Some things I managed to sell on Facebook Marketplace in March.........

2 brand new packs of storage/bankers boxes $25

This old chair I bought years ago to re-finish.......I never got around to it! $20

Set of 8 Denby coffee mugs. $50

Set of three brand new waterproof padlocks. $15

Quilters bundle (all three photos), $20

Two Suitcases, $20

My old pans, $50

My living room rug: $150

Wicker and Metal plant stand $25:

Dried Grass Decoration: $15

Funny thing is I never expected the pots and pans to sell. I was just going to donate them.  The same with the suitcases, was just going to donate those as well.  The rug sold within hours of me putting it online.  It was from Pier 1 Designs and the lady that bought it had one prior.  Plus it was a good quality rug.  I loved the look of it, but it was a pain to keep clean, plus it clashed with my new green chairs.

I never expected to sell all that stuff this month. All were items I had no need of or hadn't used in a long while.  I still have a few things listed and will keep them listed until I sell them.

Technically when this post is "posted" I will still have this at the house, but it's being picked up at lunch time today:

Scotts Seed spreader, $70

Wow, quite a month eh!

Update on Passports.........

Hubby, myself and son all got our British passports back this past week.  Daughter's is still being processed, as she had to send more information, but should be done I would have thought this week.

So all in all, it took about a month, which actually surprised me, I would have thought it would have taken longer..  We are still waiting on our documents we sent with the application, as they are returned separately.

The passports were delivered by DHL who just put them on our front porch.  No knock on the door or ringing of the front door bell???  We have to sign for our Canadian passports when they are delivered.  

So all in all another job done!

I could not pass up this deal,

 You know when something happens that you know it must have happened for a reason?  Well this week something happened and basically all the stars aligned!!

With having a good clean out and renovating the laundry room the rest of the basement is not looking a bit drab.  However it wasn't on the top of the list to deal with the rest of the basement.  There were a couple of sections of main room walls that needed touching up with paint.  I found the paint that the people we bought the house from had left us, but as it was from 2009 I wasn't sure how it was going to look.  Turned out it was a solid lump in the bottom of the tin.

I took a photo of the lid, with the thoughts I need to pick up a gallon of paint some time:

I have been selling a bit of stuff on Facebook Marketplace this month; there will be a post about it all in a couple of days.  While I was looking up prices of some stuff I was selling I came across a post for paint.  A painter/decorator's client must have got him to buy four gallons of paint and didn't like the colour when he started to put it on the walls.  I looked at the name of the paint and thought the name sounded familiar.

Yep, the exact same name and brand as our paint on our basement walls, from the exact same store.  I love the paint colour in the basement as it is nice and neutral.  I offered $125 for all four cans and he accepted and he even dropped them off at our house.  That paint should be $76 per can plus 13% tax, = over $85 a can.  What a deal!

So guess what I am going to be busy with 🙄  Oh well, nothing like keeping busy I suppose..........

More of the laundry room done................

We had a trip to Ikea at the beginning of the week to pick up some units and countertop for the laundry room.  As we only have a medium sized SUV we figured it would be a two trip visit, but we did manage to get everything in the car in the one trip.

We picked up 3 units and a countertop.  Now everything was flat packed and was to put together!!  So there were multiple boxes.  Good news though, we ordered everything in the kitchen department upstairs, then took the paperwork downstairs to pay for it all.  Then the order was sent through to where it's picked for you.  It didn't take too long and I crossed everything off our list while hubby put it in the car.

The units are from the Sektion collection.  The doors are Enkoping.  The countertop is Ekacken in gray-beige.  The handles are from Rona, and are these and come in a pack of 10.

We are super pleased with the quality of these units.  Very sturdy and well worth the money.  Now ask hubby what it was like to put everything together and he was glad when he got everything together; but overall very happy with how everything went.

We purchased an 8 foot countertop and that was super heavy to carry, but again super quality.  We priced out similar units from Home Depot and this came in cheaper.  All in all for everything it came in around $1,200.  We want it as a make shift sewing area/work bench; as I want to move my sewing stuff out of the upstairs bedroom eventually.

I will give you a full tour, when I get everything else sorted out in the room.

Filing Taxes

Got our taxes filed for another year.  Here in Canada we have to report income and "file our taxes," so the Government of Canada can make sure you have paid enough taxes for the prior year.  The deadline is April 30th.

