Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!!

I learned some things tonight. Usually I go out with Little R and Hubby stays home to hand out candy. This year Little R went over to a friends, and I now have a strong suspision theres a party in progress over there, so I stayed home, dressed up and handed out candy. Well, what I learned is, I only need to buy about a quarter of the amount of stuff I've been buying every year! I kept asking Hubby, "is this it?" He said it was par. I am going to have a ton of stuff left over. So what happens to all the candy every year then??
Ah well, its fun!
Something else I learned is not to rush putting on the Halloween make-up. Because thats what I did, expecting trick-or-treaters at the door any minute, silly me. I realise I could have done a much better job of it if I had taken my time.
Heres me...





And the kids...



And our Jack-o-lanterns...









Hubby did take some pictures of the pumpkins without the flash, they look very cool, but alas, he uses a different mode on the camera, making them too big to upload. Oh well, it was a good time. Little R isn't even home yet.
Have a good night.

Tobogganing Anyone?

Well, good morning. I would have been here sooner, but our power was out for almost 12 hours.
Yesterday there were weather warnings in effect, cautioning about strong winds and snow squalls. Not much happened, it snowed for a good part of the morning but didn't stick.
We took Little R for her interview with the 4H top dogs, in regards to her nomination, did a little shopping, and checked out a new-to-us greasy spoon for brunch. We were in Fergus, Elora, Guelph and Arthur. Came home for a bit, let the dog out etc. then headed out again in the other direction. Did some more shopping, got our Halloween pumpkins etc. As we were coming home for the night, it started. By 8:00 or so it was a bonafide snow storm. By 11 the satellite was breaking up and by midnight we had no satellite.
I had stayed up, playing euchre online, enjoying a blazing fire, with SoapNet playing the weeks episodes of "The Young And The Restless" on in the background.
I was waiting to watch "Ugly Betty", coming on SoapNet at 12, because, I admit, I've been watching it from the beginning and missed this weeks episode, the Halloween episode.
The power started flickering, then it went off, on, off, on, for quite a while, and finally just never came back on. Every once in a while it would do the on-off thing several times. It finally came back on at 11:20 this morning.
I took a few pictures, from when I got up and throughout the morning.













So, yeah, the house was just starting to get a little chilly when the furnace kicked on.
I have a feeling it's going to be a very quiet Halloween around here. It's supposed to rain. The number of trick-or-treaters we get is limited to begin with, bad weather AND being on a school night should just about kill it.
I'm off to help the family carve pumpkins.
Have a pleasant Sunday!

It's The Little Things

This was the view this morning, a glorious sunrise, it was just gorgeous. This photo doesn't pick up the extreme pinkness, it was incredible.





It was so promising. What a disappointment to have a dreary, cold, rainy, day, again.




Aside from living amongst thieves, we also have ignorant slobs who threw a tire in the ditch beside our place. My first thought was, that someone put it there knowing, that because of where my Hubby works, he has access to correctly dispose of tires. That's just one of the generous things he has done for all the chumps in this town, get rid of their old tires for them. Since they did what they did, rather than ask Hubby to dispose of it, I can only deduce that it was one of the idiots we are no longer on friendly terms with, and likely the same morons who are stealing our mail. And that should help the draining of the ditches a whole lot. Lets just fill em up with garbage. Yeah ok.

Such is life in a small town. It's the little things. And the little people.

On the bright side and speaking of little people, Little R was nominated by the 4H Club for an "Outstanding Achievement Award!" How nice for her to have her efforts recognized. We are quite proud of our Little R, (Big R too).

Living Amongst Thieves

So this is what we have to deal with...

In the past month, we've had 2 cheques disappear from the mail. One was a monthly government cheque from last month, and the other is an insurance cheque. They just never arrived. I know from experience that our mail delivery person can be careless at times. It's not uncommon to get someone elses mail in our box. When this happens, if I know who it is, I will just stick it in their box. If I'm not sure which box is theirs, I will take it to their door. If I don't know who it is, I leave it for the mail lady to pick up the next day. I DON'T take it home and let it sit there. I DON'T throw it away. I DON'T steal it. Isn't it odd that they are both cheques which are missing? We seem to get all of our bills no problem. So, someone, somewhere along the line, is playing games. Either someone found them mistakenly delivered to their box and didn't deal with it appropriately, or someone actually stole them out of our box. Either way, it isn't right. But it is nothing but an inconvenience. Both cheques have been stopped.
Now that I'm thinking about it, my Hubby recently lost his bank card too. Now, I must wonder if he actually lost it, or if maybe it was taken. We live amongst thieves...oh lucky us.
Have a great day.

It Rained For 40 Days And 40 Nights...

Good morning.

I have this incredible urge to commence building an ark.

