30 Day Declutter Update #2

Well, I have slowly been working on the 30 day declutter, with the end of November approaching I still have plenty to do, but I have made some progess. Here is list of the more recent things I have either gotten rid of or have ready to donate:

28-41: Going through my wardrobe I have so far come up with 13 items to give away
42-48: Binder I saved from my college years
49: a watch I only got as we forgot our watches when we went on our honeymoon
50-54: two notebooks and three dou-tangs
55: a make up bag that is too small to be useful to me

So I have found more things that I have not used for a long time and therefore should not be hanging on to. However I still have some work to do to get to 90 items within the next couple of days!

30 Day Declutter: Progress

I decided to participate in the 30 day declutter from a "Thrifty Mrs" blog, you can find a link to her blog over on the right. The goal is to get rid of 90 things in 30 day, so I have until the end of November, however if you are just starting now you could set your time line as 30 days from now. I am a pack rat and definitely need to get rid of some things. So far I have given away/gotten rid of:
1) a tank top
2) a halter top
3) a scort
4) a CD stand
5) a small shelf made from press board (I hate that stuff)
6) a bag of craft stuff (purchased for a friends 4 year old daughter who did not end up coming when my friend came to visit)
7 & 8) two bath gift sets
9) some bubble bath
10) some hotel soaps and lotions
11 & 12) two photo albums that I am not going to use
13) an easel
14) a gift bag (very large that I haven't used)
15) a dry erase calender
16) dry erase markers
17) a coffee tin I decorated for donations
18) a basket
19) styrofoam plates (I hate styrofoam)
20) tin foil baking trays
21) some icing in tubes (I make my own)
22) a book
23) a candle holder
24) old speakers
25) a pillow
26) egg cartons and clementine boxes I saved because I thought they would be useful for crafts
27) a 2 in 1 DVD player VHS, where the DVD part quit

So this is my progress so far. I don't think I am doing too badly, but I am going to need to step it up if I am to get rid of 90 things before the end of November. Hopefully this weekend when I clean the closet I can find some more things to go. It's nice to get rid of these things that I haven't actually used in a very long time.

Aberfoyle Fall Antique Market

After my past few posts focusing on my household redecorating misadventures and organizing plans I thought it was time to post about something fun! Back in September I went to the Aberfoyle Fall Antique Market. It is an antique market that, in the spring and fall has extra vendors. I found some lovely finds, mostly just little things.

I have a love of old fashion mason jars so my first find was the jars below, I picked up 6 at $3 each. I love this style and only actually had one in this style before I found these.

Next I found some necklaces! I think all but the white one are vintage. I paid $5 each for the white, red and green ones and $10 for the blue one. The green and blue ones are my favourites! They are great for dressing up an otherwise casual outfit! I also got a pair of vintage clip on earrings, they are (I think) ceramic roses and very cute but I forgot to get a picture of them.

Next I found the jewery box pictured below. I didn't buy it right away as it was $35 and I wasn't sure I wanted to pay that much for a jewery box, but I just loved it and so went back to get before we left. I just love the picture on the lid and the carving on the box!

My very last find of the day was the best as it was something I have been keeping my eye out for. It is the lovely wooden tray pictured below! I am refinishing an old steamer trunk to use as a coffee table and I wanted a nice tray for the top that way I can set everything in the tray and just lift it when I need in the trunk. It is a gorgeous tray, with tons of detailed carving! I actually found it at a vendor selling books and it wasn't actually for sale but when I asked about it they said I could have it for $10! That was a great deal, though as I got talking to the lovely lady running the booth with her husband I got the impression that she thought the tray was plastic, though after buying it and inspecting it later, it most definitely is wood. There is even carving on the outside edges. Though it does need a cleaning.

All in all it was a fun day out. I went with my mother and my two younger sisters.



November Objectives!

As you know from previous posts my husband and I are expecting our first child in mid-December. And while this is a very exciting time for us I have decided that I should set some objects to complete before the end of November.