2025 was hubby's first full year of retirement, so it was going to be a "first" for us filing our taxes with only income from pensions and RRSP's.  When you first retire that first year is a bit of a guessing game as to whether what you have planned and what actually happens aligns.

I am pleased to say it did align, sort of.  The good news we didn't owe tax, but budget wise we did go slightly over budget with our expenses.  Luckily we do have a cushion, so it wasn't the end of the world, plus we did pay for a couple of unexpected things.

What this means for 2026, is that we don't need to change how we do things.  I will say I feel as though we are better off since we retired, and as yet I can't pin point how?  Which I know is odd.

I will say I am fortunate that hubby was such a hard worker and I was a preplanner.  This has made retirement financially easier on us.  Though what is happening in the States is not making things easy up here, as every time a certain person opens his mouth we end up losing money 😡

So my advice for anyone thinking about retiring, plan well ahead if you want to retire.  Research, research and research.  Get rid of any debt before you retire, going into retirement not owing anything but your regular bills, is a god send in my opinion. 

If you have any tips you want to share I would love that.

'Tis the season.....

 for Potholes........

Some days you are following people who are swerving all over the place and are thinking are they drunk?  No they're avoiding potholes!  There are a number of roads around our area which are notorious for how many potholes there are.  

I was in the mall, which is one of those malls where all the stores are outside.  Their issue is sunken manholes; along with potholes, it is awful.  

It's no worse this year than other years, it's just annoying!

I am sure you all have multiple stories to tell about this?

Meanwhile:

(image credit)

New pots and pans..........

So I finally got around to ordering and receiving a new set of pots and pans.  I ended up getting them from here:

I got this set in green.

I was talking to daughter-in-law about hers and her only complaint is after a few years the colour starts to chip off the pans.  I have used theirs when were were staying over and found they were great and nothing stuck.

I haven't had a chance to try mine out much yet, but looking forward to it.  My only complaint so far is that I would have preferred another saucepan over two shallow pans/fry pans.  Also not that this bothers me, they are not dishwasher safe, they are to hand wash, which may put some people off?

Love tulips, but........

Have no luck at all with bunches of them in the house.  I cannot get them to last a week without them completely drooping.

I got these last Wednesday:

By the Monday they were all droopy.  I hammered all the ends of the stems hoping that would help, but no.  Any tips on how to keep tulips in a vase without them drooping?

No words needed....LOL

 It was my birthday last week and we went out for lunch with the kids.  I got a birthday treat supplied by the restaurant..........my face says it all!!  I was frightened I wasn't going to have any eyebrows left.....LOL

The chocolate cake I took home and shared it with hubby later and it was actually good.  

Wonky Donkey..........

We have a couple of Wonky Donkey books and I loved reading them to the kids, this is a different take on it which I thought was neat.........

These never get old.............

 All from the Vicar of Dibley........

Emma Chambers, who played Alice has since passed...........

A Bougainvillean bamboo band

 This is so neat and very catchy.............

Doesn't make an ounce of sense to me, but......

 what do I know?

Let me explain.  If you go to a drive through restaurant or coffee shop, you generally see a timer on the wall.  The employee's are expected to get each order out and the customer through the drive through within a certain time.  I am sure many of you are familiar with this?

I went to the grocery store on Saturday morning, which is unusual for me, as I tend to avoid stores on the weekend.  Anyhow, this is a Zehrs store, which are overseen by Loblaws, which is one of the major grocery retailers here in Canada.

Fast forward to checking out, and there was a guy in front of me, who was taking advantage of some deals, exclusively posted on the store's Facebook page.  I sighed when I saw this as none of the cashiers have any idea how to put these deals in the system.  And this cashier true to form had no idea, anyhow, I told the cashier to call over the superviser, as there were two of them standing talking a little down the way.  They ignored her, so I called the supervisor over.  She had no choice but to walk on over now, and I guess she sucked on a lemon on the way over by the expression on her face...LOL  Anyhow got everything sorted out with that and the poor guy went on his merry way, and the supervisor went and sucked on some more lemons!!

Then it was my turn and I was chatting away with the cashier and she started telling me about how the till times each transaction now.  They are expected to get people's orders through in a certain time.  They are made to sign some paperwork about this.  Another cashier came over to talk to me as well about it, as I was in disbelief about this.  I even asked, "What just like a drive through?"  They said yes.  What is you have coupons?  What if you have a huge order?  What if an item is priced wrong?  What like the guy in front of me who had the Facebook pricing and no one knows how to ring in those items?

