Unloading

I'm a mess. PMS. I feel sick, emotionally and physically. My nerves are fried too. This last couple of months having Hubby home has been like culture shock. I don't really talk about it much on here, but our life is really a mess right now. We're under a great deal of stress. Add to that being caged in at home with Hubby, and all the extra driving going to appointments almost every day. This knee thing has compounded the back thing. The stress of the pending and impending lawsuit. The stress of paying all the bills AND paying for all the medications. The uncertainty of our future is just maddening. There is just so much going on and yet we're in this limbo-like state, paralyzed with uncertainty. Hubby wants to go back to work, but he isn't physically in condition for it, and the doctors are in agreement with that. His boss isn't making it very attractive for him to go back either. Financially, he NEEDS to go back to work. I'm not there when he sees the doctor, or when he's in physiotherapy. I don't hear what's going on. Sure I drive him around, but then I go do my own thing, rather than sitting in the waiting rooms. I'm not in on all the communications with the lawyer. I only hear Hubby's version of what's going on. And he isn't real clear on that himself. We're home together most of the time, just in each others faces. The novelty has worn off. We've never been through any type of lawsuit before, its all new to us, we have no idea what to expect at each turn. It's very hard on the nerves. We can't make any solid plans. Our future is up in the air. It's all very hard.
So I guess the way I alleviate stress is to shop, to spend money. Well that's ONE way. And it's the wrong way. It just adds to the stress in the long run, just compounds everything. I'm constantly adding to the clutter effect. I'm so manic about it. It takes my mind off of the stress, ever so briefly. What else am I going to do while Hubby is at his appointments? Besides, going to town leads to shopping, it's only natural. It's a way of getting out of the house too. I have culture shock, cabin fever and PMS. And my future is very murky at this point.
I've been quite anti-social too. Don't feel like seeing or talking to anyone. It's got to stop. None of my distractions are working for me.
So there, I've unloaded my grief. I try to sound upbeat. I try to relax and count my blessings. I try to see the humour in things. I try to see the cup half full. Sometimes it's difficult to keep doing that. Sometimes it's just overwhelming.
Have a nice weekend.

Shopping In The Thrift Store And More Freecycle Flakes

Thankfully things settled down for me yesterday. That was brutal. It's been a while since I was so upset. And it was over nothing, really. Poor Hubby. But other than a lot of tears, I did manage to keep my cool pretty good. And after the Lorazepam kicked in, I was fine. We made tacos for dinner and watched another 2 movies. They were both quite unmemorable. I think one was called "Shattered Glass", a true story (I think) about a journalist who made up all his "news" stories. The other one was called "Dead End". They were both pretty cheesy, but Hubby enjoyed them, or so he said.
Today is sunny but still quite cool. We had been to town and back by 11:30 a.m. I had a 10:30 appointment. We got there way early so we browsed through the thrift store for half an hour, killing time. I bought 2 summer dresses there and guess what? They both don't fit. One is too tight and the other is way too big. Sigh. It still amazes me whenever I buy anything there, especially clothing (which isn't often), because I hated it so bad when I was a kid. And this is the first time I bought clothing there that doesn't fit. I don't imagine I can take them back, but then again, who knows, maybe I can. It only cost $10 for both dresses and the smaller one might fit Little R, not that she'd wear a dress. Ah well, I suppose I can try to sell them in my yard sale. When I was a kid I had a serious problem with my mother buying me clothes from a thrift store. I don't usually buy clothes there, but recently I've got a couple of good clothing scores there, so I thought why not. I usually buy lamps, chairs, books, odds and ends, that type of thing, there. I just like rooting through everything, looking for treasure. That's one store I can walk out of without buying anything.
When we got home there was a woman going from door to door, so we just sat in the car to see if she went to our house too. She did. She was a real estate agent looking for homes to sell, and she was handing out mints with her info on the package, like a business card.
Hubby just dropped me off and went on his way to pick up smokes. Too bad it's so chilly outside, I'd like to get back out there getting the yard cleaned up. But I'd rather stay in where it's nice and warm. There's plenty to do inside too. Hubby's been asking for clean laundry for days, hehe. I wonder if he even knows how to operate the washer and dryer. Doubt it.
When he got back, he came in with a brilliant idea for our home business. It would make it a whole different business, but it's a great idea, better than my original plan. He was so pumped and excited. I feel bad that I couldn't quite match his enthusiasm. Even though I too thought it was a great idea, my PMS controls me, and I couldn't have been excited over anything. I did help him do some online searching. I did tell him it was a brilliant idea. I just couldn't be pumped and excited. My PMS sucks the life out of me. All I wanted to do was sleep. And that I did. I had TWO naps today.
When I woke up from my most recent nap around 11 p.m, Hubby told me to go down and read the Freecycle posts he had left highlighted. Too funny. Someone had actually posted a "wanted" asking for a computer, but they were so specific, like how many gigs of RAM etc. and THEN, in the same post they asked for an "emissions tested" car too! I mean WTF? It was unbelievable. Well then someone posted a freak out about it. Apparently someone else has asked for a diamond ring (????) previously, I missed that, and now this. So the freak out was about how bad Freecycle has become and how greedy people are. The whole point of Freecycle has been lost in all the greed. It's not a shopping mall. Why not ask for a house while you're at it. They're probably just reselling stuff. On and on it went. I must say, I agree. I've already told you what a bunch of flakes I've come across. The one and only time I responded to a "wanted" post was someone asking for Easter baskets for a charitable fundraiser at a church, and they were the first flake I came across. They wouldn't come pick them up and couldn't agree on a time to meet that was convenient to me. So they never got the baskets. I ended up emailing saying "tell you what, come and pick them up whenever it's convenient for you" and never heard back. And today someone posted an "offer" of underwear! Where does it end? My goodness, underwear??? "In good shape" no less! OMFG LOL. There was also an offer of empty perfume boxes, I shit you not. Who would want that? Why would anyone want empty perfume boxes? Throw them on the fire for crying out loud. Same with the underwear. I do get the impression that some of these people are mentally ill or very lonely. I get the feeling with some of them that they do it just to have someone to talk to. It's bizarre. I don't know, I'm addicted, for now. I'm sure the novelty will wear off eventually, like once it's truly spring and I spend the majority of my time outside. Oh well, I'm just hoping the folks picking up my TV cabinet tomorrow don't flake out on me. I really want to just be rid of this thing. It's so big and heavy, I don't want to have to move it out of my way ever again. We were using it until we got our big screen TV, we now have no use for it. It was given to me, from S.P when she had her store, and I imagine for the same reasons, it's so big and heavy, they didn't want to have to keep moving it. Unfortunately Hubby isn't going to be home at the planned time of pick up, which means I'm going to have to help carry it out of the garage to their vehicle, UGH. One more time, sigh.
Well, I should go and get some laundry done for Hubby. He has two appointments tomorrow, physiotherapy and an MRI for his knee. He may need surgery on it! I am so hoping he can get back to work SOON.

My Crazy Brain

I think I'm having allergies. As much as I love to watch the gardens grow, I get itchy eyes and sniffles and an irritated throat from the new growth. This only happens in spring, fall and with some cats. Allergies suck.

After Hubbys physiotherapy appointment today we went to Elora to pick up some books from a Freecycler. There were some weird books in this selection. A lot of kids books too. Not much that I'll actually read I don't think. Oh well, yard sale fodder.

We then went to The Bargain Shop on the way home and picked up some Easter gifts. It was then that Hubby made a remark that upset me way more than it should have. It must be PMS time. I mean I got chest pains trying to hold in my anger and tears. What he said wasn't particularly offensive or anything, I really don't understand why I got so upset. Then once we got home, I just avoided him because I didn't want it to blow up. I was in the bedroom reading through some of the books we had picked up, and something set me off. I cried. I cried for a long time. The thoughts that were bombarding my brain wouldn't stop. I don't understand why I can remember silly insults, hurts, humiliations and slights from when I was 5, but I can't remember what Hubby asked me to remind him of this afternoon! I don't understand how things that happened to me as a very small child can still make me cry if I think about them. I don't understand why I think about it. Something triggers these memories and thoughts. Lately I'm finding myself increasingly angry with my parents. Just about every day I think about calling my Dad, but I don't do it. I'm angry with him. For years I've justified to myself how things were, how they raised me. I can't do that any more. I used to believe they did the best they could, they did what they thought was right. I just don't believe that any more. There was a lot of anger directed at me when I was little. Things were so different back then. I don't think parents were forced to be responsible back then like they are now. There wasn't the same awareness that there is now. They damaged me. They broke me. And I just don't know how to deal with it now. I don't know how to make it go away. I don't know how to fix it, to fix myself. I have like zero coping skills. Today made me think about calling my therapist. It was not a fun day. It was random. Out of the blue. It left me feeling sad and angry. God bless Lorazepam, it calms me, and my brain. But honestly, where does this stuff come from? How can a random comment from Hubby, a random page in a book, bring on all this crap in my head? Then I get angry at myself for letting this crap ruin my afternoon. And what happened to the miracle medication? Why wasn't it working today? It's been doing a fine job of keeping this kind of crap at bay, but not today. I think it is PMS and the medication just doesn't overwrite that. I haven't heard from the doctor, so I'm assuming no news is good news.