The day I took the pictures of our overflowing ditch, the water level was actually lower than it had been, certainly lower than it is now. I had taken the opportunity of a lull in the downpour to snap a couple of pics. Afterall, I do not want my fabulous camera to get wet!

It is wonderful to have heat again. Especially when it's cold AND wet out. As far as I know the furnace is completely fixed now, shouldn't have any more trouble with it, this year anyways.

So yeah, I don't know whats up with the ditch. It's supposed to drain away. I have an inkling its to do with the folks a couple of doors over whose driveway has collapsed on top of the drainpipes. You know, the folks whose yard and home is otherwise completely immaculate. The folks who live for appearances. Since I previously always lived in the city, I've never had a ditch drainage system before, but obviously, the water is supposed to run along the ditch, under the driveways through pipes, down to the middle of the street, where there are larger pipes which carry the water out to the field. It worked fine last year and the year before that. There are 3 homes between us and the larger pipes, the last 2 with caved in driveways. There is a pipe running under the road, from across the street, which drains their ditches over to our side, so we're getting their water too. Their ditches are empty. I'm not sure, but I think its a township issue.

Speaking of the township, there is an election coming up and we've been notified that we are to vote via mail. The notices make no mention of voting in person. How bogus is that? This leaves far too much room for tampering etc. Like I'm just gonna send off my vote in the mail and hope it arrives intact? I've had birthday cards stolen from the mail, never mind a ballot! Cripes, what will they think of next?

Well, I'm off, to google "ark building". Have a lovely day.

Robbie McLennan

Good morning.
Or is it?
The first thing I noticed this morning was how cold the house is. The dam furnace is on the fritz again! We put the call in, they'll be here today or tomorrow to finish the job of fixing it.

I don't know what possessed me to read the news this morning, but, as always, I regret it. I didn't get past this article in the Toronto Sun.

The first I had heard of this case, was soon after we moved here in 2003. There was a big article about it in our local paper. That article recounted all the gorey details. The crime was upsetting enough, but I was just as upset with the paper for printing the details. I felt it was insensitive to the family of this boy. Though I'm sure it is all indelible on their minds and hearts, I didn't feel I needed to know, or that they needed to re-live it. I was also upset thinking we had moved out of the city in hopes of avoiding crime, and this hideous crime had happened a year before we moved here. My heart immediately went out to these people. How do you survive such a blow to your life? How do you deal with it? How do you go on?
I have come to realise that the media publishes these things over and over in an attempt to outrage people like me. People who will then write letters to politicians expressing their outrage.

What is so outrageous? The Young Offenders Act!
There is no way that 20 year old should be being released. That was a slap on the wrist if ever there was one!
This was a heinous crime. His identity is protected! How about protecting society from creatures like him?
These were not messed up little kids. These were evil, hateful, dangerous, psychos!
Obviously, Robbie was a good kid, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong people. He was tortured to death! He did not deserve such a fate, no one does. Those bastards had no right to decide his fate, and should have given up their own rights when they did.

I may be naive, I am naive about many things, one of them being the YOA. That's because I haven't had to deal with it, and that's because I raised my kids to be decent and good people!

From what I've read about it today, it is merely the "Juvenile Delinquents Act", revised. I understand that children and adults should be dealt with seperately in the courts. I get that. But come on! These creatures were quite old enough to understand what they were doing and how very wrong it was. In fact, they were old enough to also understand that in this country they would more than likely get away with it.

I am so emotional about this, I'm having trouble keeping a level head. I don't want to sound like a complete redneck, ready to initiate a lynch mob. But basically, that's how I feel.

This country needs a NEW GOVERNMENT. We need to change some laws. We need to get back to basics like " do the crime, do the time."

The McLennan family have endured enough without having this insult added to their injuries. They have shown amazing restraint and strength. My heart goes out to them. They have a website, I would encourage anyone to check it out.

Have a good day.

Waterfront Property For Sale

If we were to put our house on the market today, we could call it a "waterfront property". "Sprawling 3 bedroom side-split on a lanscaped .38 acre lot featuring a lovely woodburning fireplace and a meandering river running along the edge of the property, also featuring a convenient pond for the fishing enthusiast."

Why Do Today What You Can Put Off Until Tomorrow?

Good morning.

Hubby had put it off until Sunday. He was sure he had gone on a Sunday before. They were closed. The dog needs his toenails clipped, badly. I whip out the phone book and start calling dog grooming places. No answer. No voicemail. Then I see a really local number, and the conversation went like this...