My "surrogate daughter," worked for Loblaws, so I was telling her this story and she said honestly she's not surprised.  She was saying that none of the higher end Loblaws brick and mortar stores any making any money.  The online ordering and delivery's are making money.  They are building more "lower prices," grocery stores, like No Frills, Independent, etc, as folk are shopping there more.  They are trying to reduce costs when ever they can.

Now I can almost guarantee if this chain of stores is doing this, the rest will follow suit.  It must be so demoralizing for the staff who are not that well paid to now have to make sure they keep to a strict timetable when putting people's orders through.

Thoughts?

March fruit and veggie bag............

 I picked up March fruit and veggie bag, which I paid $20 for.

The fruit was 1lb of strawberries, 3lbs Gala apples, 2 extra large naval oranges.........they were good!!

The veggies were 10lbs potatoes, 2 lbs onions (I gave them to a neighbour), 2lbs carrots, an extra large sweet potato, a green leaf lettuce, 2 heads of broccoli

Not sure if I got my money's worth this month?  I guess I did.

I will use the sweet potato to make wedges.  The carrots for soup.  The potatoes to make baked potatoes and I plan on making a couple of shepherd's pies for the freezer.  Had the lettuce, just dressed with a parmesan and basil dressing, got two meals out of it as it was a large head of lettuce.  The broccoli as a side veg with a meal.

Better than the original?

 

I think so, do you?

Pre-Birthday treat....

Hubby took me out for Afternoon Tea on Friday.  I knew all about it and it was at a British Store/Restaurant close to where we live.  We went for breakfast there the other week, and I wrote about it here.

The cost per person was $42.50 plus taxes, which worked out too around $48 each, with tip we paid a total of $110.  There was a lot of food!  The top tier included a shortbread cookie with jam in the middle, dark chocolate mousse, and Eton Mess.

Middle tier one plain and one cheese scone each.  It came with jam and clotted cream which was homemade.  We had to ask for butter for the plain scone, and she brought a container of margarine 😐

Bottom tier there were 3 Coronation chicken (cooked chicken, mayo and curry powder) sandwiches each, 3 cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches each, and 3 egg mayo and spring onion (salad onions) each. A mini broccoli and cheese quiche, and a mini bacon, egg and cheese quiche each.

Drinks was unlimited tea or coffee, we chose coffee.

As the scones and quiche's were warm we ate those.  Due to having different flour over here in Canada, the scone's were very dense, but putting the clotted cream and jam on the plain one, made that taste better.  Putting marg on the cheese scone didn't help; I suggested they supply butter in future as it had a better taste than cheap margarine.  The lady was surprised we asked for butter as she thought we would put the clotted cream and jam on the cheese scone????

The quiches were just the standard store bought quiches, or at least the pastry cases were store bought.

We had to eat the Eton Mess and the Chocolate Mousse as we couldn't take those home with us.  The Eton Mess was good, the chocolate mousse was nasty.  I love chocolate but this mousse was again very dense and bitter,  and I could taste the cocoa powder in the teaspoon I tried.  The lady said that the mousse seemed to be left most of the time.  I suggested a light lemon mousse as by the time you have worked your way through the bottom two tiers you are looking for a lighter finish.

We tried a sandwich each and they were fine.  The bread they used was really nice.

We took home the rest of the sandwiches and the cookie and had them for supper.

So all in all it covered both our lunch and supper.  The sandwiches wouldn't have lasted any longer as they were already drying out by supper time.

Overall we thoroughly enjoyed it.  It made a super nice treat and the coffee as I said before is really good.

Overall well worth the price for the amount of food we got, they just need to make a couple of adjustments in my opinion to make it even better.

P.S. I just wanted to say I loved all your comments you made about the sugar sandwiches.💖

Sugar Sandwiches.........

I was talking to my mother the other day and she was telling me how after the war and with food being rationed, how parents wanted to "fatten their children up and treat them," when more food became available.

One of the things my mother remembered eating was sugar sandwiches.  Bread was buttered and sugar sprinkled over it.  She also remembers eating sandwiches of bread and butter with condensed milk spread over the buttered bread.