On a lighter and happier note, I found more crocuses in bloom today. Now I have a white one too. They're calling for light snow a week from now, ugh. Enough with the snow already. Its finally just about all melted.

Oh, and someone is coming to pick up the TV cabinet on Friday, yay! I hope they aren't a flake and actually do show up as planned.

Heres pics of my newest crocuses...

Raisin Sauce Recipes

It's sunny out but chilly. The temps have definately dropped again. Hopefully it will warm up this afternoon. As long as it stays above 0 degrees and isn't snowing, I'm happy.
Hubby and I watched 2 movies last night. I KNOW. They were old movies though. The first one was "The Shining", which is one we picked up at the grocery store the other day. I don't know how many times I've seen that movie, but I know I've never stayed awake for the whole thing. Hubby had to wake me up again this time. So I always miss little parts of it. I find the first half of it always puts me to sleep and then I miss the second half which is the best part.
The second movie we watched was "Turner And Hooch". This is one of Hubbys favourite movies, he likes the dog. I've never seen it before. We bought this one last summer at a yard sale. Its so odd, but I've been in the mood to watch movies since watching Titanic. And hardly doing any reading at all. The book I am currently reading is Stephen King's "Lisey's Story".
A long, long time ago, my brothers late wife gave me a recipe for raisin sauce. This stuff is delicious, it goes with ham. So last Easter I emailed my brother asking if he still had her recipes around and if so could he send me this one. I cooked a ham for the first time ever, last Easter. He sent it to me about a week after Easter. I ended up finding a similar recipe online and used that. Since I tend to save emails, I just had to look through my emails and found the recipe for this year, yay me. Though it was good last year, it wasn't quite the same, this recipe is much better I think. He actually sent me 3 recipes and now that I'm looking at them, I don't think any of them is the actual recipe. Dammit. These are like the ones I found online. All I remember is brown sugar, vinegar, lemon juice and raisins. These recipes all have some of those ingredients but not all in one recipe. Grrrrr. I'm not a very good cook. I don't really enjoy cooking. Even when I follow a recipe, I don't think things turn out very good. Other people tell me its fine, but I never enjoy eating my own cooking. Because I'm not real good at it, I'm not good at substituting ingredients. You know how some people can, when they don't have an ingredient, just say "oh well we'll use this instead" and it turns out great? Not me. I have no clue what would work or not. Some of these recipes call for apple cider, I don't recall using apple cider before. (I did use this recipe once back when my late sister-in-law gave it to me, which was probably a good 20 years ago). I do remember using lemon juice, vinegar and brown sugar though. Ugh. Why do I now have the feeling he just looked it up online and didn't actually look through her recipes? His new wife doesn't cook. In fact she's worse than me. At least I do try ocassionally. But he told me he still has her recipes. I seem to recall some substituting going on when she gave it to me, if you don't want to use this ingredient, you can use that instead. Ugh, I'm so confused. I'll figure something out.
Well, Hubby just got up. As is the trend lately, he sounds crusty. Jeez, he got to sleep a lot longer than I did, I don't see any reason for him to be crusty. So, I'm off, have to go make him a coffee, that'll cheer him up.
In case anyone else would like to try these recipes, I'll post them here....

Raisin Sauce
Serve as a sauce with a baked ham dinner or use to top leftover slices the next day
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 cups apple cider
2 tables poons butter or margarine
1 cup raisins
measure cornstarch into small saucepan. Gradually stir in apple cider. Add butter and raisins. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until suce thickens and boils. Boil and stir 1 minute. Serve warm. About 2 1/2 cups.
or
Apple-Cider Raisin Sauce
1 1/4 cups apple cider or juice
3/4 cup seedless raisins
1/2 tsp grated lemon rind
2 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp dry mustard
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tbs sherry or lemon juice
Combine cider, raisins and rind in a saucepan; cover and simmer 5 minutes. Blend together cornstarch, mustard, sugar and sherry; stir into hot mixture and let cook until thick and clear. Serve warm with ham. Makes about 2 cups.Note: Chop 1 tart peeled apple and simmer with cider and raisins if desired.
or
Raisin-Orange Sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp cornstarch
1/2 cup hot water
1/2 cup seedless raisins
1/2 tsp salt
1tbs vinegar
1tbs butter or margarine
Juice and grated rind of 1 orange
Mix sugar and cornstarch together in a sauce pan: stir in hot water and cook 5 minutes. Add raisins and cook 5 minutes. Stir in remaining ingredients. Makes about 1 cup. Serve with roast duck, goose, pork, ham.

First Flowers!

Well I did it. I told the guy with the dresser/buffet to forgetaboutit. I'm not a furniture mover dude. Hubby is too crippled and has enough to do around here without me dragging him off to move other peoples stuff for them.

What a fantastic day! It was downright hot! It still is actually. I just came in to post a couple of photos I just took. I was sitting out front soaking up the late afternoon rays when I spied something under my azalea bush. Something very bright and very yellow. Its crocuses! Yay! So of course I had to run in and get my camera, fighting to keep the dogs in and not drop my sweet camera every step of the way. They've been out plenty today. We all were. Don't want to overdo it. I already feel like I got a little too much sun. I spent a good part of the day out back just soaking in the rays of warmth. And so did the boys. That reminds me, while we were in town today, we went to Canadian Tire to get extra line for Eddie's tether, and there was a dog left out in a vehicle in the parking lot. I was so pissed off and upset about it, I didn't know what to do, so I just bitched at Hubby about it. The poor thing, it was barking its head off as we entered the store but when we came back out about 3 minutes later, nothing. I thought it was dead. The vehicle was still there. It was damn hot. Gawd why do people do that? You can't leave your dog at home while you shop? WTF? Grrrrrrr. Anyways, we get the sun in the back for the morning and in the front in the afternoon. So I've been out there enjoying as much of it as I can stand. I got all the garland down from the fence finally. Got started on the raking out back. That weeping birch tree drops branches like mad, every spring I have to rake up a ton of them and just throw them on the firepit. Then I moved around front with the sun. That's when I saw them, ah, beautiful. Its springtime at last. They aren't the clearest pictures, not sure why, maybe I was trembling with excitement (how sad), but without further ado, here they are, the first flowers of spring 2007....

