well now.  I have to say it was very scary and worrisome.  I have never been this afraid ever.  So keep washing your hands and physical distancing, mask wearing is also smart, keep those droplets in!

So here is what is happening with me, I decided that I was no longer going to teach motorcycling and retired this year before the season began.  I did love teaching and loved mentoring, but did it for 5 years and all on weekends and evening extra training sessions.  Over the last two years I had upgraded to teaching classroom theory and traffic instructor taking newbs out on the road.  I work full-time and by the time of the end of riding season I was exhausted because I was working almost 7 days straight and was no logging any seat time on The Duchess.  My hub would say "Let's go for a ride" my response usually was "Can't I'm teaching".  There comes a point where you have to find balance and that time has come.  I want to ride for fun and not have to worry about what kind of mayhem my student(s) are going to cause or get into - trust me I have seen some hair curling stuff.  So that part of my life has happily closed, but I will always be around to mentor and support new riders and be a safety advocate.  Here we are and it's June 19th and I still have not insured my bike! Gotta get on that! 

Another change that has come my way is that I am in the process of a career shift.  The change came back in December when my employer became seriously ill.  I finally wrapped up our office last week and walked out of there for the last time after sitting at that desk for 27 years.  It has been emotionally draining because it was just my boss and me, and I am still worried for my friend.  I have been anxious and at times downright terrified of the 'last day' at work.  But after intensely working to close the office and looking at options, something shifted and I actually found peace. 

Go figure in a pandemic fraught with chaos and fear, I take up painting and that has been my godsend and given me a quietness and contentedness.  I have been looking at options because right now job hunting is difficult.  I am still looking at everything and thinking I no longer want to work in a solo medical practice. I am ready to venture into a work place where I am with others.  The last 6 months being alone in my office has been truly tough and not having any contact with anyone was starving my bubbly soul.  

I'm actually quite excited about finding this new path, I never thought I would say this, particularly thinking back 6 months ago.  I think it feels good to have some forward direction, instead of being stuck to a spot.   I have some leads, I've revamped my resume and have had a few interviews (which after 27 years at one place was interesting).  I have decided I am going to take what is right for me and it may be awhile, but that is perfectly fine. 

Hopefully soon you will see some motorcycle pictures, but we are keeping it local on our island due to the pandemic.  I can't say how often the blogging is going to be happening, because now in my side cases is an art set with pencils, sketch pad, watercolours and watercolour pad.  I'm savouring life a little bit more than I have in quite awhile.

I hope you are all well. 

Motorcycle anniversary and other assorted loose ends

This is a picture of my first novice class where I was responsible for teaching 10 new students during my practicum.  It was very intense, as a new instructor you are expected to teach the bulk of the curriculum.  It was at times very stressful, other times very fun, and I must say I was extremely happy and relieved when it was over.  I have come quite a way from those early novice classes and enjoy teaching quite a bit.  It was worth all the effort and the rewards of mentoring new motorcyclist is beyond measure and I'm thoroughly grateful to the instructors who mentored me and continue to mentor me.  Hard work really does pay off.

On another note, I kind of lost track of blogging and almost ditched it all because I was having trouble logging in and even posting.  I'm not the most techy person, but in the end it just came down to changing to a more compatible browser. Jeez if only I had figured that out a year ago! So I'm back to blogging! Woot!

I am no longer a part of Farkle Garage and it may be finished as well, tv land is hard and very competitive. It was fun while it lasted and I think I still have some stories to tell, who knows you may see some vlogging and a youtube channel.

Still in the land of the living!

It has been quite awhile since I've created a blog post.  I did a lot of teaching in 2018 and was extremely busy and it left precious little time for blogging, riding, or even free time.  This year is a little different, I'm trying to find a little balance in my life and a little more personal time.  I have frontloaded most of my early classes earlier in the season and a little later in the season.  I am hoping to have a chunk in the middle that I can go on adventures.