Objective 1: Organize Organize Organize
I don't know about you but some how all my closets (not that there are many of those in our old farm house!) and dressers seem and other areas that are not main living spaces seem to multiply clutter! Not only that but, good intentions gone bad! I emptied my dresser as currently much of my wardrobe does not fit, so I could put my maternity clothes away. My mistake was taking everything out of the drawers and dumping it in the laundry basket in the corner (which is now stacked and overflowing!). Probably not the smartest move! My INTENT was to wash everything and line dry it then put away in rubbermaid totes. Ha! Hasn't happened yet! So that is on the "to do" list for this weekend.

We have a large crawl space in the bathroom behind the tub which I use for storage, primarily seasonal decorations and gift wrap. Well I finally got this organized last week! So yay, one thing off the list. Since it's a small area with a slanted ceiling I can't really use those nice closet organizers. So I used rubbermaid totes, which are at least stackable. Now I don't have tons of overflowing cardboard boxes. I also set a limit. I tend to keep little boxes and baskets for hard to warp items, so I only kept what would fit in one bin. I did the same with the wrapping paper. I ended up with a large box of recycling and a grocery bag full of garbage by the end, but it is done!

We only have one closet for clothing in the whole house, it is at the end of the hall and of course has a slanted ceiling so I can not put in any shelving above the bar for hang items. I need to remove all the clothing that doesn't currently fit and I tend to toss items that I haven't found a proper home for in the bottom of the closet so this needs to be cleaned out and organized. I have started by placing all the Christmas gifts I have bought so far in a tote so they are in one spot and not all over the place.

I am also trying to declutter and get rid of things that I don't use. So yesterday I took the CD stand and put all the discs with their booklets into one of those CD books which will fit into a drawer rather than have this large and rather ugly plastic stand taking up space.

Also on my hit list is the dreaded laundry room! Due to the lack of storage in the house this is also one of those sort of "catch all" areas! It's piled with things and I figure since we haven't used most of it in the past year it's time to toss/recycle/donate a great deal of it. There is a counter in there with cupboards that must be cleaned out and I intend to designate one for laundry soap/clothes pins/etc. and use the rest for items we only use seasonally such as canning jars.

Objective 2: Complete Projects!

I have three projects on the go that I need to complete! First and most importantly is our bedroom, we are currently in the room that will be the babys room so I need to get this done ASAP so we can get the babys room all set up. I already painted. Our home was a rental for 20+ years before we bought it so it needs alot of TLC. I have posted about the bedroom I am working on, I have had a couple of set backs making it take longer. First upon ripping up the carpet (after stripping wallpaper and patching cracked plaster!) we found a rather large hole in the floor that had been patched with pressure treated lumber! So we had to rip that out, get some pine and redo that. Then I had to stain it to match the lovely aged pine of the rest of the floor (I haven't posted that yet, I just did that yesterday). And now I have to redo around the chimney since when they did our roof, the front part was done previously, apparently their working loosened the flashing on the side of the chimney they were not working on and so we got water running down inside, it ran down behind the paint and also made some of the mudding compound run. But I have to wait until it rains again before fixing it to ensure that it is indeed fixed. We have been using polymerized tung oil on the floor so I will have to check tonight to see if it will need another coat or not, we have put on about 4 coats so far, and the last one was starting to get the nice glassy finish, but a few areas were still soaking in. Then I can paint the trim and lastly install my lovely new light.

I am also working on refinishing a steamer trunk (the garish red one from a previous post). I am finding cleaning the metal to be a very difficult job. I am going to remove the canvas as we like the natural wood look. Once the metal is cleaned it won't take long to finish.

And lastly I started a quilt. I have all the strips for it cut and started sewing it together but I set it aside as I need to focus on one project at a time to get it done in a timely manner and right now the most important project is the bedroom. I have been working on the trunk when we have put another coat of finish on the floor of the bedroom as obviously I can not work in there at that point. The quilt is the last item on the list since though I did it in shades of green for the baby it does not really need to be done before baby arrives.

Wish me luck on my organizing, decluttering and finishing off projects!