Freecycle Flakes

This Freecycle shit is just starting to get on my last nerve. I guess it all depends on how badly you want something, or how badly you want to get rid of something. Currently I am trying to get rid of this TV cabinet and I am trying to find a bottom for this hutch we got last week or so. That was my own fault because I was confused thinking a hutch was actually a buffet, now I need a buffet to put the hutch on.
So my post to get rid of the TV cabinet clearly states WHERE it can be PICKED UP. Don't I get an email saying "it's perfect for me, can you deliver it?" WTF? Ummm...NOOOO. We also had the forethought to carry it ourselves from down in our familyroom up and out to the garage, for easy pick up. I don't know how many people have emailed me saying they want it and then saying "oh, you're too far away". Ever heard of Mapquest people?? Like why don't they look it up before they email me? WTF? Then there's the dame who was getting a friend to drive her here last night and I haven't heard from since. Yeah OK. Thanks a mill. How long am I supposed to wait to hear from her before I just offer it to someone else? Flippin flakes.
Now the guy who has a possible buffet for me, its actually a long dresser, but I figure I can work with that, he emails me today telling me this thing is 6 feet long and we'll have to carry it out of his basement! WTF? I'm tempted to tell him to forget it and throw the hutch on the bonfire.
Its just killing me, these people are fried. Anything I've offered, I've had ready to go, cleaned up, waiting by the front door or in the driveway, whatever. I wouldn't dream of making people carry stuff out of my basement or asking them to deliver it to me. Unreal. Also any pick ups I've made have been the same, uneventful, painless, ready and waiting. So there are SOME normal ass people out there. I think I should start keeping track of who is normal and who is a flake.
Its hard to explain without giving away my exact location, and that aint gonna happen. But there is a town that is very wide. I'm near the west end of it. A lot of the folks on the Freecycle site for that town are at the east end of it. Its very far away. In fact they are technically in East _______ NOT in _______. I live near _______ NOT East _______. They should have another site. And there must be something in the water out there, from what I've seen in emails from there. I don't think it would even occur to any of these folks to start a site for their area. Just like it doesn't occur to them to use Mapquest. I can't be any more specific than I am in my posts, but still get asked stupid questions. Now that that thing is out in my garage, I don't care if its here or not. I planned on having it in my yard sale anyways. The person who asked if I could deliver it even offered to PAY for the delivery! The site rules clearly specify NO MONEY is to be offered or exchanged. Am I the only one who read the rules?
This is why I am happy in my little paradise bubble world. I don't play well with others. I have no time for stupid people. I have no patience. And I've decided I'm going to send buddy with the dresser/buffet an email telling him to forget it. Let me know when its sitting in the driveway and I'll come pick it up. Until then, have a nice life. I don't want it that bad.
Freecycle is a great idea. It's a shame not everyone reads or understands the rules. It's a shame some people think its all about getting free stuff. Its a shame some people are just inconsiderate morons.
Ah well, its too beautiful outside to sit here getting pissed off over nothing. I'm going out to enjoy the day and get some shit done around here.
Have a great day.

Spring Sprung Today!

I notice in my last post I said I spent the day in front of the computer and sleeping. Well, what I meant was, not simultaneously, but EITHER on the computer OR sleeping. Man it sounded funny when I read it later.

Anyhoo, what a fabulous day! It did turn out gorgeous once the storm passed. Of course I had a nap and missed some of it, but only a couple of hours.

Hubby and I spent some time outside with the boys, they were loving it too. Silly Bear seems to enjoy laying around in the remaining patches of snow though. Eddie was all over the place. I did a walk-about and everything is sprouting up nicely, yippee. During my nap I had a dream about big tall tulips blooming lol. Another dream today involved , well, it started out as The Clown, and turned into Anonymous Cathy. I saw The Clown today, first time in months, she was poking her head out an upstairs window, like spying on us sitting on our back deck. Jeez, a little privacy please?

We went to town to pick up some groceries, and they still had the bins full of cheap movies! We picked up another six. Got "Lord Of The Rings" for 99 cents, and no I haven't seen it or read the book, I KNOW... can't remember what else, but a good score. Also got a ham for Easter dinner, just in case Big R decides they will come up for it, (she said "maybe").

I thought I had got rid of this stupid huge TV cabinet thingy on Freecycle, but I think my hopes were dashed. Turns out the person interested lives way far from here, probably too far. Once I told them where we are I never heard back, sigh. Fortunately there were several people interested in it and some were much closer. I also finally heard back from the guy with the bottom half for my hutch, yay. He's located in a nearby town, now we just need to get our hands on a truck or trailer. That shouldn't be a problem. Knowing my luck it will be a problem though, just because I have this stupid thing sitting in the middle of my diningroom, bottomless.

Oh I did a lot of outdoor puttering today, it was great. Got most of the Christmas lights down, all except for the ones that Hubby used power tools to attach. Finally got out in the garage, found some more yard sale items. Something is missing from the garage. Oh yeah, its the bike! Did Hubby forget about it? I'll have to ask him about that tomorrow, wtf? Amazingly I only saw ONE bike out while we were in town today.

I felt like a 5 year old, out in the ditch kicking mud around. I was trying to fill in the gouges left last fall, when Hubby was trying to get the truck out with the bike on the back, and the ground was just too soggy. Well, it was soggy today too, not sure it did any good though. What a mess, it looks worse now than it did when it happened. Then I tried to take the Christmas garland off the fence, but unfortunately I didn't have a pair of scissors on me, to cut the 100% jute twine with, sigh, tomorrow is another day.

When Little R needed new shoes the other day, that was because she had lost a pair of shoes at school. I know, I was like, how do you lose shoes? She thought they had been ripped off. Who would steal ratty, smelly old running shoes? She came home from school today happily announcing that she had "found" her shoes AND her flute...they were in a bag, out in the hallway by her classroom door. Nice scam for new shoes kiddo...

So here's pics of the boys, enjoying being outside again...

First Thunderstorm Of The Season

This morning we had the first of the seasons thunderstorms. It was a good one. Poor Bear was just a'tremblin and a'pantin. It didn't seem to bother Eddie at all. He appeared to be more curious about Bear freaking out. Hopefully Bear will catch on and learn from Eddie that its nothing to freak out about.
I beat the garbage man by about 5 minutes this morning. All I put out was 1 bag of trash and 1 bag of recycling. I had forgotten it was garbage day but got up and put it out the minute I remembered and 5 minutes later the truck pulled up. Whew.
Yesterday was a very, very lazy day. The most I did was carry 2 boxes of candle holders up to the spare bedroom. Other than that I sat at the computer and slept. I did cook dinner, but it was late, we didn't eat until about 9:30 p.m. Hubby and I watched "The Santa Clause 2", I forgot we had that movie. Don't know why he keeps putting on Christmas movies though, its SPRING for crying out loud!
Yes it was lovely to hear the birds singing when I got up this morning, that was before the thunderstorm started.
The last time I was out in the garage, I noticed we have a gigantic leaf blower. I'm not sure where it came from, but was wondering why we have it. We don't have any trees. We have that one huge weeping birch tree out back, but most of the leaves fall in the yard nextdoor and what does fall in our yard is easy enough to just rake up. They're tiny leaves too. We just don't have enough leaves to warrant having that humungous leaf blower. But you know the minute I sell it in my yard sale I will want or need it for something, so I think I'll hang onto it.
It has also come to my attention that I'll be able to sell off some of Hubbys tools. Yay. He has 2 of everything, a cheap one and a good one. Skill saws, cordless drills, etc. I am so looking forward to this.
I finally heard from Big R. They are moving this coming weekend. To a bigger place. I offered our sevices to help with the move but she doesn't think she'll need us. I'm thinking we should go down anyways, just in case. Besides, I'd like to see the new place.
I may have found a bottom for that hutch we got. If the person on Freecycle ever answers me that is. I don't know what it is with these people. Maybe they have jobs or something and aren't sitting at their computers all day, like me. If I don't find something soon the hutch will just have to become bonfire fodder. Its still sitting in my diningroom waiting for a home. Ugh.
Well, it looks like its shaping up to be a beautiful spring day. The storm seems to have passed and the birds are chirping again and the sun is shining, yay!
Have a lovely day.

Cosmic Bowling?