Her: "Hello?"
Me: "Oh...Hi! Hey do you clip dogs?"
Her: "Um...yeah."
At this point Hubby is flapping his arms at me saying "nails, nails, do they clip dogs NAILS!?"
Me: "Like toenails? You clip dogs nails?"
Her: "Yeah."
Me: "Well, are you open today or whatever?"
Her: "Um, wellllllll....actually I was just on my way out, but, um, well, yeah ok."
Me: "Uhuh...ok.
Her: "Ok, can I call you when I get back in a couple of hours?"
Me: "Yeah sure."
Her: "Ok."
Me: "Here I'll give you my cell # because we'll be going out too."
Her: "Well, are you going to be around in a couple of hours?"
Me: "Yeah."
Me: "Hey! Is this Michelle?!!?"
Her: "What?"
All of a sudden she sounded exactly like my neighbour Michelle, EXACTLY like her.
Me: "Oh nevermind, you just sounded familiar, like someone I know."
Her: "Oh, you thought I was someone you know?"
Me: "Yeah. Who are you?" Chuckle.
Her: "This is Sue. And you are?"
Me: "Char."
Her: "How long has it been since he had it done?"
Me: "I don't know, a while."
Her: "And how is he about having it done?"
Me: "Good, he's fine."
Her: "And what kind of dog is he?"
My brain was screaming at me DON'T TELL HER!
Me: "Rotti/Shepperd." Chuckle.
Her: "Ok I'll call you when I get back."
Me: "Ok, great."
Her: "You won't find anyone else. Nobody is open today."
Me: "Oh."
Her: "K bye."
Me: "Thanks, bye."
Hubby is flapping again, how much, HOW MUCH?
Me: "Wait, wait! How much is it?"
Her: "Ten bucks."
Me: "Ok thanks bye."

My phone never left my pocket. She never called. My poor guy still needs his nails clipped. Hubby says "you should have said he was a poodle. Then when we get there, just laugh and pretend you had him confused with your daughters new puppy or something." Yeah, ok Honey.
The truth is, he is amazingly good about it. He just sits there like he's at a spa having a pedicure. We do put a muzzle on him anyways, just to make the groomer feel safe. He can be intimidating looking, and he is judged by his looks all the time. Watch the Dog Whisperer people! Cesar loves Rottis. They are fantastic dogs. He is a cross of two breeds which are both powerful, smart, fearless and loyal. Both breeds are used for guarding, and as police dogs and stuff like that. ALL dogs have the capability of being vicious. But my guy gets a bad rap all the time just because of his breed and his looks. As long as they are trained and treated properly, they are fine. Anyways, I guess we'll have to make an appointment for this weekend for him. No more putting it off. Besides the place we usually go to only charges $5! and they know him and LIKE him.

When Hubby returned from the cigarette run on Saturday, he asked me to put the smokes away in the freezer. I reach into the bag and there is something strange, wrapped in tissue. Ah! It's a belt, with a very cool buckle, for me. Thanks Honey. He didn't really get me anything for my birthday, he assumed I would co-operate and pick something for myself, but he was wrong about that. He did run into some bad weather on that trip, but it was nothing we didn't get here too. Hail and sleet and snow.
Sunday turned out to be quite decent weatherwise. It was mainly sunny and almost mild when the wind wasn't whipping. We went to town, he needed a new blade for his chainsaw. We got that and a few other things. He bought me a new axe! We spent the afternoon chopping firewood as we waited for Sue the dog groomer to call. He cut the big stuff up with his chainsaw and I split it with my new axe. Hubby is getting increasingly impatient and belligerent with old people, especially if they are driving. He stopped in front of Walmart to let an old lady cross the road and go into Walmart. He's like "That's right granny, take yer time, around the block in 80 days, there ya go..." and on and on. But when they are driving, he FREAKS out. This is due to his accident being caused by an old man driving his wife's car. He now believes old people shouldn't be allowed out, much less to drive on our roads.

I watched TV Sunday night! I rarely watch TV. All I really watch is soaps. I watched Extreme Makeover Home Edition and bawled through the whole thing. I really hate when Ty yells through that bullhorn. I can't imagine actually being there, if I was, I would proabably say something to him about it. Like "Dude, totally unneccesary and most annoying, got any Tylenol?" Then I watched Desperate Housewives. That show reminds me of here, just with lots more money. And then I watched a newer show called Brothers & Sisters. Sally Field plays the matriarch. Not sure, I did sit there and watch the whole thing, kind of enjoyed it. Our satellite is screwy, there is no guide, so I never know whats on. All I know is Soap Net and ABC when my soaps are on Monday to Friday afternoons. Other than that, its sit and scan through all the channels and see what I find. Since we now have a big screen TV, I guess I feel a little obligated to USE it.
It seems this unseasonably cold freakish weather has killed off my gardens. That means I must dig up some of my bulbs now. This morning is pouring rain, so it won't be happening today.
I've been reading my horoscope, and it needs to catch up. It keeps telling me things that I already know or that have already happened. However it didn't tell me to expect a belt and an axe for my birthday! Wouldn't have seen that coming!
Have a great day.

