Tuesday Trivia

I called this post Tuesday Trivia because I fear that anything I post here is trivial. I am a little restless tonight and can't really settle down at anything. I made a pot of soup, got the recycle ready to take out, worked on a baby blanket, and then I started purging.

I have a confession to make, I collect recipes. I clip them, I copy them, I print them off the internet, I write them out. I squirrel them away at home and then rarely if ever actually make them. As they are now here there and everywhere in my house, I have made myself a promise that I will purge them out. There is a wealth of recipes on the internet, just a key stroke away. I do not need to keep 99% of these recipes, I felt I needed to have. Tonight I started. I went through a binder and a stack in my sewing room and I have a sizable stack to hit the recycle bin. I still have the recipe cabinet to go through yet.

I am pleases with myself because this is one of those things that I think I should do but never really quite get around to actually doing. When I could not crochet another stitch and I could not settle on a tv program, I got stuck in and am pleased with my progress thus far.  Tomorrow night I will give it another half hour or so, that way I will not loose the momentum and I may accomplish my goal.

Other than that not much happening around here. I am oooooohhhhhh so close to hitting my three km goal at the walking. Tomorrow should be the kicker. It still hurts, I still fight it but I am determined to get to the 3km mark this month. I do realize that May 1st is not April but its close enough for me dang it!! I am going to claim victory anyway.

Thursday I have a card class and the its Friday and that means NO COOK FRIDAY with the ladies. Aw then its the weekend again. Where does the time go???  The fact that it is still snowing outside cannot deter from my joy at the prospects of this week.

Toodles
Linda

Silent Sunday

I do believe that Sir Barks-a-Lot has moved to a new home. Not a bark, or a moan, or a woof since April 15th. I hope he is romping about on a great big farm, barking his fool head off at anything that moves and loving every minute of it. I hope he is happy and loved and busy doing dog stuff. I don't know where he went or what happened to him but I hope he is happy. I am happy. I can sleep without him jarring me into a state of wakefulness at an insane hour on a weekend morning. I can go out my front door without him instantly announcing to the world that something is outside his yard and its MOVING!!

Book club happened this week. Maybe one of the best meetings we have had. Lots of talk and sharing, eating and laughing. Bittersweet though as we are saying good bye to Suzy Q. She is off to a new province, a new life and lots of new memories and good times. We will miss her in our little group.

Yesterday I had tea in the afternoon with the Hostess. We have not had a chance to get together for sometime what with vacations, jobs, and life getting in the way. It was lovely to sit in her cozy house, with a pot of chamomile home made cinnamon buns. My goodness that woman can cook!!

I met my new neighbour yesterday. He seems to be a rather nice young man, I think he is military and he is renting and renovating the place next door. Its was nice to finally put a face to the changes over there.

Today I need to do a couple of errands, laundry, and then spend the day puttering.  I started a baby blanket yesterday for a co-worker. I want to go today and get the material to start a quilt for one my cousin's granddaughter. I should stay home and sort out the sewing room. Its getting to that point where there is not a spare inch of counter or work space. I will see. I may talk myself out of going out at all. Sundays are my lazy day as I have mentioned before. I like it that way.


Well I have a pot of coffee calling my name, some crocheting is also wanting my attention and I have promised myself I will empty the dishwasher and throw a load into the washing machine before I do any of the fun things.

Toodles,
Linda

OK I Have the Pain, Where is the Gain???

When I woke in the wee hours of the morning because my bladder insisted on it, I came to the quick and certain conclusion that I knew what a nail feels like (if a nail had feelings) after it has been pounded into a piece of hard wood. From my waist to my toes everything hurt. That burning fiery hurt that makes you wish you could be anywhere else but in your body. Oiy, all this fun from walking. All this joy and bliss from trying to get fit. ACK!! I am better once I get moving and get things loosened up but until that happens I am not a happy bunny. I do not know what it is, if its all from the walking, old age, arthritis, a symptom of something else, fibro mialga??? ( how ever its spelled) I do not know. What I do know is I want it to stop. I want it to go away. I want to move pain free. Oh yes, pity party.....table for one. Blech!!