It was a chilly, rainy, glum sort of day, so we went to our favourite cozy little restaurant for breakfast. From there we went to one town and then another in search of new shoes for Little R. We hit the thrift store where I got myself a cross stitch kit for $5. I've never done cross stitch in my life so I'll have to ask S.W to show me how to do it.
Then Hubby went over to S.Ws to continue on with the renovations. While he was there I decided to go through my candle cabinet. Yes, I have a cabinet full of candles and candle holders, doesn't everyone? Well, I pulled out this box and it was full of candle holders which I had forgotten I even have. Millions of them, so it seemed. I weeded them out and now have a whole box of candle holders for the yard sales and still have a cabinet full of them for myself, jeez.
Upon reading the local paper we saw a letter from one of the trucking companies Hubby had mentioned in his letter that got published recently. This letter was in response to Hubbys letter. It basically stated that Hubby should have called the authorities the night of the blizzard rather than go out there and help the stranded motorists. That the truck drivers use caution all the time and Hubby should have used caution that night. That Hubby was putting people in danger , not the truck drivers who flew past them out there. I think this may prompt several more letters since everyone here in paradise knows that those transport trucks speed through our little hamlet all the time. The speed limit drops from 80 to 60 as you go through our hamlet. Most transport trucks fly through here doing 100. It is only the odd truck that actually slows down. Hubby was a hero that night, period. It is only luck that no one was hurt. The trucks that went by did not use caution at all, even in blizzard conditions, which is what was so frightful. I for one am going to write a letter. That road should have been closed, period.
So D.W offered to take us out for dinner as thanks for Hubby spending all week over there helping out with their renovation job. We went to a Chinese buffet, not the place we went last time that made us ill, but the place we usually go to. Dinner was yummy. Before going I had all these topics of conversation in my head. Once there, I don't think I said two words through the whole dinner, my mind went blank. I had absolutely nothing to say, which is odd. At the end of the meal, when we got our fortune cookies, I got a funny feeling and switched cookies with Hubby. When I cracked mine, guess what? It was empty! I had no fortune! What does that mean? D.W tried telling me its good luck, I don't believe him. It was all kind of creepy and left me feeling strange. The blank mind and the blank fortune, weird.
After dinner we decided to go bowling. I can't even remember the last time I bowled. I was on a league when I was a little kid. I don't think I've ever played 10 pin before, it was always 5 pin. I don't remember how to keep score at all so its a good thing its done automatically now. After a couple of games we stuck around for the cosmic bowling which started at 9:30. I've never experienced that before. It was pretty cool. The best I did was one spare. Everyone else got at least one strike. I think all our scores were pretty much pathetic though. But we had a good time.
At one point Hubby disappeared. I asked everyone where he was and they all told me "he's over there talking to some guy." When I looked over I didn't recognize the guy he was talking to. It turns out it was the guy Hubby used to work for, back when we first met, a long time ago. The bowling alley was recently taken over by a new owner, and it turns out he is the new owner. That was quite a surprise. What are the chances of them ending up in the same little town, meeting up in a bowling alley of all places, after all these years? I was also surprised how much bowling costs, it's expensive. Like I say, its been a long time for me. It was great, good clean fun. Though there is a bar there and the Molson Canadians were sliding. A good time was had by all.
We had a very good day.

'Twas A Beautiful Day

What a beautiful day! It was gorgeous out. I spent a good part of the day outside. I finally cleaned up all the dog poo around the back of the house. There's still more to pick up from Bear further out in the yard though. I actually sat out back with my coffee in the afternoon, I thought the time I could do that would never come. As I was puttering around in the yard I looked at my gardens that were free of snow and there are tulips and crocuses sprouting! Yay!
Hubby was busy all day as usual, but he did take me to town. We went to get one of those dog tie down things for Eddie. You know the spike that twists into the ground? It only has a 16 foot leash on it, but that's good enough for now. Eddie has started wandering further and even leaving the yard. He's too fast and I don't want to take the chance of him darting out into the main road. We bought other stuff too, namely a workbench for half price, that was a good deal.
In the afternoon I walked over to see the lady who is organizing the community garage sale. I went to pick up flyers she had printed and I distributed to all the mail boxes. I got more of a tour of her big old Victorian house. What I had seen of it before was only half of it! That house is HUGE. She was showing me a box she recently made, like a blanket box, she is going to use it for a coffee table, very nice. She showed me a bunch of other stuff she has made too, she is multi-talented. She has a couple of pet chinchillas, so I got to see chinchillas for the very first time. I always thought they would look something like ferrets, but they actually look more like rabbits. And they have fingers. I think she used to breed them but now just has the couple left as pets. It was a nice visit.
I then walked over to S.Ws, she lives a couple of doors over from the Victorian place, to see what progress they're making with the renovations. Wow, what a mess, but it is coming along, they've got a lot done. I then delivered the flyers to the mail boxes. It was so nice to be out walking.
Last night, in the spirit of de-cluttering I posted this shelving we had on the Freecycle site. We had tons of it, it comes in bundles and is 12 feet in length. I had forgotten that Hubby had already given most of it away, so we only had 3 bundles left, I thought we had more. Oops. The response I got was overwhelming. But I finally got a guy who was willing to pick it up last night and its gone, yay. I was just happy to see it gone. It was wire shelving, so it was very useful for some purposes, but it wasn't useful to me. I had so many people respond to my post I couldn't believe it. But then they all turned around and oh it was too far for them to travel or they didn't have a truck or they couldn't come right away or bla bla bla. Freecycle is funny like that, there's all kinds of people. Like the way I look at it, either you want it or you don't. If you want something you can expect to go pick it up. And its all free, so whats the problem. But people are funny. I suggested to the person running the group that they allow us to post photos. The site has a photo feature, but it is disabled. They said they would look into it and have not done anything. I don't understand that. That's why the photo feature is there, so people can post photos, duh. It would make it a lot easier, especially with bigger stuff like furniture, appliances and large stuff like this shelving. It would help people decide if they really want something or not, if they can see it, and for the purposes of transporting. Like the guy who ended up taking my shelving, brought a trailer, it wasn't something you could just toss in the trunk of your car. Pictures would have helped explain that. As I've said, I've joined several of the Freecycle group sites, because of where I live, I'm rural, and surrounded by all these towns, so I can go to any of these towns. But the folks living in these towns don't want to travel outside of their towns. Weirdos. Many seem to forget the purpose of Freecycling too, like the point is to keep stuff out of the landfills, so they offer really silly, small, strange stuff. Like coupons. What the hell? It's not as much about FREE stuff as it is about fREeCYCLING. I'm more concerned about an old fridge, or couch, or woodstove, or metal shelving, going into a landfill, than a flipping coupon, give me a break. Some people just don't get it. It's also about cutting down on consumerism, how do coupons help with that? They don't, they encourage it. It's mainly the group of this one town that just doesn't get it, the other groups are ok and they allow photos too. I think it's the person running this group who doesn't get it. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer. So she allows silly posts, doesn't do any moderating, and doesn't allow photos. I'm tempted to apply to start my own site for my area. But since I'm not in a real town I'd have to go by the township, which borders THAT town. Unfortunately that's the town I live closest to, so that's why I'm always on THAT site. I don't know, I just find myself getting frustrated with these people. But hey, I'm glad to have that shelving gone from the side of my garage.
It looks like I'm in on the community garage sale. It's only gonna cost me like $12 so it's no big deal, I'm sure I'll be able to recoup that much at least. Besides it'll be fun. I'll probably end up buying just as much from my neighbours as I sell. Have a great day.