It has been an exciting start to the New Year!  I taught my first novice class early in the season and Scooterpie Junior was in the class learning to ride with my partner instructor.  I have to say there is something a little surreal watching your kiddo learning to ride.  At one point I was practicing a bit for a demonstration I was going to be doing and I saw Junior go whizzing by me.  In that blink of the eye I saw my little teeny tiny girl all of a sudden grow-up! It seems just like yesterday that she was a babe coming home from the hospital, my how time flies!

My lovely daughter passed her  motorcycle skills test and has completed part one of her training, now she is waiting for her traffic class which is mid-April.  I have to say I am extremely excited! I can see some beautiful long summer evening rides with my hub and daughter.  Life is definitely coming full circle.

Life is too busy! Time to slow it down!

It seems I have fallen off the blog train and into oblivion.  It is not for lack of wanting to blog, but more like my life is too busy and getting in the way of sitting behind the keyboard and generating content.  I'm not sure what I am going to do with Princess Scooterpie blog at this point.

Update on what's up with me, it has been a very busy year and it has been filled with personal/professional growth and a few health challenges thrown in on top (nothing dire) just physically challenging.


I have spent a good chunk of the early part of 2018 studying and upgrading my motorcycle instructor skills, which included three teaching practicums, two in the classroom theory portion of our curriculum and one for motorcycle traffic class for a two day 16 hour guided riding session for our newly graduated novice (basic) motorcycle students.  I passed my three practicums with flying colours and haven't really looked back too much since then, actually I've been too busy to look back or do much else since undertaking this in the spring. 



It has been an extremely busy year teaching for me.  Our season is drawing to a close and to date I have taught 4 novice classes & a theory class, which encompasses two weekends per course, 5 Theory A introductory sessions for would be students, and 6 two day traffic classes, as well as numerous extra training sessions for students who need a little more seat time to work on skills. This year alone I have taught or mentored about 100 students through the course of teaching in 2018, that's a lot of teaching!  Add onto this my full time job, and I have to  say I am  feeling worn a little thin, so I am actually kind of happy that this weekend will be my final traffic class as the season comes to a close. 


I didn't get in very much riding for pleasure at all, which saddens me quite a bit, and next year I will be needing to find a better balance to my work life.  My hub and I didn't get in too many adventures together either due to my schedule and we need to remedy that, as he has a new to him BMW F800GT, which is pretty exciting for him and I'm still trying to figure out how to pry the keys from his hands and take it for a rip, he is a little protective of it.  During the summer we did escape on two mini adventures, the first was in June when we rode up to Tofino for a weekend getaway and the second was in August where we escaped to ride the Sea to Sky Highway and Duffy Lake Rd t& Thompson Okanagan, we were planning at least a week on the road, but the forest fire situation in BC quickly curtailed that and we rode about 1,000km in two days and called it a day due to the heavy smoke/ash from the majority of our province being on fire, so that was that.


After we returned and hub went back to work, I took on another novice course and unfortunately hurt my right knee.  At first we thought it was a meniscal or ligament tear, and after a week being laid up and not being able to ambulate well an MRI was ordered and visit to an orthopedic specialist.  The findings are not what I was expecting acute osteoarthritis with the meniscus being displaced. The MCL and ACL were not torn and were intact, that is the good news. However, the structure of my knee is not very happy at the moment, I have narrowing in the joint canal, edema in the surrounding structures and a joint effusion.  What this means is that there is nothing surgical to fix at this point and is going to keep on declining because of it being osteoarthritis.  In retrospect if there had been torn ligaments or meniscal tear, it would have been easier to manage. The current treatment plan is to moderate activity with low impact exercise, wearing a brace for walking/hiking, I guess there goes my budding basketball career - just kidding. I am going to see the orthopod for some cortisone injections and synvisc (hyluronic acid) joint lubrication injection.   All of this may have a large impact on teaching motorcycling due to the amount of walking and stop/go impact that I sustain through teaching and adding the physicality of pushing motorcycles around.  So life might be getting a little slower for me in the near future with regards to teaching, and that has me feeling sad, but on a brighter note I can still ride and it has impacted my seat time.

