Category Archives: loss

drain…

08 Monday Jan 2018

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early yesterday I discovered a clog in the kitchen sink…

I plunged it a number of times without any luck, before searching around to find the Drano and followed the directions to clean out the trap… apparently after two tries of putting the chemicals into the affected spot you need to call a plumber…

texted my son-in-law and he said he’d have a look when they came for dinner…

he plunged, drained, and snaked for an hour at which point we gave up… by then the kitchen looked like a disaster zone with pots, pans, and dry goods everywhere…

apparently the problem is not in the sink trap but in the main drain…

after supper we called RotoRouter and scheduled a visit for Monday…

so, got a call at the office and raced home to let the plumber in… he was here for three hours and had a difficult time clearing the line… seemed that grease was the problem…

also some concern about the plastic pipes meeting up with metal ones…

feels like the last few weeks have been full of things breaking down… with any luck, maybe that will be done…

frigid…

07 Sunday Jan 2018

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lots of beauty last Friday…

caught the sunrise out the bedroom window… frigid out there but it looked beautiful…

took a nice shot of it out the patio door a bit later…

finally got a shot of a sun dog… which once again demonstrated how cold it was…

we were out and about and as we returned home got this lovely shot of a bit of hoarfrost on the Virginia creeper…

haven’t seen much hoarfrost this winter…

the kids have returned home now but this is a lovely memory of our time together…

veggies…

06 Saturday Jan 2018

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focussing on eating a bit better…

got an early text from a friend and she picked me up on the way to La Belle Baguette for some fresh bread… I picked up a cranberry baguette, a rye sourdough, and a chocolate croissant…

when I returned home I had half of the croissant, some Laughing Cow cheese, and a raspberry smoothie… delicious and a bit decadent…

not long after that, I ran out to the mall with my daughter and eldest grandson and when I returned home finished the last bit of shepherd’s pie with Evolution Sweet Green compressed juice, one of the few things I get from Starbucks… it has little sugar, lots of vegetables and few calories…

for supper I used the Coconut Wraps which were a Christmas gift from my daughter… I used up the last little bit of leftover steak, some mushrooms, green onion, pea pods, and garnished it with cilantro and shredded radish… made a bit of cucumber and onion salad to go with it…

pleased that I have used up most of the leftovers in the fridge… and have included lots of veggies in my meals today… this might have been where I fell of the wagon over the last month, lol…

bye…

05 Friday Jan 2018

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early this morning the kids went home… yesterday I worked and they, along with my two younger grandsons, picked me up at the end of the day…

even though it was crazy cold, they had gone to the zoo so that Auntie and Uncle could visit Journey to Churchill… the boys were excited to show everything there, as we go quite often… one of their Christmas gifts is a family pass so that we can go whenever the mood strikes us…

when we got home there was pizza making fun… all three of them had a good time and in the end we had a lovely dinner, although the prep left a big mess…

today I had leftover pizza for my lunch…

after the kids were picked up by their daddy, we had a short rest and then the final packing took place…

we were at the hangar just after midnight and they checked in and went right through security…

I headed home and to bed while they waited until 3 am to get onto their flight… they texted when they got on the plane and when they arrived in Ottawa… they are now home safe and sound and getting back to their routines…

I am trying to get back into my routine as well, but it sure is quiet around here today, lol…

a goodbye selfie;-)…

crackers…

04 Thursday Jan 2018

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spent a bit of time on New Year’s Eve prepping for our traditional New Year’s Day dinner…

while the kids were out, I began setting the table, and finished it early on New Year’s Day… decided on a silver and purple theme and had some fun finding decorations and napkins that would go well together…

there were just enough leftover Christmas crackers for everyone to get one and we read jokes, but did not put on any paper hats, lol… we can just squeeze around the table when there are eight of us and I have to push it up to the window so that everyone can get in… the table can expand further, the problem is that the dining room can’t…

while the steak and lobster tails finished thawing I prepped the potatoes for baking, cut up the Brussels sprouts, sliced the mushrooms and prepared the sauce for the escargot stuffed mushrooms…

once the kids arrived the sons-in-law looked after barbecuing the steaks and lobster… finished up a Caesar salad and the melted butter pots…

everyone had a taste of champagne or sparkling cider and we enjoyed a delicious dinner… we aren’t going to talk about the slightly overcooked Brussels sprouts, sigh…

we were all worn out so we ended the evening with a short visit and the Winnipeg kids headed home…

a bit of reading and visiting and we all headed to bed…

lovely start to the new year…

Nest…

03 Wednesday Jan 2018

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so the smoke detector was installed on Thursday afternoon… and I am loving it… a cute little ring of blue (a nightlight) appears when I walk under it… so far no alarms, which is good, nor has it talked to me yet…

on Friday my son-in-law went out and found the Nest thermostat at a good price and on Saturday he began the process of installing it…