Easter And Too Many Dishes

I just realized, Easter is only three weeks away. It's too bad Little R is too old for the Easter Bunny fun. I'm sure we'll decorate the house and decorate eggs and shower Little R in gifts anyways. I'd like to have another nice Easter dinner with Big R in attendance. Then we can shower her with gifts too. We had a lovely dinner last year. I'd like to do it again. I just haven't received a reply from Big R yet.
I think we went to church at Easter when I was a kid. I remember frilly dresses, big hats and white gloves. I don't remember big dinners or much Easter Bunny fun. As far as decorating eggs, we make a bunch of hard boiled eggs, decorate them and then eat them with our Easter dinner. Decorating the house? I have an Easter wreath that I made and will put on the front door and I have a couple of Easter trees. I may hang plastic Easter eggs on a tree outside, that usually depends on the weather.
Today was very windy but mild. Hubby has been out all day again. I'm waiting for a truly nice day to go out and remove all the Christmas lights. And the garland from the back fence. It's just hanging on by a thread at this point. Those couple of nasty storms we had really did it in. All the LED (invisible) lights are going in the yard sale. We got them on sale so we won't mind parting with them cheap.
I think it rained some today too. Its very wet outside. The dogs are making a mucky mess of the floors every time they come in from a romp out back. But hey, the snow is disappearing, yay! We should be getting the bike back any time now. Cool, now that we have room in the garage for it again with that monstrous contraption gone.
I'm hoping to get rid of some dishes at my yard sale too. I've mentioned before that I just have far too many dishes. Most sets I have placings for 12 or more. I have at least one set I can get rid of and then a bunch of odd plates and cups. The set I'm selling was bought at an auction for $20 and we used them as our everyday dishes for years. I then bought new dishes for a Thanksgiving dinner one year and they have become our everyday dishes. Last summer I bought a set at a yard sale for $30, which I still think was too much, but I liked the pattern and it included a teapot, creamer, sugar bowl and a cannister. I haven't used them yet, but they are nice to have and I'm sure I will use them at some point. Then of course I have my mothers "good china", I've used it twice so far, once I remembered I had it. It mostly decorates my large china cabinet and will be used on special ocassions. I have two different sets of Christmas dishes, one has placings for 12 the other for 4. Then I have these odd dishes that were collected at different auctions, a couple at a time, they are very pretty, I have 4 plates, a couple of little plates and then several platters of various sizes. They also just adorn my china cabinet. I have many more platters than anyone needs.
I also collect tea cups and tea pots. That's just because my mother did too. I started out with a couple of her things and it grew from there. I don't even drink tea. Some of the tea cups I have are worth $100, just for a cup and saucer. I haven't bought any in a long time. My smaller china cabinet is overflowing with this stuff. One year for my birthday, S.P gave me a bunch of stands for my tea cup collection. I don't think I'll be parting with any of that stuff.
I have a ridiculous number of vases, I will be putting some of them in my yard sale. Same with candle holders, I have millions, they're going.
I know how it happened. This auction we used to go to, they sold things by the boxful. So if you saw something you liked in a box, you ended up with the whole boxful of stuff whether you wanted it or not. They also did tray lots with nicer stuff, so you'd end up getting six items in order to get the one thing you really wanted. I'm thinking of doing that with my yard sale, a box of vases, a box of candle holders, a box of dishes, rather than selling them individually. Or even mix them up, a box of vases and candle holders, a box of plates and cups. You get the idea.
I got another email from the lady organizing the community garage sale. It was kind of strange. No new information, no real reason for the email. It kind of seemed like she was asking me to try to recruit more people to join in on the sale. But she didn't say that exactly. Quite strange.
I've invited Big R up to help out with my yard sale, thinking it's a good excuse to get her up here for a visit and if she has anything she'd like to sell, here's her chance. But, no reply as yet. I think she's still mad at me. Mad because she didn't have a golden childhood and it's all my fault. At least she is talking to me again, just not recently.
I watched Titanic again last night with Hubby. He enjoyed it also. It was strange, the power went out for a second while we were watching it. Funny we never lost power at all during those blizzards we had, but a little bit of rain and it goes out. Just long enough to mess up all the clocks and the computers. I wonder if someone hit a pole out on the main road, what else could it have been?
Well, it's so nice to be sitting here and not freezing, not shivering, my old bones aren't aching, how nice. Hopefully it will be a trend. I realize it's still only March, but the damn groundhogs said it would be an early spring. I've seen Robins already. Today I saw Morning Doves too, which bugger Eddie promptly chased away.
K, I'm outta here. Have a great evening.

Garage Sale Chatter

I woke up today with this pain in one side of my back, it is excruciating, and it hasn't stopped. I have no idea what it could be from, and I have no idea how to make it go away.
Hubby has been over at S.Ws every day this week. They've put on a new roof and everything. He's been going to his appointments first thing and then heading over there until dinner time or later. The break away from each other has been good, almost like he's back to work. I haven't been doing much, sleeping and puttering, waiting for spring. I'm thinking I need stronger medication, it doesn't seem to be working as well now. I've been super lazy, not even getting dressed unless I absolutely have to, only going out when I have to, sleeping a lot, more or less how I am when I'm depressed, hmmmm. But I don't have the feelings of sadness or anything, my moods are stable, I feel ok, weird.
Speaking of work, Hubby got a letter from his boss with some more forms for his doctors to fill out etc. The letter sounds all official and shit and then near the end it says "witch" instead of "which". There were other minor typos and stuff, but come on, this is his boss, the owner of the company, Mr. Big Man, kind of hard to take him seriously sometimes. The whole thing is not going well, he is not happy with Hubby at this point. Oh well.
Today has been bad because of this stupid back pain and its been cold and dreary out, now it's pouring rain, cold rain, yuk. But I guess it's better than more snow.
I have been puttering with my yard sale stuff on and off. I've got several boxes packed and many more to go. They're small boxes. I find myself not wanting to part with stuff, but so far I've been ruthless, haven't changed my mind and decided to keep anything yet. I have one big box in the basement of toys I was keeping for grandbabies. I haven't gotten to that box yet. I keep trying to tell myself I can just get NEW toys if and when I ever have grandbabies, but then I think, "But these toys are so cool, I won't be able to get THESE toys again". I may have trouble parting with that box. I also have several boxes down there of stuff we got at an auction just before we moved here, so I'm not even sure what all is in them. And a couple of last minute boxes that have never been unpacked. You know when you move and there's just odds and sods laying around and you just toss it all in a box?
So I'm plugging away, cleaning everything and sticking prices on it and packing it in boxes. I still haven't decided if I'll be joining in on the "community garage sale" or not. I likely won't decide until the time comes.
I read a couple of websites about yard sale tips. One of them said to go ahead and put out broken appliances, people will buy them just for parts or whatever. I'm wondering if that includes electronics. I have DVD players that no longer work, video games, VCRs, stereos, computers coming out the wazoo. But I can't see myself trying to sell stuff that doesn't work, it just doesn't seem right. I find it hard to believe anyone would actually buy broken stuff. We'll see. I've washed two loads of stuffed animals so far. Little R wants to keep some of them, but ugh, why? And I still have another load to wash. They're all very cute and in excellent condition and I can certainly understand her not wanting to part with some of them. One thing I know, I'm glad I did get started two months ahead, because I just have a ton of stuff to go through and this way I can do it at my leisure and make sure I get everything. It would suck to come across a bunch of forgotten stuff after the fact.
And well, the sewing machine is still sitting there, waiting to be threaded. I had another look at all the fabrics I got, and now I'm not even sure I'll have enough for a quilt. That's a good excuse eh? I'm so antsy lately, just want some nice weather, want to get outside puttering and I can't seem to hold my concentration. Part of BPD? I don't know.
We have all this wood we've collected for making stuff, like bird houses and things like that. I have a brand new scroll saw, still in its box, and a brand new dremel tool, but Hubby used that to cut some part on my car. I haven't done anything with it, had it for ages. When I went to that meeting last week, the hostess brought out a bird house that she had made and plans on selling at the community garage sale. She used wood left over from firewood. She did a very good job. She plans on asking $15. I'm thinking, wow, that could be lucrative. I know a couple of summers ago, one ride we went on was in search of bird houses for one of our riding friends. It was a good excuse for a good ride out in the country. But it was a Sunday and nothing was open. The point is, people do buy bird houses and actually go looking for them. My dilemma is I have nowhere to set up my brand new scroll saw, etc., until I de-clutter. I have tons of wood for all kinds of crafty projects, barn boards and trim. I just have nowhere to work.
So yeah, that is my main focus these days, what can I get rid of to make room around here to do all the things I want to do. I must say I've seen, even bought, some fairly odd stuff at yard/garage/barn sales. I keep reminding myself the one sale I did have about ten years ago was quite a success. I got rid of the majority of stuff and made a pretty penny doing it too. I think success depends on your motivation and presentation. If you're doing it to make money you probably won't get far. If you just want to get rid of everything, you'll do well. Also if you clean everything up and make sure everything is working etc. you'll do better than if you just put out a bunch of old dusty, rusty, crap. Though I must admit seeing a bunch of dusty, rusty old crap has never stopped me from browsing. Crazy.
Well, I'm off. All this talk about it has got me in the mood to go rooting through my crap some more.
Have a lovely evening y'all.

Titanic

As we were shopping through the grocery store we came upon a huge bin of discount movies. There were DVDs as well as VHS tapes. So we stopped to browse through the movies. You know I'm not a big movie watcher. But every once in a while I do like to sit and watch a flick, rare as it is, it does happen. One that we picked was "Best Of Adam Sandler On SNL" and we watched it last night after dinner. It was only $.49 so we couldn't go wrong. It was ok, nothing to write home about. I kept thinking "Man, Saturday Night Live was so much better back in the day". Back when John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtain and Dan Ackroyd were on it. I used to watch it all the time and it always made me laugh. I haven't watched it in probably 15 - 20 years. I hardly watch TV at all any more, what are the chances that I'll be watching on a Saturday night? Next to nil.
Another movie we got, for $1.99 is "The Grifters", haven't watched it yet. As I was removing the cellophane wrapper today I noticed theres a piece of broken plastic floating around inside, as it too is a VHS tape. So we'll have to remove that before we even put it in the VCR.
The best deal we got was "Titanic" for $3.99. I know it's absolutley ridiculous that I've never seen it before, I must be the only person on earth who hadn't, but I did watch it last night. I was up half the night again, as it is a very long movie. (It's on 2 VHS tapes.) I must say, I can't wait to watch it again with Hubby. That was about the best movie I have ever sat through. Never a dull moment. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It made me want to go back to the grocery store and look for more movies to buy.
Also Hubby picked a couple of westerns on DVD. He can watch those himself when he's pulling an all-nighter by himself, which he also does from time to time. But seriously, at those prices, I think we will go back and see what else we can find. It's time I do like the rest of the world and start watching more movies. It is a great pastime, especially when paradise is frozen over.
It's been snowing on and off again the last couple of days. Like, enough already. Hubby has gone back over to the S.W household to help out with the renovations. This morning he informed me that he has been working up on their roof. Great. Good thing I didn't pop over for a visit because I would have been lecturing him like his grandma. What, he isn't crippled enough, he has to fall off a roof now? Hopefully they'll finish the job today.
I think they're calling for the temperatures to rise again in a couple of days. I can't wait. I've had enough of the deep freeze. If I had access to my own car I might head into town to the tanning place, but alas, Hubby needs my car.
So that's it. Very uneventful. Just rediscovering the joy of movies.
Have a good day.