So now I'm gearing up for winter and the quieter time of the year and actually looking forward to a little bit of down time and maybe I can get the knee to settle a bit more and get into a more comfortable state and start building up muscles with some pool therapy and low impact exercise. 

All in all though despite the wee knee setback, I have had a really good year and am excited about adventures for next year.

Upgrade! The journey continues!

I have been teaching since January 2015.  Up until this point I have been teaching just novice sessions in the parking lot.  I generally teach 4 to 5 classes a year and there are 10 students in each class, so that's a lot of new students.  I finally made the decision that I wanted to do more and in the very early spring I did a practicum for the classroom theory session and completed that.  The final step was to do a traffic course practicum which consists of two days of guiding riding with 4 students and an instructor assessor. This past weekend was the date!  It was gloriously sunny and hot and all 4 students passed with flying colours and I am sure whenever they shoulder check they will hear my voice in their minds saying "Shoulder check and scan more!". Here's to happy riding and new students!

The adventure continues!

Sunshine, Motorcycles, & Sculptures ??Spring is here??!

    Weekend 3 morning class grads.

Motorcycle season teaching season is well underway, we have had 3 weekend courses so far this year and I have taught two and a refresher session as well.  It feels like winter is finally starting to retreat and spring is starting to take hold.  Mother Nature has been more than  a little confused as of late, she has been throwing rapidly cycling weather changes at us.  The old saying about Victoria is "If you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes and it'll be different."  It is true! 

My poor students were experiencing torrential rain, freezing cold winds and frosty parkinglot conditions, all of this makes for a very challenging learn to ride experience, particularly if they haven't figured out layering and waterproofing. This weekend was no exception with frenetic weather. Saturday it was so cold I had multiple layers on, and at one point I looked like a Gangster Smurf with my blue hoody pulled up over my ballcap to keep the wind at bay. I will say that motorcycle instructors are an intrepid breed, we are out on the lot teaching when most would be snuggled up in their cozy homes sipping coffee on an early Saturday or Sunday morning and not traipsing around the lot hollering "Head and eyes up, look where you want to go." The next day it completely different, it was warm  and brilliantly sunny, and I was trying to figure out what that yellow blob was in the sky.  At one point I was standing there basking in the sun's warmth. I know this is going to sound weird, but I actually kind of like when the weather is being difficult, because it helps students understand what they are facing in the real world of riding, and it is not all sunny zen-like days of twisty nirvana. 

At the end there were 9 smiling new riders who all passed their MST on the first try, they're now onto further adventures with traffic classes and road tests.  I'm pretty happy, I feel the same joy at teaching as when I've been out on a great ride, it's a kick seeing them go from wobbly tentative riders to riders gaining confidence and competence. To  reward myself I took the long way home and enjoyed the sights and smells and being in the moment.

     Beach Art Sculptures at Esquimalt Lagoon

I  buzzed by the beach, it was the perfect day to stop and soak up the sun. I've been missing the feel of the sun on my face for about 7 months, it has been grey and dark since October.  There is a magical thing happening at the beach at Esquimalt Lagoon, a beach art sculptor Paul Lewis has been creating these beautiful artworks of local and migratory birds. Esquimalt Lagoon is a bird sanctuary and is teeming with birds; seagulls, herons, trumpeter swans, and Canadian geese as well as sightings of resident eagles.  To understand the scale of most of these beautiful sculptures they are almost as big as my bike. 

Every couple of days a new sculpture seems to pop up, there is one in progress with another nest being built.  I will have to run back there during the weekend to see what it is. 

I was particularly enchanted with the crow, in her nest guarding her cache of eggs.

           Canada Goose

I loved the rendering of the Canadian Geese, their eyes where sparkling in the sun and it was so life-like. Did you know that Canadian Geese are monogamous and mate for life?  Apparently in the bird world they are stick to it kind of birds and if a mate passes they sometimes do find another mate.