I AM The Packleader

Hey there.
This weather is insane. On one side of the street it's sunny and on the other it's blackness. It goes from rain to sleet to snow and back again. It's windy as all get out. The snow melts as fast as it falls. Apparently I missed it, I was asleep...surprise!, when the ground was covered today. Hubby has gone on a cigarette run, and he will be driving right into the area hit the hardest by this freakish weather.
So I was awake from 1 a.m until about 6 a.m. Crawled into bed with Hubby, who is the most restless sleeper on earth, and pulled out my new book to read. He didn't even notice me laughing hysterically. I laughed myself to tears over a blog entry about a puppy gone wild. A puppy with the skills of Houdini for getting out of his crate, no understanding of the English language and a fetish for toilet brushes. I eventually came to the conclusion that I was tired, put the book down, killed the light and lay there for an hour listening to Hubby snore, grumble, fart uncontrollably, toss, turn, sprawl, jump, bounce and have loud conversations with dream entities before I said GET OUT. Then, finally, blissful sleep engulfed me. Slept until 11 a.m. That's when we had birthday cake. Cherry cake with chocolate frosting. Cake for breakfast, yeah, that's a healthy lifestyle. Well what the hell, I was eating battered shrimp at 6 a.m. And I wonder why I'm so fucked up??
But all is not lost, after several episodes about deadly spiders in Australia on the National Geographic channel, I got to see an episode of The Dog Whisperer. I LOVE that guy. Cesar Millan you rule! Watching his show has really helped me with my Bear. He is so right on about how us humans tend to "humanize" our dogs. Every time I watch this show I learn new ways that I allow Bear to rule me. And when I put Cesar's methods to use, they really work. Todays episode happened to feature a Rotti who was the total boss of his owner. Like Cesar said, when you have a dog that powerful, you must have 100% control of it at all times or bad shit will happen. I have some control over my Bear, but nowhere near 100%. Oh yeah, the featured dog's name was Bearz, hmmm. For the last week or so, I've been putting to practise the going in and out the door first, keeping him behind me when out for walks, making him sit, calm down and wait for getting his leash put on and stuff like that. Lo and behold, he doesn't resent it at all. He is happy to do as he's told. If only young humans were so easy.
Here's a picture, taken yesterday, of me and my Bear...is he dominating me here?



The 100 lb. lap dog.

The Lamest Birthday

Good morning.
Due to pulling yet another all-nighter, I slept from around 7 a.m til 1.pm. Was back in bed by 9 and am up again at 1 in the morning. Ugh. Dam PMS. Needless to say we didn't even seriously entertain the idea of going to Port Dover. It snowed off and on all day long. I was shivering from the cold even with my parka on just going from the car to the store.
Hubby and I did spend a couple of hours in town. He ended up getting mad at me because I wouldn't just pick out a birthday present for myself. Sorry, my goal was to shop for other stuff. When we got home there was a gift waiting for me from my firend S.W. Thank you! Sorry I missed you.
Honestly, it was the lamest birthday I've ever had, maybe. But, being 45, it was no big deal to me.
For whatever reason, I found myself thinking today about the time, years ago, that a guy ahead of us in line at the grocery store gave the cashier $20 toward our goceries. We were doing our weekly shopping and had a cart full of stuff and this guy just had a couple of things. He asked me if he could get in front of us as he was in a hurry. I said yeah sure why not. He was polite about it. No biggie. When we went to pay our bill the cashier told us what he did, but by then he was already gone. I just thought that was cool.
I have no idea what made me think about that today, it was quite a while ago.
Thank you to everyone for the birthday well wishes.
Have a great day.

Happy Birthday To Me!