Busy October

My Sally cat

October has been quite busy! We had a lovely Thanksgiving lunch with my husbands family the weekend before Thanksgiving weekend and a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at my grandparents the weekend after Thanksgiving. I love family get togethers, I feel like people are always so busy that special occasions are the only time you really get to see them. I did not do much on the actual Thanksgiving weekend, hubby was busy getting corn silage off and I was just exhausted, this pregnancy has had me very tired constantly!

We have been working on the bedroom, I am still trying to find a stain that at least somewhat matches the aged pine to stain the new pine we used to patch the hole. But we have got the tung oil sealer and 3 coast of polymerized tung oil on the rest of the floor, one more coat and that part will be done. Another issue recently came up with the room though. We recently had our roof re-shingled and after that I found water infiltration around the chimney, you could see where it had come down in behind the paint and also caused the mudding compound to run and clump. It turned out that while they had sealed up around where they had been working, their work had caused a gap on the other side which was previously done. So now I can't fix it until I make sure the problem is solved. I am not very happy that I must re-do this section. I am about 8 months pregnant now and I just want our room done so we can get the baby room set up.

My mother in law and sisters in law recently thew me a baby shower which was very nice of them. They put so much effort into it! Above you can see all the baking they did, and they made a diaper cake and hung a clothes line with baby stuff hanging from it. It was very nice of them to go to this effort.

Tomorrow is Halloween. We do not have an outside light to turn on so I try to put out some outdoor lights so our neighbours will know they can stop by. This year I bought one of those large inflatable light up pumpkins so hopefully that will help. I got it for half price because I waited until yesterday to purchase it. It was the last one left, I couldn't believe it, the store already had about 4 aisles of Christmas stuff set up and only had about 1/2 an aisle left of Halloween stuff on clearance, and Halloween isn't even over yet! 

I hope you have a good Halloween!

Nothern Vacation

We went up north to the cabin for the labour day weekend, we just love it up there! Now it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, there is no hydro or running water but It is much better than tenting it. My hubbys parents own the cabin, it is about a 6-7 hour drive. It is so lovely up there, and there are so many lakes. We really enjoy taking the boat out. My favourite type of fishing is trawling. There are also all sorts of coniferous forests. The cabin is on about 80 acres of bush, and there is a small lake that can be accessed by an old trail. We took the 4-wheeler and small boat back there. The cabin is only a few minutes from a small town so you can feel like you are out in the bush but you are not really that far away. Our favourite lake to go to is Moose Lake, it is surrounded by crown lands so there are not a bunch of cottages along it.

Lots n Lots of Canning

It has been a couple of weeks since I posted, things have been very busy! This is one of my favourite times of year when all sorts of local produce is available. I love to do home canning, that way I can use locally grown produce and I know exactly what goes into it. I canned beets, peach salsa, and prepared some peaches for freezing. My husband has been making his homemade pasta sauce. Everything is so much better home made. For example the pasta sauce, if you compare the store bought stuff to what we made they look very different not to mention ours tastes so much better. It isn't really any cheaper to make your own but no preservatives or artificial colours or flavours go in it.

I am hoping we will be able to some more before the end of season. I just love the beets and we really go through the pasta sauces. We have made some more sauce since and I would like to make some vegetable salsa. I don't think I am going to do any pickles as we still have lots of sweet dills left from last year.

Thrifted Courting Creamer

Good Morning! I am having a very productive morning with my lovely cup of earl gray tea before I start work for the day. I hope your week has gotten off to a good start. I am in a very good mood as I am taking some holidays around this coming labour day weekend and hubby and I are going up north to the cabin. So I am in a very good mood!

Last week as I was doing some errands I wandered over to the local thrift stores, I am sure that is a big surprise to you. I live near a small town so there are only two thrift stores. I did not find a whole lot capture my interest, a few books, I really like getting the hardcovers for $2 each. Then I made my way over to the Salvation Army thrift store, that really isn't much of a hike as the two are side by side. Here I found a cute little courting couples creamer container.

I thought it was very cute and would go with the decorating scheme I am planning for our bedroom. I know a creamer container is not usual bedroom decor, but I thought it may look nice on a bedside table with some flowers in it. I have not decided yet what use to put it to in there but it was only $2 and goes with the lamp and vase I have already purchased.