Moving on from the sniveling portion of this blog to the Scarlette O'Hara portion. This is where I raise my fist to the sky and declare that as God is my witness I will not stop. I have to keep reminding myself that while I have pain, I have improved. I am building stamina. I have increased the walking from 3 trips round the track to 14 now. See there is progress. I state this more for myself than for anyone who may happen to read this. If I don't keep telling myself this I will curl up in a corner with a gallon of ice cream and snivel for the rest of the month.

In my hot pursuit of getting some of this tonnage off of me poor old bones, and in getting more mobile, I also have Ireland looming in the future. I need to keep myself moving for that if nothing else. Ok, I am done with this. I needed to get it out because its getting to me. The pain in my lower limbs combined with hot flashes that are grown in frequency and duration and HEAT!! Makes a girl glad to be alive!! I find I am getting frustrated and I needed to do a little venting.

Speaking of Ireland, we not only have the tickets purchased, we booked a bed and breakfast in Belfast for the first two nights of our stay. PROGRESS!! Sweet!!. The Banker and I had an Ireland planning session last night at her house. Its a dream come true!! I get all giddy at the thought of it.

Not much else new on the home front. At least not much that I can think of now. I think I just needed to vent a little. Play the Oh Poor Pitiful me card. I think I will go and watch some TV then get to bed early.

Toodles,

Linda

Best Laid Plans

I had a plan for this weekend. I was going to get groceries, run some other errands, then come home and organize the sewing room. Well I got the errands run. E called me last week and said she had a ton of magazines at her house she wanted me to pick up, so why did I not come get them on Saturday and we could do something. My shopping/errand running turned into quick errand running and then lunch at my favourite cafe/gift shop. Then more shopping, drop E off, pick up Teddy Bear, head to a birthday party for my friend The Artist. She turned 50 today and she is retiring to New Brunswick with her husband, they leave next month.

The party was so nice that I stayed longer than I thought I would, but now I am at home, quick supper then I am off to the movies with E. She wants to see 42 and yes I have seen it already but I told her I would take her tonight since she has no one to go with. She is not the sort to go to the movies on her own. I don't mind, I really did like the show. The sewing room is still a mess but you know what, its ok. No one will be harmed if it stays this way for another day.

I am going to work on a quilt tomorrow so the clean up can wait. Laundry will need to be done but as to the rest we will see what the day brings. I did get the paint for my bedroom's night tables. They are a nice french vanilla colour at the moment but seeing as how I am going to be finally painting the room this year I decided the night tables would look nice being a cobalt blue. I bought that paint, and stuff to (hopefully) fix the upstairs bathroom floor, new taps for the downstairs bathroom, and the strips for the door jams for the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom. I ruined the door strip when I removed the old flooring. Next pay day I am going to get new taps for the kitchen sink.

Right now I am going to go knit for a while until it is time to pick up E for the show.  I have had a lovely day so far considering that I have not precious little that I planned to do

Toodles,
Linda

Sunday Snippets

I give up, I am hollering UNCLE, I am resigned and I accept my fate. BECAUSE I am not comfortable speaking to my neighbours on this subject (frankly they scare me) I have come to the conclusion I am not going to get to sleep in on the weekend. We had a brief time where Sir Barks-lot was silent and it was bliss but that was short lived and he is back and barking his precious head off in the wee hours. I do not blame him, I place the blame with his owners. He is just being a dog. I cannot claim that when I am jolted out of a wonderful deep sleep just after 7 on a Sunday morning that I have charitable thought for the poor dog, nope I could happily strangle him. However I know that the blame is not his. He barks long enough for me to be wide awake and therefore not happy. I spent two hours reading this morning before I got up.

I finished the puppet order today, got it wrapped and ready to mail tomorrow. I was supposed to go out today and get some stuff but I talked myself out of it. I just could not care enough to get myself suitable for public viewing. I stayed home, worked on puppets, watched stuff I had taped on the PVR and I did this.

This is a tray, I found in a second hand store, I liked the size but not the look of it. It had seen better days.

So after a little sanding, some paint and a little bit of left over wall paper I found someplace, it now looks like this.