When I first started this blog~technically this isn't my first blog btw~there was no intent, no goal, no knowledge. I had no idea what path it would take. To me, I was just learning about something new. I was completely unaware of the blogosphere. I just thought "hey this is neat, I wanna try this". I started out being very open, honest and just babbling about my day-to-day life. It grew, it evolved, I started putting effort into it, trying to be funny, amusing, entertaining, articulate, intelligent, informative. I only have a grade eight education here. I dropped out of school in grade nine because I thought I had bigger and better things to do with my life. In light of that fact, my life hasn't turned out so bad. I gained a small readership, unbeknownst to me for a while. I must admit, I shied away after a couple of negative experiences, negative responses. I deleted everything. Sadly, the truth is, I've had more negative than positive responses. I haven't even checked in the longest time to see how many or who may be reading this. I don't want to know at this point. See, I've never been a "public" type person before. I'm not a writer or a poet or a journalist. I'm just me. A 45 year old (as of today~Happy Birthday To Me!!) housewife, mother of 2 daughters and a dog.
I have had days where I was ... well lets face it ... a total bitch, to people on here. But in my mind, and still, they started it. I have found, since deleting everything and trying to start over, I've lost it. I am more boring than I would have thought was possible.
This whole thing has become the start of a journey for me, the journey into my own mind and soul. I am discovering, uncovering, realizing, understanding things about myself I never really thought of before. In other aspects of my life I have had to be very strong, and proven myself to be so. So why would I run from negative responses to my blog? That's just downright silly. Obviously not everyone will agree with everything. That's life.
It is unfortunate that I have turned into somewhat of a hermit in recent months and so have nothing much to blog about. That's exactly what I've always done when I become depressed (and I did mention at the very beginning, that I have always battled depression). I avoid the world and I sleep a lot. But you know what I've just realized? It's usually brought on by an incident, by a negative experience, by outside forces, by other people. It doesn't come from within me. At least I force myself to continue on and keep plugging away, going out, living my life, just on a lower scale, at a slower pace, quieter. I don't allow myself to become a complete hermit. And, as I know from experience, one day it will just break, and I will be back to my normal out-going, fun-loving, self.
So today is my birthday. It is also Friday the 13th in Port Dover. I've been looking forward to this day all year! What a party we're gonna have! Yeah right. I've once again managed to be up all night long. There is fucking SNOW on the ground out there. Half the people we would have been going with or meeting up with, hate my guts at this point (for no real reason, just their self-righteous, petty little brain farts). I don't feel this need to prove to anyone that I am a "real biker" by suffering such a long cold ride to go be with all the other bikers. I must say, someone out on my street is stupid or brave enough, I hear bikes leaving at 6 a.m. Honestly, it is a blast, and I will regret missing it, but I can't bring myself to do it. I HATE being cold. That was the whole purpose of buying the trailer which sits in our driveway. But, we haven't touched it, it isn't ready to go. We just put it off too long. And who would have expected such cold and snow? Not my idea of a pleasant scoot. I have nothing but the utmost respect for those brave, bold or insane enough to go. After that bout of bronchitis I just had, I do not want to feel like that again. And here I go defending myself again! Sheesh. I'm sorry, I will miss seeing some faces and some bikes, but I will not miss freezing my titties off and coming home sick. I mean it's -3C out there! No thanks, I'd rather stay cozy (thankfully) and bake a cake and sit by a blazing fire and go to town for a romantic lunch with my Hubby and shop. It won't be the first one we've missed nor the last, I'm sure. Besides, I do find the whole thing to be getting a little too commercial and too big, line ups for everything. Am I just trying to talk myself out of it here or what? Nah, I'm just a wimp who hates being cold.
Total change of topic here, my niece's surgery, which I now understand to be a biopsy, was pushed back to yesterday I think. I'm getting all this info from my sister, so not sure. I hope she's ok. I haven't talked to her in so long I would feel like I was intruding if I was to just up and call her now, of all times. We were very close as kids, being so close in age and living near each other. Then we didn't speak at all for many years, just went our seperate ways. One day I decided it was time to put the past behind us and I called her up out of the blue. We started talking more and visiting each other, that went on for a couple of years and then just stopped. Then I only saw her a couple of times at family barbecues and the like. My last contact was last Christmas she sent me a card saying she had had a really rough year and giving me her email address which I already had. I have since sent her countless emails and got no reply. I'll wait a respectable amount of time and give her a call.
This is probably the first birthday where I don't feel the slightest little excitement or anticipation. It's like any other day. Same with the snow. I used to get all excited over snow. One reason we chose here to live, lots of snow. It isn't doing a thing for me. I could do without it even. It used to bring on feelings of joy, thoughts of cozy Norman Rockwell Christmases. Now it's dread of all the shovelling ahead. Oh yeah, I forgot, we have a snowblower now! Yay! However thats something else we've been putting off. It needs a new tire and a coat of paint. Sounds like a good project for this weekend. Speaking of Christmas, normally I would have a big dent in my shopping done by now, not so this year. Don't even have any ideas on what to get for my loving family. However I do have my Halloween goody bags all made up already. Ever since I discovered, well more accurately, was introduced to, Dollarama, I was buying Halloween candy there, the last few years. Then last year I actually ate some of it. It was gross. I asked my daughter why she didn't tell me how bad it was and she just assumed I knew LOL. NOOOOOO...I had no idea, I assumed candy is candy.
Uh-uh. So I vowed to buy real, name brand, tried and tasted candy from then on. And thats exactly what I did for this year. This will be Little R's last year to go out trick-or-treating, and I basically had to talk her into it, well, when I told her we weren't having a party for her instead, she decided she could do it one more year. She is going to be a princess. This will be a first. I have the perfect dress for the ocassion in my closet, not sure where it came from, I think it may have been from my deceased sister's closet, a mother-of-the-bride type of deal. Its pink and covered in sequins and tiny pearls. At any rate, she'll need a tiara, evening gloves, jewels and some make-up and she's good to go. In recent years we've really gotten into enjoying Halloween, doing up the house and dressing up. It's on a school night this year, so that kinda sucks, will make for an early night. But it's all for fun for the kids right. I even got Bear a clown costume. Stay tuned for photos of that in a couple of weeks.
So yeah, I know I have a few faithful readers, and a few lurkers. Hopefully I will get a life soon and have something entertaining to talk about. Otherwise, sorry I've been so boring.
Happy Friday the 13th!
Have a fabulous day!