Last weekend at the farmers market where we were getting vegetables for our home canning I saw a vendor that had some flowers, so I told, or "requested" of my wonderful husband to buy me some. Now, I haven't said alot about hubby on here so I will tell you he is a very practical man who loves me dearly, but he never buys me flowers because in his view they are a waste of money as the are already dead when you buy them. That is is very practical side coming out. But there were bunches of 5 roses and they were only $4.50 so I did not feel it was an unreasonable demand, I mean request. They are a lovely creamy dusky purple colour.

I have decided to dry them as I think they will look lovely in a vase. You may notice the door behind them has been . . . decorated in an interesting way. I have not yet gotten to redecorating the kitchen. This is our basement door that someone has wallpapered the 4 panels. I am told this was popular in the '70s and judging by our living with the orange carpet and panelling and the dining room's green carpet I would say that the '70s are the last time anyone did any major redecorating. My mother in law swears by wallpaper and does not understand why I hate it so! But after scraping layer upon layer, some of which had been PAINTED wallpaper off the walls of the 3 bedrooms I can not stand the stuff! The kitchen is actually next on my list to tackle, I will not be doing a complete remodel, just tiling, painting, new hardware, that sort of thing.

Have a good day!

The Unexpected In Redecorating Old Homes!

As mentioned in previous posts I have been working away at redecorating our bedroom. It has been a very long time since any updating has been done so I was busy with stripping wallpaper and patching the plaster. I finally painted the walls and ceiling and pulled up the carpet, which is when I found a rather unpleasant surprise. You see, under MOST of the carpet is lovely old pine floors, however under this carpet I found this!

A great ginormous hole in the floor! Ack! So, this was a bit of a set back. The hole is somewhere around 3 feet by 4 feet! Here is another photo with a chair in it to give some perspective of the size.

As you can see there are some shiny new boards filling the hole now. I browbeat, I mean asked my husband sweetly, to patch it. Before it was patched with pressure treated lumber! Not something you are supposed to use indoors. Now, this lumber isn't perfect, while it is toung and grove the edges are beveled so it will still be slightly different from the existing pine, but it's as close as we could get. I am going to have to stain it to match the existing pine as the existing is aged and the patch is new and so will not come up the same colour if I just use tung oil on the whole thing as I have done in the other rooms. You may also notice that there is a board missing, that is because it is only a partial board so my kind husband, whom I have not nagged at all about this, nope noooo nagging, has to take to a friends to use a table saw to cut it. Thankfully this year we have decided to get a table saw for our 1st wedding anniversary so that will make my projects around here much easier. The edges of the patch are taped as my sister was nice enough to strip the floor for me as I should not be using paint stripper while pregnant. It is very inconvenient not being able to to things myself!

So, once the patch is complete I have to sand the whole floor, stain the patch once I match it to the existing using some scrap pieces, paint the trim and door, so some touch ups to the edges and install the new outlets and light. Hmmm, when I list it out like this it sounds like a lot more left than when I think about it. But compared to what I had to do to start with I feel like I am getting close to completion.

Have a good day!



Thrifting & Antiquing: Bedroom decor and fixes

Well last week I made my way over to the local thrift stores for a peek around. Now lately I have found the pickings to be slim but this time I found several items that I really liked, at prices I was willing to pay. I found another piece for my Avon glassware collection, though with this new piece I am up to two so I don't know that is deserves the term collection yet. They did have other Avon pieces, but they were $3.99 for one glass which I was unwilling to pay. But I did find one at $0.99 which I was willing to pay. I really like the deep red of the Avon glassware and the design.

Ialso found the following print that I thought would be quite pretty if I put it in a nicer frame, so at only $0.49 I thought it was well worth it. I am thinking of hanging this in the bedroom once it is finished.

I am painting the bedroom purple and want to decorate it in a somewhat romantic fashion. So to that end I found the below vase with a courting couple image, this was $2.99, one of my more expensive thrift store finds this trip!