Once bananas became available, they would mash up a banana, sprinkle sugar over it and pour condensed or Carnation milk over it.  They would also mash up bananas to put in sandwiches as well.

Jam sandwiches were a staple, as my Nana made jam, bramble jelly was my favourite.  

Every night before she went to bed as a child, my Nana would crumble an OXO cube into a bowl, pour boiling water over it, mix it up and crumble in a slice of bread and my mam would eat that before bed.

I had never heard of sugar sandwiches, as we were never given them.  

Is this something you have heard of?

Guaranteed to please..............

As you know I have multiple grand children between the ages of 4 through 13, yep one's a teenager already!!  Anyhow to eldest five are ages  nearly 10 to 13 years old.  They are past the easy to please with cheap chocolate and toys stage, cash is key with those guys....LOL

I will be seeing those five over the next week or so and I am not sure if I'll see them before Easter, so decided to be organized and get their Easter gifts sorted.  Of the five, four are girls and one boy.  I headed to Dollarama and this is what I got!

In each bag I placed four bags of candy and a $10 Dollarama gift card.........

I popped them into a brown bag lunch bag, and decorated it with Easter stickers, remember they are tweens and teens, so baby things are not cool!!  They will tolerate a few stickers ....just...LOL I always do seven hugs and kisses on everything of theirs, one hug and kiss per grandchild.

I realize it is not a healthy or nutritious treat bag, but they will be thrilled with it, plus they get a gift card to go and buy more sugary treats!!!

By the way I use the brown bag lunch bags, to store my mushrooms in the fridge, they last way longer when you do that!

I haven't forgotten the two youngest ones, both boys, but as they are 4 and 7 they are still okay with just a toy and candy, oh and stickers!!!  I will get them closer to the time as we live closer to them.

Two Things................

MP3 Players and Leisure Arts.

Again when I was sorting through some paperwork I came across this pattern:

I hadn't thought about MP3 players or the company Leisure Arts in years, have you?

I had a MP3 player, and loved it.  I am sure if I went through some drawers I could find it.  I used it a lot at the farmhouse when I was cutting the grass.  A lot of people had the Sony Walkman; remember when that was all the rage?

Leisure Arts was a popular company for arts and crafts back in the day.  I haven't heard of them in years?  I looked them up at www.leisurearts.com  and as they're an American company, I am not sure if they ship up to Canada anymore?

Another blast from the past, eh!

The Hobby Horse Quilt Shoppe

 While going through some papers I found the following:

It's the newsletter from the Hobby Horse Quilt Shoppe in Glen Williams, Ontario.  That is where I learned to quilt back in 2006/2007.  

I took the Beginner Class.

 Making us do everything by hand was the best thing for a first timer, as we learned so much.  I went on to make a cotton flannel quilt (machine sewn class) for hubby after that and we still have that quilt.

The neat thing about this place was it was located in a converted barn.  They had the most gorgeous stock and by looking at their website still do.  I haven't been to the store in years, as we no longer live in that area.

As you know I rarely quilt anymore, when I did though I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I am also selling some quilting supplies I found.  I had forgotten I had the following:

Someone else may as well get the use of them.

The 1980's called............

I have been having a clean out of things we stored in our basement laundry room.  We hauled everything out to  renovate it, and before putting everything back in, I have been going through things.  I have been going through a box which was marked "Sewing Stuff!!"

I found a pile of paper sewing patterns and have listed them on Facebook Marketplace.  I thought I would share a few of the photos of things we brought over with us from the UK in 1989.

I ordered the two Family Circle ones and paid  90p each for them.  I remember making our daughter one of the outfits on the bottom right pattern when she was a baby.

The ones below remind me of Princess Diana.......even the hairstyle; especially View C.

You could get away with wearing style's B & E now couldn't you?

I then went through a folder of things I cut out from magazines and here are some things I found from the 1980's.

This screams the 1980's doesn't it?  Even the colour's.

Do you remember when Cafe Curtains were all the rage?

Then finally from 1984, Hilary James' "Sew Easy Gifts for Christmas" Series from December 1984.  These came from Pebble Mill at One.  I honestly have no recollection of watching this show?  I had to look it up.

So as far as the laundry room goes, we have got some more done, but it's not quite finished yet.  We still have to buy the cupboards (kitchen units) to go in there, hopefully in the next week or so.

I hope you enjoyed my blast from the past?