I am going to use it in the laundry room under the bottles. Its a piece of vinyl wall paper so it will be easy to clean. Every once and a while its nice to do one of these little projects that I have piled up around the house. I keep thinking of things to do but not all of them get done right away. I am trying to do more of them instead of just leaving them to languish in the corner.

Now it is time for bed. The day is done and Monday morning will be here before we know it. I hope you had a good weekend.

Toodles,
Linda

I Have Some Pride

Because I do have some pride there are going to be no BEFORE pics in this post. No one should have to see that. I will however happily share the afters. I know I pretty much mention every weekend having to clean the kitchen. Its the room that gets out of control the quickest and seems to be permanently messy in my house. I love my kitchen, I would like to gut it and rearrange the lay out but I love it.

So after my coffee was done this morning, I got out the CD player, John Fogerty, Patsy Cline and the Bare Naked Ladies joined me in beating hell out of the mess that was. Dishes done, dish washer emptied and filled again, counters were cleared. Counter tops were scrubbed down, all items given a wash and then returned, all nice and clean to their places. Now my kitchen looks like this....

and this....

still more...

(Don't get me started on who puts a sink at the bitter end of the counter?)

And last view........

yes I need to de-clutter the top of the hutch. I see that now. Sigh. Its just one thing after another is thing old house. A constant battle against myself. My hoarderish, clutter loving self which battles constantly with the other half of me that wants order and tidiness. Ah well that is all the wonderfulness that makes me the me I am.

I am off to vacuum the stuffing out of the living room and then its going to slide from a cleaning weekend to a crafty one for this old lady. WHOOP!!

Toodles,
Linda

Where Did the Week Go?

Its been  hectic and busy and crazy and the end result is the week has zoomed by. Here we are at the weekend again. What a wonderful place to end up!! Last night was games night with the No Cook Friday gals. I have sore ribs this morning from laughing so much!! We had a blast. We gathered at the Banker's place, ordered pizza, The Hockey Fan brought cheesecake and then we played Cranium and Dutch Blitz. We wrapped it up at 11:00 because we plain and simply were exhausted from the fun. I love that group. Its the best way to end a week, laughing with this wonderful, intelligent, funny ladies.

Thankfully Sir Barks-a-lot got me up and going just after 7:00 am this morning. That really sounds like I lept out of bed and got loads done, doesn't it Truthfully, I cursed his owners a bit, then I read for an hour and then  I got up. I went out and got some breakfast, came back here, started to blog while I finish my first coffee of the day. My goal is (BIG SUPRISE!!) to clean the kitchen. That room is in a perpetual state of craptasticness at any given time. However this cleaning is not just a lick and a promise, lots of soap, water and a little bleach with be involved as well as baking soda, ammonia and borax. I plan to move all the stuff off the counters, scrub it all down, wash the floor, wash out the fridge, remove the recycle and garbage, put things back in place not just let them linger on the table as I am prone to doing and then move my cleaning frenzy into the living room.

Sometime today I need to hack a path through the ice so I can get to the dumpsters. I had a path shoveled but it was a path based on about a foot of packed snow, which is now turning to ice. That snow is also  starting to melt,  so walking to the back is a hoot. You take a couple of steps and you either slide off the packed snow or your foot goes through it. Things are piling up in the porch and measures need to be taken. I am amazed at the amount of recycle I have in this house. I need to work on cutting that down. I will leave the shoveling until later this afternoon. The forecast is warm and sunny so I am hoping the snow will soften and be easier to clear.

All Good Things and All That

Its Sunday night and I have to admit I have that horrid school in the morning feeling. My days off are over and its back to the normal routine tomorrow. Not happy about it. I miss seeing my friends everyday but I do not miss getting up and going to  work, the alarm going off, the having to be at someone else's disposal. I like puttering around my house. I like calling my time my own. I know I have gone on and on about this before and I am running the risk of becoming a whining annoying thing. Lets all just mark this as a known fact and move on.