I also found two mugs I rather liked, though at different thrift stores. The one on the left was only $0.25 and I thought the image was so cute! Latter that day I saw another at the antique store with a similar image on it for $6 so I was quite happy with the price I paid. The mug on the left was more pricey at $1, it is a Normen Rockwell image and I thought my grandmother might like is as she has some of the others.

After my thrift I made my way over to Stratford to the Antique Warehouse. And there I found a lovely courting couple lamp for the bedroom that will go nicely with my vase, this lamp was $16, but it works. I did have to buy a lamp shade for it, I am considering adding some fringe to it, what do you think?



Then I found an old iron floor grate and I was so excited! It was perfect as it did not have a lip on it and it is big enough to cover the old stove pipe hole in the floor of what will be the babys room! I did not want to patch the hole as I will never match the old aged pine boards but all the grates I have found that are large enough to cover the 12" diameter hole had a lip, and I did not want to ruin an antique grate. I have been waiting for months and months to come across something that would work so I am one very happy girl! The grate is the perfect width, but it is twice as long as I needed, but that's okay, I will be screwing it to the floor.

The bedroom I am working on is almost done, though I have run across one very large issue, to be covered in a future post, so it has set me back a little. But my hubby has come up with a solution!

Have a good Friday!

Bedroom Redecorating and the Trunk

As excited as I am to get started on that trunk I have not yet started on it as I must finish working on the bedroom. This is the 3rd and final bedroom and it has been a lot of work, stripping many layers of wallpaper, some of which were painted! Then patching the cracks in the old plaster walls. In the bedroom I am working on now we also had to box in the pipe for the woodstove that we had installed last year. It was recommended that we wall it in to it would not get bumped, also it will look a lot nicer. So, while I have completed teh 3 coats of mudding on the rest of the room, it just needs to be sanded before I can paint, I only have one coat done on the newly drywalled area as my husband only just finished it last weekend. I do not enjoy the action of painting, but I love seeing how the colour looks once I get it up on the wall. I actually chose and buy my paint at the begining of the project as it keeps me motivated as I want to see the final product. I am hoping to have all of the mudding complete by the weekend so I can start painting!

Even though I have been busy with working on the bedroom, I have not forgotten about my trunk. My poor husband, he just thinks I bring junk home until I get it finished, then he has to admit that maybe I did not waste my money! I bought some sandpaper to sand down the wood, and I found and ordered some replacement leather handles on e-bay. The one handle is completely gone and the other is ripped and rotted so if I want handles on it I have to replace them. I am thinking about painting the canvas parts creame and giving it an antique look. I got an antiquing kit at at a yardsale for $3. I am still debating what to do with the inside. So far I am leaning towards ripping out the dirty, smelly fabric and cleaning and sanding the wood, I will have to see what kind of shape the wood is in. But I am looking forward to getting started on it!

Yardsale Glass Treasures and Other Finds

On Saturday I went to the Welburn villlage yardsale with my MIL. It was alot of fun and didn't really take much time as it is only a few minutes away and is a very small village. I purchased the following dish:

I believe it is jadeite, I thought is was very cute! It does have some flaws, around the top wavey part it appears that over the years some cracks have formed, and in the bottom of the dish it looks as if there is a manufactures flaw. But for on $1 I thought it was well worth bringing home with me. I also love the cute little feet on it!

I found another bowl that I thought was lovely and it is the same pattern as a bowl I already have.

This is a Waltherglas bowl, made in Germany. My MIL pointed it out to me as she gave me the other bowl I have when she was doing some cleaning and thought I might like this one to go with it. This find was $2.  I love the detail on these bowls, the lovely pink roses! I also find them useful for serving dinner rolls and things like that in when company is over for dinner.

The third item I purchased is actually my favourite!

I have been looking for an old trunk like this for quite a while but usually they are fairly pricey. For $10 this one was too good a deal for me to pass up! It is in kind of rough shape, the leather handles are missing and the leather pieces on top are broke, but that is fine as over all it is still sturdy. I am planning to sand down the wood and paint the rest black so it will go no matter what colour I decide to paint our living room (right now I am thinking a blue gray). I want to use this as our living room table. I think it will work great and with a baby on the way it can double as a toybox.