Home Is Where You Hang Your Hat!

Well they weren't kidding about the snow squalls. There was a small one this morning, I then took the dog out and was shocked at how cold it was. I ended up sleeping most of the day away. When I awoke it was snowing hard. I'm not sure if it snowed at all while I was asleep. But it has started to stick and that's scarey.
I started reading my new book, that makes it 5 books I have on the go now, and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I look forward to reading some of the blogs that are mentioned. The web addresses are listed with each blog entry in the book.
I took some pictures of the snow for you to see, just in case you didn't get some yourself, lol.











Todays overview of my horoscope is interesting, to me anyways. You know how I always say I don't feel at home in my own home? I'm out there looking for a new house all the time. The house I grew up in appears in many of my dreams.
Are you longing for the pleasures of home? Hey -- you can't relive the past, and any attempts to do so could end up being more trouble than they're worth. It's time to learn that home is anywhere you hang your hat.
So, I just have to learn that home is where I hang my hat! Simple!

Fall Photos

Good morning.
Last week I received a birthday card in the mail from my sister up north. I thought that was thoughtful. On the weekend, my father gave me a card with $$. I almost cried, the card was so sweet and sentimental. Yesterday I received a book in the mail. Big R had ordered it for me. It is "Never Threaten To Eat Your Coworkers-Best Of Blogs". I LOVE it!
Tomorrow is the big day. We are debating what to do. We may still head out to Port Dover. It'll be up in the air until the last minute no doubt.
I made an attempt at resizing the pictures I took in HUGE mode. So here they are, the first couple were taken just around the corner from home the others are just around the yard.
There's a snowsquall warning in effect for our area today!!





















Yay it worked. Ok have a great day.

No Pictures

Good morning.
Hubby and I went for a drive Monday afternoon. Just to take in some scenery and looking at houses for sale. I found another dreamhouse. Now there's 2 homes I'm in love with. By the time we are ready to buy one, I'm hoping one of them will still be available.
I took a couple of pictures just around the corner...but they are too big to upload, grrrrr.
I took a couple of photos around the yard yesterday...dammit, they are also too big to upload. What was I thinking? Oh well if I ever figure out how to make them smaller I will post them, very pretty fall pictures.
Its rainy and cold today. A good day to sit inside playing euchre.
Have a great day.

Happy Thanksgiving Again

Greetings.
I received this today and just had to share. Thank you Critter!



Hope you all are having a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.
Remember to be thankful.

More Photos

Good afternoon.
Finally crashed this morning around 6 a.m and got a good 8 hours of sleep.

I recently read on a website, the Ontario SPCA site actually, about introducing dogs to each other and bringing a new dog into your home and stuff like that. It says they will determine for themselves who is dominant and who is submissive and they'll be happy with that. Its the natural order of things. It says us humans should not interfere. That was kind of difficult with Penelope and Bear. We were all (well all except Hubby) confident that he wouldn't actually hurt her, but, I know if he did, Big R would never forgive me. He did accidentally step on her, twice, when they were running around and she cried out (she's very tiny). He growled at her any time she went near me, his food, or his toy. When we tried to give her her own toy, he wanted it, so we had to put it away, he would have trashed it in seconds. It was very funny to watch them. He doesn't have the best manners, but at the same time, he wasn't that bad either. And she was pretty smart, she would hide from him in places he was too big to get at. She followed him around, sometimes he would tolerate this and sometimes he would turn around and snarl at her. He gave us a couple of scares where he sort of barked and lunged at her, but, he wouldn't have bit her or anything, he was just telling her to back off. Of course Hubby freaked out, (he really needs to read that website) and yelled at my poor guy. My only regret is not having the video camera on them and filming their silly doggy antics. Oh well, next time.