it was a long complicated piece of business… by 7 pm that night, it was 63 degrees Fahrenheit in the house because after the first install, and putting back the original thermostat, the furnace refused to circulate any heat… the furnace service people came out around 8 pm and discovered that a fuse had blown, so they went back to the shop and brought a new one and installed it… this particular fellow didn’t know how to install the Nest product so we left it so that the house could warm up… it was rather chilly…

on Tuesday my son-in-law tried again, after he had gone out and bought more fuses, in case we blew another one in the process of hooking up the new thermostat…

once again, the new one wouldn’t work so he reinstalled the old one… he walked over to the furnace company’s office and left a message for the owner to give us a call… a while later we heard back and they figured out that there needed to be another wire…

which meant that the drywall ceiling in the basement hall had to come down so he could run the cable… he removed it and cleaned everything up beautifully, but by then it was too late to move to the next step…

today, while I was at work, he was able to pull the wire (without cutting into the plaster in the hall, yay), connect everything, and set the temperature, because it finally worked perfectly…

we added it to my app and I can now change the temperature from my phone… although it does say it is -8 outside, whereas the weather app says it is -22, lol…

seemed like such a simple little job, but he didn’t stop until it was done;-)… I sure am blessed…

mugs…

02 Tuesday Jan 2018

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I have a shelf in a kitchen cupboard where my mugs go…

a few taller ones go on the shelf above…

the goal is that when I get a new one I have to give one away…

over Christmas I have accumulated three new mugs, two as gifts and one that I picked up at the Assiniboine Park WildThings Gift Shop…

very happy that I was able to take out four mugs to put in the pass-me-over box…

while having tea with a friend today we discussed how much she loves my mugs… we decided that, as it gets more difficult to let a mug go, I shall pass it along to her, knowing the mug will be loved, lol…

this might just make it easier;-)…

coal…

01 Monday Jan 2018

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last night the Ottawa kids went out to a New Year’s Eve party…

before they left I gave them a bag I’d packed with a few items so that when they arrived back home after midnight my daughter, who has dark hair, could first-foot the house…

I had packed an orange, small bottle of Baileys, a few chocolates and a good sized chunk of coal…

when the girls were eight and ten we had taken a trip to the East Coast and had gathered coal along one of the beaches there… we still remember the fun we had that day… over the years we have used that coal to first foot a number of places, lol… I think I might be down to the last piece…

I had fallen asleep before they returned home and they had to call to wake me up so that they could get in…

I was surprised with a different bag which had the coal, orange, chocolate and a number of other items which they had read up on and included in the first-foot bag…

there was a piece of evergreen, a nearly finished salt mill they’d taken from the kitchen, crackers, a bag of candy coal, some nuts, cash and some coal body scrub…

took a picture this morning of all the goodies…

they had been planning and collecting what would go into the bag since they arrived in the city, lol…

seems like pretty good luck to me…

urge…

31 Sunday Dec 2017

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had the urge to get a few unfinished jobs completed, so while my son-in-law was here we tacked a couple of them…

last night I printed a number of pictures to put in a frame that I’d picked up a while ago and hadn’t been able to decide on what should go in it… I’d been waiting for the professional photos that we had taken in October… but once I started choosing I ended up with pictures that I, or the kids, had taken… it was fun because my son-in-law had got the wifi printer working perfectly so that I could print right from my phone… I do love technology, lol… unfortunately I stayed up very late to finish the job…

so this morning I hung the frame up… yay me, although consensus has it that it might need to come down a bit on the wall…

then he helped un-decorate the two small trees, box them up and put them away in the basement… looks way more roomy in the living room now… left everything else up for New Year’s dinner tomorrow…

I’ve had an IKEA drawer for ages that needed to be put together and installed so he also did that… took a few minutes to decide where it would actually fit…

it is going to make getting the pots out a lot simpler, although it has to be held open or else it slides shut on its own… apparently the kitchen cupboards might not be perfectly level…

and finally this evening I emptied out a drawer that was filled with expired crackers and cereal, lol…

I feel very accomplished;-)…

ice…

30 Saturday Dec 2017

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out and about today…

found some warm and non-skid boots for my daughter at Canadian Footwear… they still measure your feet there… who knew… these will keep her on her feet when there is ice on the sidewalks in Ottawa…

had a lovely visit and some delicious hot chocolate with Constance as we browsed and found just the chocolate that we needed at Chocolatier Constance Popp…

stopped in at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights to pick up my membership…

got a few pictures with the Winnipeg sign, being as we’ve done the Ottawa and Kingston ones, lol… a lot warmer when we did them… there is a new ice rink in front of the sign now… very cool…

and then popped over to see the ice castles, although they don’t open for another week… already look spectacular…

pictures came out rather well considering that my glasses were foggy from the cold…

pretty full morning…