I was very excited with these items as lately it seems that anything I might be interested in is fairly expensive. When I was in at one of the local thrift stores this week they had a cute little needle point stool and I could not believe how much they were asking for it. They had it prices at $75! All I could think was that this is a thrift store and this item was donated, and it seemed as it they were asking antique store price for it! 

Well I should be off. I have been working on family histories for both sides of my family and have borrowed some more photos from my grandmother that I need to scan so I can return them to her.

I hope you have had a good weekend!



Fishing . . . Sort Of

You may be wondering why, under a post titled "Fishing" I have posted butterfly photos. Well the truth is when we go fishing at the river my husband will wade in to fish while I prefer to sit in a lawn chair and cast from shore. I tend to get distracted by things, such as this lovely monarch butterfly, and the fish steel my worm before I notice them! My husband only caught 2 fish which were very small so he would not let me get a picture of them. However I was very proud of these beautiful butterfly photos I got (while the fish was busy steeling my worm!) so I thought I would post them. We just stayed out for the morning as it got extremely hot! It was nice to spend some relaxing time together and to get to the fishing spot we had to walk a short trail which I also enjoyed.

Local Tractor Pull

This past weekend was the civic holiday weekend and I took the friday off work as well to make it a 4 day weekend. We live on a small dairy farm and therefore we do not go on many trips. However this weekend we found some fun things to do locally. A nearby town had a tractor pull which we went to on Friday night. My husband wanted to go the Friday rather than the Saturday as that was when the regular tractors were there. On the saturday they had horse pulls and vintage (pre 1961) tractors and later in the day the modifed tractors. I really would have liked to see the horses and vintage tractors but there was hay to cut so hubby was not able to take me. But it was fun seeing the regular tractors on the Friday and it was fun to just go out together for the evening. They started with the smaller tractors and worked their way up through different weight classes all the way up to the really big tractors.

It's great finding local activites to attend. The only thing is if we go again next year we are bringing lawn chairs so we do not have to sit on those hard bleechers!



Local Raspberrys

I just love the warm weather when we have a variety of local produce available! This weekend was the last weekend that our neighbour (term used losely in the country, they live about 5 minutes away) was offering raspberries for sale. I had purchased one flat earlier, I froze most of it and ate a couple of pints. I also purchased a flat this weekend, though I found the late ones spoil quickly as they are extremely ripe, but that is okay, I made some jam with them and boiled the rest and froze them. The first flat I froze simply by tossing the berries into a freezer bag. In the winter I just love being able to go to my freezer and pull out locally grown produce. We particularly like to use the berries for pies in my household! My husband just loves pies, and I must confess that I love them too!

We set aside some of the boiled raspberries and added sugar to use on top of scones, this was very good. I am very glad my husband did not buy scones as I discovered that they are extremely easy to make. They are similar to pie dough in that you do not want to work the dough any more than absolutely necessary. However, the dough is much more moist than pie dough. But I must say after making them for the first time this weekend I will not be buying them from the grocery store again!

Life & Weather

Well it seems I have procrastinated on my posts again! My husband and I are expecting our first child in December so this is very exciting! However, the pregnancy has made me feel very ill and caused me to have no energy. Now that I am approximately 5 months along I am feeling somewhat better, but my energy levels are still low. I had hoped that my energy would return in my second trimester as people have told me it should but it seems that I am one of those where the energy levels stay low throughout. Though I do need to get back to work on our bedroom as we moved into what will be the baby's room so I could redecorate our room which is the only bedroom I have not finished yet. It wouldn't be so bad except the walls are old plaster under the wallpaper and required a great deal of tlc so I can paint. Also, the pine floor under the carpet will need to be stripped and while I think I will be okay painting I do not think I should work with paint stripper while pregnant so I have requested some help with that from my younger siblings. Many people ask why I do not get my husband to do that and there is a very good reason why. Between the farm and his full time job he has very little free time. Since this weekend is a long weekend I am hoping to get all of the cracks in the plaster repaired then I can rip the carpet up and have my family over to help with the floor stripping. I am trying to arrange it for a day when I am working from home so we can time it so they will be done when I am done work and I can visit with them and make them a nice dinner.