It was  such a bonny sunny clear day, you could see the Olympics in the distance when looking out over the Straight of Juan de Fuca towards Port Angeles.  I am hoping the season has changed and that we will continue with this beautiful sunny weather, I had almost forgotten what the sun looked like.

 

Pop back in a few more days there are more sculptures to see!

It's that time of year!

Winter is starting to reluctantly lose it's grip on the Island, but just when you think it's over -  BLAM it gets cold and rainy and a little snow and frost thrown in for good measure. This is the time of year on the Island when people start pulling their moto beasties out of winter hibernation from their moto lairs.

I have already taught one full Novice class and am just finishing up a second. This group is all my girlfriends who ride, and belong to my riding group the Moto Mama's.  My BF instructor friend Debra and I proposed to our riding school a 4 hour skill refresher course to shake out the winter cobwebs from the bikes and riders skills.  The skill levels of riders varied from very new to long term riders.

All of this was done on the Moto Mama's own bikes, which is a wonderful way to build skill on your own ride.  We had everything there from Honda CBR 250's, Honda CB500x, Vintage Yamaha 750, Triumph 900, BMW650, BMW 310, Suzuki TU250, Suzuki Gladius and a fully dressed Harley Davidson.

Getting ready to launch into an exercise which entails riding a figure 8 within a circle.  This involves good clutch/throttle control and killer sightlines.  I love doing this particular exercise and I got a chance to put the Duchess through her paces demoing the exercises, I could do this particular exercise all day long. 

                                                              The Moto Mama's

There is a mother/daughter duo in the Moto Mama's, I loved watching the interaction and how proud mom was of her girl!  I love the diversity of the bikes the Moto Mama's ride and it's so funny how each bike suits the rider so well.

                                                        Fierce women kicking cone butt!

We started right at the beginning working on rusty friction zone skills practicing slow speed slaloms, the dreaded U-turn, 90 degree turns and a weave. I always find the skills that suffer the most with most new and returning riders are the slow speed handling skills and sightlines. Some of the ladies even commented on this themselves.  The U-turn box in particular elicited a lot of groans and "Oh no way can I do that", but with a little coaching they were all whipping off U-turns like butter on a hot griddle - they were SIZZLING!

Then it was onto  brisk starts progressing through smooth up and downshifting. We worked on solid stops with good braking techniques.  Just as in our novice classes we used a building block approach layering one skill on top another. 

                                                       Look, Lean, and Believe!

After we honed those skills we worked on counter steering, getting a little speed and lean on. This is were the fun begins, everyone loves doing this particular exercise. This prompted big smiles and usually cries of "More!"      

As an instructor watching the gals put their bikes through their paces and working on skills, I could see the confidence creeping in and skills smoothing out, and that's a good feeling! I am so proud of these women, they are fierce! We had an excellent day, everyone was so happy and feeling ready to ride. 

 

Wondering what to practice to blow out the moto cobwebs? I suggest working on slow speed skills, go practice some figure 8's, U-turns, slaloms, brisk starts and quick stops, getting used to the weight of your bike and waiting for that old muscle memory to kick back in.  If you really want to go to town hook up with your local riding school for an experienced riders course or skill refresher. 

 

                                       Have fun and keep the shiny side up!

 

I'm putting the Duchess through her paces early in the riding season.  I love working on slow speed skills, for me it is not about going fast, I love the precision of slow speed riding. 

When bloggers meet.

Last weekend was a very busy weekend indeed!  I had the greatest pleasure of meeting two bloggers! Motorcyclist/fashion blogger Shybiker  and fashion blogger  Sheila Ephemera .  Sorry no pictures, it seems I have gotten out of blogging mode.  We met up for lunch and had a wonderful time chatting and getting to know each other.  I love it when I meet other bloggers that I have been following for a long time. Shybiker introduced me to a new blogger Sheila who just happens to live in Victoria.  We talked about everything and our conversation was wide ranging and eclectic.