Thursday the Banker and I did a road trip. We started shopping at 9:00 am and did not finish until after 4:00 pm. Our road trip took in our own fair city and two smaller towns. I found some treasures and so did she. We dined at a lovely local cafe. I have come to the conclusion that a good friend to talk to, a piece of delicious cheese cake and a really good cup of coffee, makes for a perfect moment in life. They had my favourite Hungarian mushroom soup on that day so I was pretty much in heaven. Friday, I spent the day running errands, getting groceries, and then I got at the sewing machine and worked on the Church quilt for this year.

Friday night was No Cook, Saturday was a continuation of the quilt making frenzy with a break for Teddy Bear, S and I to go to the movies and see The Host. We all liked it. Today I slept in, spent the rest of the day getting the quilt top finished. Laundry and dishes were included in the events. I even managed to get a nap in there as well. Oh yes it has been a wild weekend around here.

There are more things I want to do around the house. I need to deal with the floor upstairs in the bathroom. I have to repaint the newel post, I have another quilt top to make, I have puppets orders to finish. Oh crap, I am whining again.

Time to stop and maybe go knit something before I head to bed. I hope your weekend was lovely. We had this to look at all day

You cannot tell in this picture but its snowing. Its been snowing all day long. Did Mother Nature not get the memo that its April????????????? Dizzy B****h


Tootles,
Linda

The Upside of Boredom

Every cloud has a silver lining. I know that and I see it more and more each day when I am willing to admit that something good comes out of everything. I thought I had plans last night but they fell through so I was in a position to find something else to fill my evening. Well I can be contrary at times and I could not settle at anything, I was BORED!! The silver lining in my evening was that boredom lead me to playing around on the computer and I FINALLY got my printer to work!! GO ME!!

Then I found the pictures for my laundry room before:

There it is, all wood panel and kitchy wall paper. This spot was once a cupboard but we removed the front, added shelves and eventually moved the washer and dryer onto the one side, stacked to save space.

Here is Busy working away on the papering once the shelves were in. Had I been thinking we would have papered when it was wide open, easy access. Not so smart some times, we did it this way.

and this is the finished product:

The wood panel has been painted a pretty blue, and the wallpaper is a matching blue strip. A vast improvement to what was, no?

Toodles,
Linda

One More Job off the List

While I was out and about this morning, I managed to purchase some new batteries for my camera and therefore I can show you pictures of what I have been up to the last two days. First of all the wall paper in the laundry room. TA DAH!!!!

I really need to find an old picture of what was there before so you can completely appreciate how pretty this looks now. I love my little canister set. It holds oxi-clean, baking soda, borax and washing soda. So much cuter that having the boxes lined up on the shelf. I found them at a thrift store and they are plastic so very easy to clean. The blue bottle is homemade laundry soap. I am currently looking for a nice bottle to keep the bleach in and I will be a happy camper.

That was my yesterday, wallpapering, which is something I actually like to do. Today I tackled the bathroom floor. I have a small bathroom on my main floor tucked discreetly under the stair well. When I moved in, we, (The Carpenter, Busy and I) removed the pink carpet and he laid down lovely white cushion floor. I loved it, it was so fresh and clean. Then the toilet needed to be replaced which left a lovely gap in the flooring at the base of the toilet. Crap!! So I had these nice grey tiles that I had used in the entry and the upper hallway so I put them in and was happy again. Not as pretty as the white floor but cheap and functional, plus I could do it myself. Problem solved so I thought.

One of the joys of living in a century plus old home is that fact that the house moves, shifts and generally lives a life of its own. Over time my nice little grey tiles shifted and slid and left gaps. Ugly gaps where filth collected and gave me the heebie jeebies every time I went in there.

So today I replaced it. Thankfully I have left overs from the living and dining room floors which is laminate planking that will float over the sub floor. No more cracks and gunk collecting. I pulled up the old and replaced it with new and I have to say I am happy with the result. Once again a cheap and easy solution that I could do myself.

The only thing I have to do is get a new metal trim piece for the doorway. I ruined the old one removing it. One stripped screw and I ended up bending it beyond redemption  Its not the worse thing in the world. It was too short for the doorway anyway. Originally installed when there was still carpet in the craft room. I tell this house was wall to wall to wall pink carpet on the main floor when I bought it. YIKES. Tonight before I go to bed I will caulk around the toilet and I am finished. Its not an easy job but I am rather proud of myself that its done and looks as good as it does. 