This week it has finally cooled down a bit and we have finally got some rain. The excessive heat we were getting was really hard on me. Usually I am not to bad with the heat but the pregnancy has made me find it unbearable, thank goodness for air conditioning! I am also very glad we have finally got some rain, the crops, garden and flowerbeds really need it. Thankfully in my flowerbeds I have planted mainly hardy perennials so I have not had to water them. Though we are on a well I still do not like to waste water so I try to plant flowers and shrubs that require little maintenance.

Rain Rain Go Away!

Well it seems we have gone from snow to steady rain! At least it is warm. But it seems whenever I contemplate my annual yard clean up mother nature has other ideas! This past Easter weekend was lovely, but between visiting with family and preparing for my exam tomorrow the yard work did not get done. I decided that I would do it this coming weekend since exams will be done but then I heard the weather forecast, rain rain and more rain for the next 5 days! So even if it is not raining by Saturday the yard will be to wet for me to go traipsing around. Not to mention my husband, because of all the wet weather they haven't been able to get out on the fields to get the planting done, and if they can't get out soon he will not be fit to live with! They get quite cantankerous when they can not get their farm work done! I really do hope it is not raining Saturday as I am planning on going to my first town-wide garage sales of the year. I love going to yard sales, I have started marking on my calender when my favourite ones are this spring/summer.

Enough of Winter Weather! (The favourite Canadian passtime of complaining about the weather!)

Last week and early this week I was so looking forward to spring weather. The robins are around, the hyacinths and tulips are coming up, and it was really making me feel more energetic, renewing my ambition on the many little projects I have on the go. Then Wednesday came, and it brought chilling winds and heavy snow! Now yesterday was sunny, and thus far today has dawned bright and sunny but the temperatures are back into the below zero range. I have really just had enough of winter and would be perfectly happy to not see this weather again until December! I was starting find out when my favourite town-wide yard sales are as some are in April, and I was starting to contemplate the annual spring yard clean up. Living on a farm is wonderful, however having a year full of trees inevitably leads to many many branches to be cleaned up come spring. Also occasionally the father in law and my husband leave the bale wrap from the large round bales outside, instead of in the barn, which of course means there are pieces of it all over the place once the snow melts, There is even a large piece caught up in our red maple! I was noticing earlier in the week the quagmire of mud and puddles was starting to dry up and I was hoping to get a start on the clean up this weekend. Now it is far to cold and there are patches of snow again!

Bugeting: Is It Non-Existant???

Good Morning. This picture is not at all related to my post but my little Tess kitty is cute and had apparently decided she wanted to be my mothers birthday gift!

Yesterday I was listening to the radio on my way to work as usual and the people who do the morning mention interesting little bits of news. That morning they were talking about these wallets that a company created so people can be more aware of their bank balance or spend. Basically there were 3 types discussed. These wallets are some how connected to your bank account and the 1st wallet gets bigger as you balance increases and smaller as your balance decreases, the second vibrates when you make a purchase and the bigger the purchase the longer it vibrates and the third has a hinge that gets harder and harder to open as your balance goes down. I could not believe! I certainly understand there is a whole psychology around it being easier for people to spend more on plastic (ie: debit/credit cards) than to spend the physical cash, people are more reluctant to part with it when dealing in cash. However what has become of us that we can not even be aware of how much money we have in the bank! What ever happened to making a budget! I have an excel workbook that I use to track everything, right down to if I should buy a cup of coffee, I track how much I withdraw and what bills will come out when, then I keep track of how much and on what I have been spending my cash. It's not hard, it doesn't take long and once you start it feels good to know exactly where every cent had gone and it becomes kind of fun. We are not children who need to be told by a gadget (that by the way cost you money to buy) that your bank account balance is going down when you spend! I mean really!