I realized last night that I probably give the impression I don't like Big R's boyfriend. I don't mean to give that impression. I noticed I never hug him, which is strange. I didn't introduce him as her boyfriend yesterday. In my defense, I think I do that subconciously on purpose because I don't want to seem pushy. Even though they do live together and he has given her a ring and they say they plan to get married some day, I'll believe it when I see it. It's weird, it's like I'm afraid of getting attached to him. I think I got attached to her previous boyfriend and then they broke up. So, just to be clear, I DO like him, even if it doesn't seem like I do. Hehehe.




So that's them, the loves of my daughters life, Isaac and Penelope. Cute eh?

Ok I'm off to watch a Christmas movie and play some euchre. I'm gonna try to get a photo of Little R with all her prize ribbons at some point.
Have a great evening.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Good morning.
I shouldn't be awake. I don't know how I'm awake. On Friday I pulled another all-nighter. I really got into the house cleaning. You know how it is, once you wipe a spot on a wall you have to wipe the whole wall. Plus it was a full moon and I never sleep well when there's a full moon. Little R had to be up quite early Saturday morning to go to the Erin Fall Fair and get Gem ready for the last 4-H show. I had just dozed off when it was time to get her up. Then there was no turning back. I spent the morning continuing to house clean, then threw the turkey in the oven and headed off to the fair. Our guests met us there. Little R kicked ass! For reasons I'm not sure of, this show went on a lot longer than any others before. She was in the ring several times. She came in first a couple of times! She also placed 3rd (moved up from 4th!). We actually left before it was finished, so I'm not sure how she did after we left. I was concerned about Bear being stuck in the house alone for so long and the turkey in the oven, so we missed her last round.
It was so nice to have my father and daughter there! I don't see them often enough. Big R brought her puppy, and it was the cutest thing! EVERYONE has to stop to pet her. She is quite the show stopping little ham lol. She dances! This consists of standing on her hind legs and turning in circles. Too cute! Very well behaved too. I was leery bringing her home to Bear lol. They had a couple of moments, but generally they got along ok. It was pretty funny at times. They were both stealing bites out of each others food bowls when the others back was turned, they raced around chasing each other in circles outside. Keep in mind Penelope the puppy is about the size of Bears head. Friggin hilarious.
By the time we got home from the fair, I was exhausted, but then it was time to prepare the dinner. I LOVE the smell of turkey cooking, that was very nice to come home to. Amazingly, everything turned out excellent. Everyone enjoyed their meal. Big R brought some homemade desserts, oatmeal/chocolate chip cookies AND these pumpkin delight things. I have never liked pumpkin pie or anything with pumpkin, but this stuff was delicious. It was like pumpkin cheesecake. Apparently being unemployed has turned my daughter into some kind of domestic goddess.
After dinner I came downstairs for a smoke and ended up falling asleep in the chair. The next thing I knew I was being woke up to say goodbye to my guests. I didn't go to bed until 11 and then woke up at 2 a.m and have been up ever since. I'm burnt. Now the Thanksgiving dinner is out of the way, we can kick back, relax and enjoy the rest of the long weekend (in a clean house, living on leftovers lol).
Next weekend will be a long weekend also. Friday the 13th in Port Dover AND my 45th birthday. Hubby takes Friday the 13ths off work so we can go to Port Dover. Not sure if we'll be going or not. The weather hasn't been promising. I'd hate to get sick again from a cold ride. We haven't done anything with the trailer, it does need some work, like new tires. He told me the weather network was calling for snow, but I think he was pulling my leg. Though, yesterday morning there was a heavy frost, all the rooftops were white. We are not good at making plans. Even when we do plan something, it rarely happens the way its supposed to.
I am so tired...3 hours of sleep in the last 2 nights, ugh. I'm not capable of being witty, amusing or even mildly entertaining, so heres some pictures from yesterday...

AAAACK!

Good morning.
I am gagging. It REEKS in here. My Guy went and got himself sprayed by a skunk again this morning. He was on the trail of something as soon as he went out the door. I guess he found it. It figures...we're having company on Saturday. My 91 year old father, Big R and her man, are coming up to attend Litte R's last 4-H competetion and have a Thanksgiving dinner after the show. So now I have to de-skunk the dog and the house before Saturday UGH.

It is so nice to have heat again!

I went to the dentist again yesterday for another "fitting". The dentures will be ready in a week. I just have to make arrangements to get the rest of my teeth removed. The oral surgeon happened to be there yesterday so I spoke to him about it. He said I will have to go to his Brampton office again, he can't do it up here, because we need the anasthesiologist, because I smoke so much (UGH) I'm a hard case for putting under and he can't do it himself. The alternatives are having them pulled with just freezing. There's 9 teeth to go. I don't think I could sit through that in one shot. And if we did a couple at a time, I wouldn't be able to eat for weeks. I must admit, it's the whole being put under, being unconcious that scares me. I'm always afraid something will go wrong and I won't wake up. I fear that more than having teeth pulled. It is going to be so weird having no teeth of my own. Well, technically I will still have 2, on the bottom, to hook the bottom denture onto. I don't know, it beats getting toothaches I guess.