From The Friendship Book

Make little of your miseries-
Each pinprick, hurt or loss.
Make much of any bit of luck
You chance to come across.
You'll find, as you go gaily through,
Life's mostly rather kind to you!

From The Friendship Book, Wednesday, March 12, 1975.

All Caught Up Again

Hubby was over at S.Ws helping out with the renovation job and I was home puttering with my yard sale stuff when there was a knock on the front door. What a surprise to see the guy who used to live across the street standing there. He had given us a bunch of stuff when they moved, including my sewing machine, and he had also stored something in our garage. That was why he was here, to pick up his thing. I don't know what this thing is. It was a motor with a propeller and a cage around it. It was large and awkward and took up a lot of space in our garage. We didn't really expect him to come back for it, we've had it for over a year. I'm very glad it's gone. What a pleasant surprise and perfect timing, as I am in the throes of de-cluttering!
Hubby and I went to town to pick up a maple wood hutch I got on Freecycle. I guess I was confused about what a hutch is, I thought I was getting the bottom half which is a buffet. So now we have this top half with no bottom to put it on. Its just shelves with plate rails that's supposed to sit on a buffet. I definately need shelves. We do have a buffet, but unfortunately, it's six inches shorter than the hutch. Oh well, we'll figure something out. We also got, from the same person, a free standing basketball net. The thing is like new, it's in fabulous condition. That's something we would never have bought but will get plenty of use from. Little R used to have a basketball, but no net. Now we'll have to get her a new ball. That's something she can do outside when she's bored. We'll just have to be sure to keep Bear away from her new basketball. That's what happened to her old one. He pulverises balls, no matter how big or how tough.
Well, it's back to school today. After two weeks off I could use the break.
And now I must go, it's starting to get light out, time for my weekly race with the garbage man.

******************************************************************

I did it. I beat him. Hahahahaha. I also got the last bags out. I am now caught up again. Yesterday in the sunshine I was able to dislodge my recycling boxes. I emptied one of them into one of the two large clear plastic bags I put out this morning. It feels good to be all caught up again.
Have a great day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Inspired Again

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Hubby went down to the city and I stayed home sorting through my yard sale stuff. When he got back we headed into town. We went to several stores and stopped by the fuel company to pay our bill. One of the stores we went to was the thrift store, and there I got a lovely rocking chair for $30, among other stuff. On Sunday we are going to pick up a solid wood hutch.

We stopped by the studio to see Little Rs performance on our way out of town. We missed the first few minutes as we were looking for parking outside the studio. It was ok but from what Little R was showing me at home I think we missed the better part of the performance.

Then we stopped in at S.Ws place and I was shocked. I knew they had the ceiling torn down but was not prepared for what I saw. They had all the walls down too. It has turned into a renovation job and they are moving walls, putting in new doors, etc. They are changing the whole look of the room. Wow. Its so random, it started with her hubby taking down one ceiling tile to check a leak. Once again I'm inspired. My feelings on this house change from day to day. One day all I want is to move, I must have a Victorian house, the next day I think its not so bad, we can make changes, I want to stay here. It goes back and forth endlessly. I learned today that their livingroom is actually an addition to the original house. The one thing that really screwed up our house in so many ways was adding the propane furnace. Whoever did it wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier. Personally I'd like to do away with the whole thing. We are considering it. But we need alternative heat. Don't even get me started. So yeah, I'm inspired.

Here's some pictures, Little R doing her dance performance and my new rocking chair.

Just Babbling

As I mentioned, Hubby had the gas tank on the car fixed. Yesterday he himself fixed the muffler, well, he took the old one off and put a new one on. Yay, it doesn't sound like a tank any more. Now all thats left to fix is the fan and Hubby says he can do it himself.
The temperature has dropped dramatically. Its very cold out there again. Still no sign of snow thankfully, it looks a little too sunny out to snow. But all the melted snow is now ice.
Hubby and I made a couple of trips to town yesterday. I got a new laundry tub. We removed the one that was here when we moved in and I can't even remember why now, but I've been without one ever since. I've bought a few new house plants this week. No Frills had little ones for $1.50 so I got 5 of them. Well then I had to go to Dollarama for pots. I've always loved having house plants. I never know what they are, its different from outdoor gardening where I know what everything is. In recent years I've kind of slacked off with the house plants, as in haven't been paying much attention to them, haven't bought any new ones. I've always found they add something to the home, warmth? hominess? I don't know. So now I have some to put on the big windowsills in the familyroom.
Hubby is going over to help S.Ws hubby today. They sprang a leak in their roof and had to tear out the ceiling in their livingroom. Sounds like a big job. Also today is the last day of the dance camp so we'll be going into town to see their little performance this afternoon.
Thats it, thats all, have a great day.

Yard Sale, I'm Confused

I went to the meeting of garage sale ladies the other night. Three out of the four were there and I found out there is now a fifth, who also wasn't there. Their goal is to get ten people involved. We discussed how we're going to set up all the tables in the town hall, flyers and newspaper ads, stuff like that. One of the ladies was very talkative, and not about the sale but about herself. We had to keep gently steering the conversation back to the sale. Coffee and tea was served. I opted for coffee, I'm not a big tea totaler, and she had these coffee-in-a-tea-bag things, I've never seen them before, it was very good. She also served homemade shortbread cookies, yum. This was my first time in this house. I've always wanted to see it because it's a big old Victorian here in town. I was not disappointed. It was fabulous and I wish Hubby had come with me so he could see for himself what I really want in a home. In the kitchen she had an antique wood burning cookstove, can you imagine? The thing was huge. I asked her if she actually cooked with it or of it was just for heat, (it was obvious that it did get used), and she said it's mainly for heat but it does come in handy for cooking when the power goes out. Also when she has Christmas dinner there, the turkey gets cooked in the old stove. Nice. There was a lot of original woodwork going on and just all the cool and funky stuff you expect to see in a big Victorian. I'm not sure how much we accomplished, we didn't really settle much. And since they're still looking to recruit more people, we don't know much really. I think it was more of a social call than anything else. I'm still a little confused on the plan for payment to rent the hall etc. I have a feeling I'm still going to end up having my own yard sale at home in May. I have a lot of large stuff that I won't be able to haul over to the hall. I like the idea of it being in April, that's earlier in the season than usual, and I like that its indoors, so rain or shine it doesn't matter. I just don't want to end up selling all my good stuff there and having nothing good left for my own sale. I think I have enough stuff to do two sales. I don't know, I'm still a little torn. Because I have to lay out money I want to make it worth my while, which means bringing good stuff to sell. Having it at home there is no money outlay. So I really have to start going through my stuff and figure out if I can do two, otherwise I'll have to back out of this and just do it at home. Also having the other people involved seems to make it all a little more complicated than it needs to be. So I came away from it more confused than anything. Sigh.
I'm liking this mild weather, all that snow is melting fast. The other day when I saw Robins, Eddie proceeded to chase them away. I have several bird feeders and I hope he isn't going to chase all the birds away come summertime. I've noticed recently that I haven't seen any bunnies in ages, like a good year at least. I used to see them just about every morning and evening, if not in our own yard then somewhere on the street. But it seems since we got Bear, no bunnies. I'm wondering if someone is trapping them or something. Because we did still see them after Bear moved in, he chased them, but they always came back and now nothing, not one, anywhere. Strange.
So I took a break from blogging after being interrupted for the umpteenth time and went about sorting through my sale stuff. What a mess. I do have some really good stuff, there's just so much of it and space in this house has become very limited for sorting etc. It would be much easier to just do it at home. I can't imagine carting all this stuff back and forth. The hall isn't very far away or anything, but it isn't in my front yard either. I found that I have even more than I realized as I went through the bathroom drawers. Lotions and potions which have never and will never be used. How many hair dryers and curling irons does one family need? I found a ton of treasures just in the bathroom!
I am literally drowning in clutter here. I went to clear off the kitchen table this morning and damn near had a nervous breakdown. Screws from unknown sources, newspapers and flyers from 2 weeks ago, stacks of bills - paid and unpaid, receipts, pens, pencils, matches, lighters, calculators, tools, business cards. You name it, you can find it on my kitchen table. It just isn't right. The main culprit is Hubby. However, I did get it sorted out and hopefully I can even remove it today so I can put a clean tablecloth on, wouldn't that be nice?
The spare bedroom is so packed with stuff, theres no real room for sorting and packing. I asked Hubby for any suggestion on what to do with the stuff once I clean it, price it and pack it. Just guess what he suggested. He said, just put it on the diningroom table. Are you shitting me? I've also been trying to clear that off just so I can get the Christmas tablecloth off of there! Give me a break. I haven't even gone near the basement and garage yet. Treasures abound there I tell ya.
See, I've been planning to do this for about 3 years now. I've been gradually tossing stuff into the spare bedroom, which has become my gift wrapping/yard sale storage room. As I say the stuff was "tossed" in there. I'm a little overwhelmed. Not a doubt in my mind at this point that I will have enough crap for two sales. But I kind of only want to go through it all once rather than twice. Gawd I hate feeling so wishywashy. I don't like being confused. I guess I'll just wait and see what happens. A simple yard sale shouldn't become so complicated.