Cherry Pie

I really should make a more concentrated effort to take pictures of things! But if I always waited to post until I had a picture to go with it my posting would be even more erratic than it is now. However I do feel pictures make blogs more interesting. I made a very yummy cherry pie last night but forgot to take a picture before we had some for dessert. I have become fairly proficient in my pie making as pies are my husbands favourite! And this particular recipe is his absolute favorite and I must add it is my favourite pie recipe too as it just tastes amazing. It is a recipe using either fresh or frozen sour cherries, I use ones I froze from our cherry tree, the recipe is out of an issue of the Harrowsmith magazine. Two differences in this recipe that I think are key to the amazing flavour are the use of minute tapioca as the thickener and the use of almond extract. Ever since finding this recipe almond extract had become my favourite, I often substitute it for vanilla or even add it when no additional flavouring is called for if I think it would be suitable. The pie wasn't really pretty, it boiled over a bit and I didn't do the nice lattice top but I think all pies look yummy. When I make pie I always use the whole brick of lard and separate it into balls (there are instructions on the Tenderflakes brand box), and then I freeze the extra so next time I just have to leave it out to defrost and just roll it out. As a side note you should not defrost in the microwave, this damages the dough and makes it tough. I have found when freezing the balls it is best to wrap them in cling wrap and then put them in a freezer bag to keep them fresher. My mother in law actually will line her pie plates and freeze it like that so it's even quicker to make the next pie but I do not have the freezer space for this and would worry that I would end up damaging it by putting something on top of it, but it is an excellent idea if you have the space.

Have a good day!

Too Much On The Go!

Disappointingly I have not yet used my new sewing machine. I didn't get to it this weekend because on Saturday I took mom out for her birthday which is on the 19th, and on Sunday I worked on the bedroom, taping and mudding to patch the cracks in the plaster. Since I went to all the work of stripping the wallpaper I don't want to put more up to cover the cracks so if I am to paint I must go through the laborious process of patching even the tiniest hairline crack so it will not get bigger and show through the paint. This process has worked very well on the other two bedrooms, I did the first about two years ago and still not cracks! I want to get the bedroom done before summer so that during the summer break from classes we can work on redecorating the kitchen which is a much bigger job than a bedroom.

I have made plans with my mom, she will be coming over in a week from Saturday (she works every other weekend), and is going to help me with making my skirt. So if I don't get to it before, I will at least be using my sewing machine then. She used to do tons of sewing when I was little. She used to make me cute outfits and Halloween costumes. I think it will be fun and I think it will probably go a lot better with her there to guide me rather than trying to figure it out myself. I have never made clothing before, all I have made are some tote bags, a set of very simple curtains and the garter for my wedding. None of these projects required a pattern or exact measurements.


I also didn't get much of a break between terms. My last exam was on Dec. 21st and classes started up on Jan 3rd (the 4th for me). I shouldn't be surprise at how time consuming it is to work full time plus take 3 university classes since I worked while I was in college but I think being out of school for 3 years made me feel like it wasn't so bad. Lol, it's a good thing though because had I remembered how crazy busy it was I may not have done this. Despite how busy it is I am glad I am doing it. I will only need 6 more classes after this term (so one more year of part time classes) and I then will have both a college diploma and a bachelor of science and my work is very supportive of my doing this.

New Sewing Machine

I don't have a picture yet but yesterday I bought a new sewing machine and am quite excited to use it! I had bought a used one last year but I found it really was not meeting my needs. It did not come with a manual and I was unable to find the model online and it only came with the normal foot, and I really wanted a zipper foot. I also found that once I had a few layers of fabric it had a lot of trouble with it. I think I will try to sell, though not for much, but I am sure someone will have a use for it because it still works and it is good for very simple projects, it's just not good for me as I want to advance my skills, but it would be fine for basic mending and such and it does have some decorative stitches. I have a skirt pattern and fabric so I am hoping to start on it on Sunday or tomorrow afternoon. Tonight I need to clean and bake a cake as my husbands family is coming over for brunch tomorrow to celebrate his mothers birthday. I am going to make my chocolate hazelnut cake (gluten free: no flour) with chocolate cream cheese icing, and I will use butter cream icing to decorate it. My husbands sister will be bringing the main course and his other sister will bring the side dish.