Bubba the St. Bernard will be going home to his owner this weekend. I'm gonna miss him. Hubby was hoping we could bring him home and keep him. I kept telling him we proabably couldn't afford to feed him lol. Big R will be bringing her new puppy with her on Saturday. Should be interesting. Bear doesn't seem to bother with smaller dogs and puppies, to date. We shall see.

The power has gone out a couple of times this week. The other day it blipped off early in the morning, just long enough to mess up all the clocks. Luckily it woke me up so I could get Hubby up for work. Yesterday, we had a terrific storm early in the morning, just in time to get Hubby up for work, and the power went out for a little while. So we had a candlelit breakfast. That's one thing about living in a rural situation, we have issues with the power. Every storm it goes out. Any time a vehicle hits a pole out on the main roads it goes out. But in 3 years, we have become accustomed to it.

I am looking forward to this weekend. Didn't need the extra work of de-skunking the place though. Oh well, thats life.
Have a great day.

The Heat Is On

Good day.

Well, the furnace guy called here on Friday and said he was expecting the part to be delivered Saturday and would be out as soon as it came in. I thought they don't work weekends, but wasn't about to question this. Saturday rolls around, and it's an ugly day, quite cold and raining like mad, ugly awful day. Me, Hubby, Litte R and Bear are all huddled around the fireplace trying to keep warm. Hubby started calling the furnace guy around 11, the guy says "I'm sitting here looking at the part", but he can't leave the shop until the other guy returns from a call he's on. UGH. After calling him twice, and just throwing the last pieces of split wood on the fire, he finally shows up, around 1:30-2:00 in the afternoon. I couldn't believe how nervous I was that he wasn't actually going to be able to fix the thing! I was freaking inside. Because they had been here a month ago with the wrong part, and I was so very fed up with being cold all the time. He was here for hours. The first time the furnace kicked on, haven't heard that sound in months, I stood over a floor vent upstairs checking if it was real lol. So, the house is toasty warm again sigh. But there's still a problem which he will have to come back and replace another part. Whatever the problem is, sometimes it won't start up on the first go and has to go through its cycle a couple of times before it will actually start. But whatever, it's working for now. Yay!

After sitting here with him all afternoon and whatnot and because Hubby had not gone to work, we decided to attend one of the parties we were invited to. The deciding factor was one of them started at 4 and was only 20 minutes away, the other was at 9 and an hour away. So around 6 we headed over to the exclusive party. It turned out to be even more exclusive than we had expected. We had a great time and were home before midnight! lol I must apologize to the other folks who invited us out, I'm sure you understand, and I hope you all had a great time too. We'll catch ya next time. Happy Birthday Willy!!

I spoke to my sister the other day and got some really bad news. My niece, who is actually 7 months older than me (don't ask), making her 45, has friggin lung cancer! She has 2 tumors on one lung. She goes for surgery the day before Thanksgiving. I feel so bad for her and her family. As far as I know she smokes but not nearly as much as me. She had a nagging cough after getting a virus. I still have a nagging cough and chest congestion! This is not good odds for me. Two sisters and two of their daughters all with cancer, gawd. However, I did just have chest xrays, that's how they knew I had bronchitis, so I would like to think if they saw anything else I would be informed. She is so in my thoughts. I sure hope all goes well for her with this. More motivation for me to quit smoking I tell ya. Up until age 40, your body seems to take care of itself. You can abuse it and do all kinds of stupid things. As soon as you hit 40, it all starts falling apart. You really have to start taking care of yourself.

Our power was out all morning today. We had received a couple of phone calls from Hydro telling us it would be out from 7 a.m til 10:30 or so. So even though the furnace was fixed and working it wasn't working all morning lol. I had forgotten all about this and woke up at 7 to this horrible loud beeping. My new computer has this power box thing that keeps the power on so you can shut it down properly when the power goes out. When the power goes out it beeps, LOUD. Nobody seems to know WHY Hydro did this, what they were doing. I asked a few neighbours, nobody knew. So we piled in the truck bright and early and headed into town for breakfast and coffee, which was nice, we don't do that often enough. We were invited to a Show & Shine today, but, we couldn't take the bike for one thing, it wasn't that nice of a day even though it was sunny and Hubby had promised to help out a friend today, so we didn't bother going.

My goodness...BORING...

Oh yeah, here's pictures of Bubba, the abused St. Bernard. He's still just a pup, and he is enormous. You can't really judge his size from the pictures.








What a cutiepatootie!!
Have an enjoyable evening.