Ralph has a love of fine writing instruments and I certainly appreciate the beauty of a well balanced smooth perfect pen.  I have been envious of some of the lovely pens I have seen on the blog and was so thrilled when Ralph gave me this beautiful desk pen as a memento.  I am absolutely in love with it, it is now the sacred pen on the my desk and pity the fool who tries to take it.  Thank you for this gorgeous pen! 

We had a lovely afternoon of seeing the sights and do some shopping.  Sheila is a fashion maven who thrifts a lot of her beautiful clothes and there really is an art to thrifting and being adventurous.  She is fearless with style and it was glorious watching her go through the racks and pull outfits together.  I am definitely stuck in a fashion rut, but will be paying more attention to our local boutiques as they offer such beautiful clothes and shoes and I kinda dig the idea of upcycling.  After our rambles through a few of her favourite haunts we went back to her place for tea and I was tickled pink when she gave me a peek at her closet - GLORIOUS! We chatted the afternoon away and then before I knew it, it was time to say adieu!  Unfortunately I was unable to meet up with Ralph and Sheila again on the weekend as I had teaching commitments.  But all I can say is it was memorable and I had such a fantastic time!

I'm still here!

Doyou ever feel like you're hibernating from the world? It seems thatis whats been happening more and more over the last 7-8 months.  I had a very busy year last year what with working, teaching, working, and a little bit of summer riding.  Well the cycle has started all over again.  So here we go again! I am going to try and blog a little more regularly.

I am in love with my Instant Pot

I have never usually been one for fancy gadgets, unless it was a farkle for my bike.  I don't normally get excited about appliances, but wait for it - I AM IN LOVE WITH MY INSTANT POT.

What is an Instant Pot you say?  It is a multi function cooker, it is basically an electric pressure cooker.  It will function as a pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice maker, steamer, and yogurt maker.  This gadget is gaining a cult-like following, several people I know have them and have been raving about them for months!  It cuts down the cooking time significantly, which is great for someone like me who is constantly busy doing stuff  or on bike adventures, teaching, or just plain busy.  Occasionally I forget to pull out stuff for supper and on those nights it's usually a free-for-all at may house and I generally give-up or give-in and we succumb to eating sandwiches or spaghetti or over cooked chicken because I nuked it to death to thaw it. 

I have been contemplating getting one, but decided I would float the idea as a potential Christmas present.  So now this is where it gets weird, I've  been hunting to find the best price and in my experience I have found all the good sales on electronics and small appliances happen in October.  I spotted the 8 quart Instant Pot on sale at our local Canadian Tire, and it was a good sale!  So I mentioned it to hubby and daughter.  Then I called hubby a couple of times and sniveled and pleaded my case (he is getting pretty tired of hearing about the Instant Pot).  So all I could do is hope! 

He was working on Saturday all day and as I was slogging through making another abysmal supper him and Scooterpie Jr came into the kitchen and said "Pretend it's Christmas.", when I turned around there was the Instant Pot!  Well I actually whooped and did a little happy dance.  I am so excited! 

On Sunday I decided to give this crazy thing a go, read all the instructions, and set it up! I was going to be adventuresome and try a pot roast with potatoes and carrots.  (I must admit to being a little overwhelmed and feeling a little trepidation, because my granny blew an old fashioned pressure cooker through her ceiling)  In the end my pot roast was fabulous and instead of taking close to 2-2 1/2  hours and many pots used, the actual cooking time for the roast was 50 minutes and 10 minutes for the veggies.  It usually takes a few minutes to vent the pressure cooker so all in all I would say 70 minutes.  The roast was tender, veggies cooked and it was yummy.

I liked cooking in it so much I decided to try some steel cut oats, they were amazing!  I am so excited about my kitchen Farkle!

Steelcut oats with dried cranberries.