Tomorrow I have a day out planned with the banker, then sometime over the weekend I am going to see if I can fix the mess changing the toilet in the upstairs bathroom made of the floor. I have an idea of what I would like to do but I don't want to say anything yet in case I cannot do it. 

There you have it, my last two days in a nut shell. I am very happy to be scratching these jobs of my to do list. 

Toodles,

Linda

One Job Done, a Million to Go

Am feeling much better today but I am not 100 % yet. In fact all I want to do right now is go have a snooze on the couch and I will before I think about supper, HappilyI am much much much better than I was yesterday. The queasy feeling is almost gone and mostly I am just tired and achy. Yesterday it was all mopping about, sleeping and feeling sorry for myself, today has been better.

I got up about 9:30 after laying in bed reading for awhile. I love to do that, wake, read for awhile and then get up. I made breakfast, stripped the bed, washed towels and sheets, did the dishes and worked on some puppets. I have another order for 7 puppets from a school so I decided to get at them. One of the Book Club members stopped in this afternoon for a bit of a natter. When she left I got busy and did a job that has been waiting to be completed for around 8 years.

I finally finished the wall paper in the laundry room. Busy did the upper half shortly after I bought the house and she and the Carpenter were here working like rented mules for me. I had told her to leave the rest of it and I would finish it. Today it finally happened. Its all done. The orange and green paper is covered with my lovely blue stripey paper. I would love to show you pictures, before and after but sadly the batteries in my camera died just as I went to take the before picture. I knew in my heart of hearts  that if I stopped and went out for batteries, the wallpapering would never happen. I wanted to have the pictures but wanting the papering done won out. Once I get batteries tomorrow I will take some after pictures for you. Maybe I can scan an old before shot to give you an idea of what it looked like. That is if I get my scanner working.

Tomorrow I am hoping to work up the energy to work on the floor in either bathroom. They both need to be replaced. Jobs like this would be so much easier if I could get onto my knees but that hurts way to much to even entertain the idea. Ah well, I will belly flop around and get it done. I have done the floors in this house that way so I think I can continue to do it.

For now, the couch is calling my name and I am more than happy to go and snuggle up on it.

Toodles,

Linda

April Fools the Joke is on Me

So its April 1st and I have the flu. How happy am I??? Its a lovely way to start my week off. I am not horribly sick, but just off enough to want to spend my time curled up on the couch and doing nothing. Chills, fever, queasy tummy, achy, the whole lovely package. It started yesterday and is still here today. I went to bed at 9:30 last night and did not drag myself up until just before 10 this morning.

I won't go on and on about it. I know I can be a big baby when I don't feel well but no one wants to listen to it for too long. It was a busy week last week. The Nurse and the Entertainer came for a few days visit last week. I had a full calender so I could not spend as much time with them as I would have liked but they are happy to come and go as they please. The Entertainer is beyond cute. My home is filled with Cinderella, Barbie, crayons and story books while she is here. She loves to sing and play pretend. She loves to gather up all my stuffed pigs and play farm with them. Its a joy to watch her. We had a great time selling pigs to each other.

Last week was book club, No Cook Friday was celebrated on Thursday then I headed off to spend the weekend with The Carpenter and Busy. The Pilot and Miss Mouse were home as well. The Farmer did not come with Miss Mouse, he is getting ready for seeding. The Teacher did not come with The Pilot as she was in Cuba with her sister so it was just the original members of the family.  It was a lovely weekend. They had a funeral to attend so I spent some time on my own but its not like they had planned it, I did not mind. I got seven puppets made which made me happy. I headed home yesterday and now I have a week off. I hope I get over what ever it is that I have and I can get at the mile long "To Do" list that I have done up for this week. I wanted to wall paper and then replace floors in both bathrooms. Time will tell.

Well I am going to go sort the laundry. I can at least do that inbetween naps on the couch. I hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend. I may even try to shorten some pants and fix some shirts that have been in the mending pile for far too long.

Toodles,
Linda