Is It Really Spring?

How wonderful to hear the birdies chirping when I woke up this morning! Hubby and I took the dogs for a walk late last night and it was still quite mild out. A lot of the snow has melted away. There are patches of grass poking out! It is rather gray and gloomy looking out there today, but it's still mild and the snow is still melting. We even had windows open yesterday yay!
We signed Little R up for the dance camp for 4 out of 5 days. Today is the one day she isn't going, so she went with Hubby down to the city to get some of the work done on the car. We were able to get a good deal on getting the gas tank fixed (it has a leak) and that will allow Hubby to do some of the other work, like replacing the muffler (it sounds like a jet). It looks now like I won't be getting a new car as soon as I had hoped. Oh well, I don't mind this car, as long as it's running properly.
The dinner Hubby made last night was an orgasmic stir fry on rice. He is such a good cook when he wants to be. It was absolutely scrumptious.
Last year was the first year I noticed I was getting the winter blahs. I had never been so eager for spring before. But this year is even worse. It seems nothing can get my mind off of it. I feel....well, BLAH. Not even day-dreaming about summer is helping. Planning gardens, planning my yard sale, planning rides, nothing. I haven't taken advantage of my tanning minutes at all yet. First it was because of Flo and now it seems silly with it being sunny and mild. Today isn't sunny, but I have no way of getting there now. Fortunately there is no expiration on the minutes, they'll be good for next winter too. Though I'm sure I will check it out this year at least once or twice. I have to do something to pull myself out of this feeling. Cleaning the house sometimes helps, temporarily. There is no escaping it today, I have no choice. I'll take advantage of having no one in the house and get some cleaning done. It seems Eddie has still been peeing in the house and it reeks. It is especially strong by the front door. Hubby caught him in the act this morning, peeing on his boots, yuk. Now that the smell of gas is gone, the stench of dog pee is undeniable. Not sure why or even when he is doing that. He gets outside plenty. Anyhow, it's gotta go, what a gross smell.
That got me to thinking, maybe I should let him out now, so I did, and guess what I saw out there? I saw a pair of Robins! Yay! That is a sure sign of spring!
I'm off to clean, have a great day.

Happy Anniversary!

What a gorgeous day! Sadly I slept most of the afternoon and missed most of it. But I did catch some of it, enough to make me yearn for spring that much more. I see they are calling for more snow this Friday, ugh.
Today is our anniversary. Happy Anniversary Honey! I feel like such a shmuck because I didn't get Hubby any presents or do anything special for him or anything. I just slept. (I pulled a half an all-nighter last night and was up too early this morning). So I figure I can just make up for it when he least expects it. I haven't had use of my car because A) Hubbys been using it daily to go to his physio and stuff and B) it isn't even safe to drive at this point. So, I haven't had the chance to go shopping for presents or anything. I will make it up to him.
Speaking of Hubby, that letter he wrote to the local paper about the psycho truck drivers during the blizzard, was published in todays paper! That's gotta be a first. Such is life in a small town.
And now he is cooking me a lovely dinner. He is such a DOLL and I am truly blessed to have him for my Hubby.

What Smell? I Don't Smell Anything

The last few days the house has been reeking of gasoline. Of course I've been asking Hubby what it could possibly be. The first day he just pretended he couldn't smell anything (thats what he always does, "I don't smell anything" or "I don't hear anything" or whatever the case may be, he blows me off). The next day he was like "Hmmmm, maybe its on my clothes down in the laundry". I went down and short of sniffing all his clothes, checked if thats what it was, nope. But the smell was definately stronger in the basement area. This morning the smell was stronger and becoming unbearable, like nauseating. So I got a little more forceful with Hubby. Like figure out what it is because its starting to turn my stomach and I'm just not in the mood to get blown to smithereens the next time I light a smoke or try to start a fire in the fireplace. Like really Honey, you're the only person I know who would just ignore the permeating stench of gasoline in their house! So he went out to the garage, he had a feeling it was seeping in from there, since there was no gasoline in the house, and he could no longer deny the smell. Sure enough, some valve or other was frozen open on the snowblower, and gas had been pouring out of it. The garage was all closed up so the fumes were seeping into the house. As soon as he fixed the problem the smell started to mellow out. And what does he then say to me? "I'm sorry honey, I should have gone out there days ago". Sigh, ya think?
I'm thrilled to say the temperature is above freezing today! Its downright spring-like again. I know the weather network predicted this, but I never believe them. I'm hoping by the end of March we'll be seeing the predicted early spring.
Since my recycling boxes are still buried in snow and frozen solid to the ground, I've been forced to improvise. I've been using boxes or bags, whatever is available, for taking my recyclables out to the curb. This week was a big, huge, clear plastic bag. When I looked out there at 10 this morning, and saw that bag still sitting there, even though the truck had obviously been by, because the neighbour across the street's recycling boxes were emptied, I thought he refused to take my recycling. I was a little ticked off. About a half hour later, I heard the truck coming. So, I ran upstairs to watch and be sure he took my stuff. I wasn't sure what to do if he hadn't. Like, do I phone the disposal company to complain or what? Will they then make a special trip out here to pick it up? If not, what's the point of me calling? But he did take it, he took it all. It wasn't our usual guy, which would explain why he was so late going by. So that was a relief, I really didn't want to have to call and I didn't want to be in a pissy mood, especially over that. I'm almost caught up with catching up with the accumulated garbage.
Today Little R has gone to a 2 day dance camp in town. Her friend goes to this dance studio, and they are having this 2 day thing for March break. I'm glad we've been able to get her out of the house. She's become quite the homebody, couch potato over the last few months. And she was home from school for like a week before March break. I think they should've cancelled March break because of that. But I guess they can't do that. Up until this year she was willing to go outside and play in the snow, or whatever, with all the other kids in the neighbourhood. This being the first year the Lions Club actually did make a skating rink down at the park, she has actually gone there skating, a few times. But other than that it's been watching TV, movies, playing on the computer, video games and iPods. Oh, and talking on the phone any chance she gets. I'll be glad when 4-H starts up again and she is going out to the farm to train her new calf. That's fresh air!
I guess I can start shopping for new "whites" any time too, yippee. 4-H is a big thing in these parts, so it can be a challenge to find white clothes in any of the local stores, at this time of year. Seemingly especially in Litte Rs size.
No, I haven't even threaded the sewing machine yet. No, I haven't even started preparing my quilt squares yet. No, I haven't touched the piles of yard sale stuff yet, other than adding little bits to it.
I'm off, maybe I'll put away my new set of pots and pans today.

