Tag Archives: family

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…

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…

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…

kit…

29 Friday Dec 2017

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been thinking back to some of the best memories of the last week…

one involved the gingerbread house… my son-in-law and I were shopping together in November and we spotted this gingerbread house kit that came with the house already built so that all that would need to be done was decorate… we’ve tried to do this before but have always struggled with getting the house constructed, lol…

we took the kit with us on Christmas Eve and it was a hit…

work began with Auntie helping the younger two… eventually she moved on to something else, but they both kept returning to continue with the decorating…

the final product looked great and the boys were entertained for ages… such fun…

was thinking how George would have loved working on this with they boys…

sugar…

25 Monday Dec 2017

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took my doctor at his word today, when he said…

don’t let obsessing over food keep you from living a happy life…

while we were opening our presents I had a couple of sugar cookies which my daughter had made… they were delicious… when they were younger I made sugar cookies for every special celebration, so it is fun to eat cookies that the kids make…

once presents had all been opened and we’d had a lovely vegetable quiche we had some cherry surprises… a treat that our next door neighbour would make and share at Christmas… and which my younger daughter has perfected…

finished the day off with Deadly Chocolate Mousse from Baked Expectations, after a very well-balanced turkey dinner…

hope that your day was filled with fun moments…

appetizers…

24 Sunday Dec 2017

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have arrived at the kids’ house for Christmas Eve…

took a while to bring in all the goodies and get them under the tree…

then there was gingerbread house decorating… this year I found a house that was already put together… much better…

finally, we ate four million appetizers and soon we will be going to bed…

and hope that Santa finds us…

local…

20 Wednesday Dec 2017

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we were busy today…

slept in a bit and I walked to the “A” and met the kids there for breakfast… one of my son-in-law’s favourite places to eat…

it was lovely to get outside for some exercise… after we ate it was off to the youngest grandson’s Christmas concert… he’d been sick but did a great job anyway…

from there we drove downtown to do some local shopping… picked up some chocolate postcards at Little Sister Coffee Maker, a couple of kitchen goodies from The Happy Cooker and cake from Baked Expectations…

didn’t even get a shot of the slices of cake we picked up, lol…

then it was over to Decadence Chocolates on Sherbrook… had some fun there as we enjoyed complimentary hot chocolate…

last stop was Poco Inspired where we discovered beads, findings, tools, and stones – my personal favourite…

made me think of the Johnny Cash song “I’ve been everywhere”… although I might change the next few words, lol…