A Glorious Day

In just a couple more days it will be our 9th anniversary. We've been together for 17 years but married for 9 years. We were actually married on a Friday the 13th. The weekend we got married there was a wicked blizzard which only lasted for that weekend. We had a very small intimate wedding at a United church. Present were only us, our daughters, my sister, my father (as witnesses) and the minister. We then spent the weekend at the Casino Niagara in Niagara Falls. We had discussed marriage many times over the years. We had been together for 8 years when I finally said "Ok, lets do it". I'm glad we did. It's nice being married. It's nice having that one person you can always count on. Hubby is my very best friend. I think I would be a little lost without him at this point. I've always been ok with the small wedding because to me it's not about the big expensive wedding it's about the marriage which follows the wedding. So far ours has been pretty good. We've discussed having a big bash on a landmark anniversary. The whole renewing the vows thing. Maybe that will be next year on our 10th. Or maybe not until our 20th. It will probably all depend on finances. Who knows, maybe we'll never do it at all. There have been years that we have both completely forgotten our anniversary. When we realized, we laughed our asses off. This year it seems Hubby really has it on his mind. For the last week or so, he has been very attentive and buying me all kinds of little things he knows I really want. He's even had these romantic inclinations! Now what the heck can I do for him? I'm at a loss.
Today is a gorgeous sunny day. It's still a little chilly, but who cares, the sun is shining and the snow is melting. We went to our cozy little greasy spoon restaurant for brunch. It was delicious as always.
And finally something worth picking up from the Freecycle site, free firewood! Now if we can just find a way of picking it up since Hubby no longer has his work truck here, sigh.
Well, I'm off to enjoy the rest of this glorious day. Don't forget to turn your clocks ahead!

New Pots And Pans Yippee

Saturday was another spring-like day. The temperatures were in the pluses. The snow and ice was starting to melt. Hubby went to town to have a prescription filled and he did a little shopping while there. He came back with groceries (how thoughtful), a carrying case for Little Rs new camera, two cases of firelogs (how romantic) and a new set of pots and pans for me. I had asked Santa for pots and pans but I guess it was too tall an order for him. I wonder if this will encourage me to cook more often? Not likely. So that was still a nice surprise.
In the evening, we drove Little R to meet up with friends at the theater in town and then met up with our friends for "pool or bowling". Now neither of us has bowled in a very long time, so I was kind of dreading it. But it turned out there are several pool tables at the bowling alley (neither of us had ever been there before so we weren't aware of this), so pool it was, whew. It was fun, had a few drinks and several games of pool. Then it was time to pick up the kids from the theater. They went to see "Wild Hogs" but it was sold out so they ended up seeing "Terrabithia" (not sure how its spelled) and then we all headed back to our friends for one last drink and whatnot. As we were standing outside in the barn, having a smoke, I noticed it was snowing again, UGH. It was supposed to be rain dammit. Can't believe I am now looking forward to rain, but I really am.
I found out a few of the local ladies, well 3 that I know of, are planning to rent the town hall for a garage sale in April. I've been invited to join in, but can't make up my mind whether I want to be involved or not. They are actually getting together to discuss it next week, so I'm gonna go to that and see what they have in mind. Since I was planning my own yard sale in May anyways, maybe I can get it out of the way sooner, the end of April. But on the other hand I would then have to haul all my crap over to the town hall. Also I would have to pay my share of the rent, but then again, it would be indoors, so worth the minor cost. Sigh, I just can't decide. But I think it does make sense. I think I will go for it. That way if it doesn't work out I can try again, later in the season, from home. It's just the thought of hauling stuff back and forth that is not at all appealing. I'll have to get all the details before I can make any kind of decision. It would kind of depend on how much space I'll have too. Like I have a lot of stuff to get rid of, and some big stuff as well. If it doesn't sell I'd have to haul it all back home, ugh. So in some ways it's more convenient to do it from home and still in other ways it would be more convenient to do it at the town hall. Sigh.
Well I'm feeling much less manic these days. Now I'm just wishy-washy.

March Break Begins NOW

Hubby and I went to town last night. He took me to a bar we've only been to a couple of times before. He had a craving for wings and I had a craving to get out of the house. So he had his wings and I had a veggie platter. We had a few brewskies and played a couple of games of pool. We then came home and had some more brewskies and played darts. Hubby decided we should smoke a joint, which we used to do chronicly but haven't done much of lately. Shortly thereafter I felt incredibly ill. I haven't been drinking at all, or smoking joints, so I guess the combination all in one night just kicked my ass. I went to bed and Hubby stayed up to watch a movie. While we were in town we went to a hock shop where he actually bought a VCR for $20 just so he could watch some of our old movies.
Today was bright and sunny, yay. The temperatures are supposed to continually rise through the week, yay. So we went out again. This time we headed in the other direction. We went to The Bargain Shop. We finally got that Kodak Easy Share camera for Little R that we have owed her since Christmas. She loves it, and it works well. We bought a bunch of new bedding, you know sheets and comforters. And I got a bunch of new bras and jammie pants for me and Little R. The prices are so good there!
I was gonna go tanning today but that was in the opposite direction of The Bargain Shop and I actually talked myself out of it this morning. I had myself convinced I would likely get fried, and feel claustrophobic in the tanning bed.
So this is the beginning of March Break, yay. I didn't even know. I thought it was the next week. Little R mentioned it this morning. I thought I still had another week to psyche myself up for it, nope.
Hubby took the car in to have a professional look at it. It turns out it will cost too much to have everything fixed, it's not worth it. So, yay, looks like I'll be getting a new car in the near future.
So yeah, pretty uneventful couple of days.
Have a nice night y'all.

Jovial? Wrong!

My horoscope for today said something about being jovial. Ha! Hardly. I'm losing it. There I was loading the dishwasher when Hubby says "Do me a favour? Don't run that because I need to have a shower." Ok, fine. So I carry on loading it and wanting to rinse stuff but not because Hubby is in the shower. I come downstairs and what do I see? Hubby is not in the shower! Hubby is sitting at the computer! Grrrrrr. So then a dramatic dialogue ensued, like, get in the fucking shower then, in a minute, well then I'm doing the dishes, no I need to take a shower, then take a fucking shower, and on it went.
Jovial my ass.
Someone posted on the Freecycle site they were looking for something. Ok cool I have that, you can have it. I'm thinking "Bingo, getting rid of more crap, yay!" I email them, I have that and you can have it. They email me back wanting to meet up in town. No problem. We try and try to make the arrangements for meeting up. The whole thing has turned into this big ordeal where we're supposed to rearrange our life to meet up with this person. I sent an email this morning saying come pick it up at your convenience. I mean, that's how it should be in the first place. Whoever wants the stuff picks it up, there is no delivery service involved. This is the first time I have run across this situation with it. No one else has had a problem picking stuff up. I've driven to other towns to pick up the stuff I wanted. I wouldn't even dream of wanting someone to deliver it to me. Jeez. I guess they live IN TOWN and we don't. So they don't want to drive out here to get the thing that they posted they want. Jeez. Get real.
And what was I doing on the Freecycle sites again anyways? I'm hooked. I was on it again this morning and saw all this crap thinking "Hey I could use that." I left the site before I could send an email. What was I thinking?
It's bloody snowing again this morning, ugh. But at least the school is open. Tomorrow is a scheduled day off, lol. So out of 7 school days they went to school for 2 days.
If Hubby doesn't go back to work soon or start co-operating with my de-cluttering efforts, I don't know what I'll do. I may run away from home. Or I may look for a gun on Freecycle. I could make dog food out of him real quick. Fucker.
So I'm reading the local paper and there's an article about the night of the big storm, a week ago. They're talking about how the roads were closed, including our main road. And about how everyone knew the storm was coming so some people left work early and stuff. And about how everyone was smart and stayed off the roads, and there was no accidents, bla bla bla. Excuse me? Who were all the silly buggers getting stuck out behind our house then? There was plenty o' traffic on our road that night. And there was plenty of almost accidents too. Had Hubby and others not gone out there to rescue those people, who knows what may have happened! Hubby even wrote a letter to this paper telling them about that night, the next day! We were astonished that the road wasn't closed! He had a few choice words for those truck drivers who almost killed everyone too. What are they talking about? Where do they get their information?
So yeah, have a peach of a day.