I might just do this................

 

I first saw this posted over at Small Moments Blog and thought it was wonderful.

I then googled Cottage Whimsy and went down an Etsy rabbit hole!!  Feel free to visit that rabbit hole here.

Have a lovely day either cleaning the house, or reading.........I would choose reading, personally!!

I think we will end up calling this summer........

The wet Summer of 2019.  You get the odd dry day, interspersed with lots of wet days.  So whenever it has been dry I have been trying to make an extra effort to get outside and get some gardening done.  Wednesday just happened to be a dry day and I was home, so in and out of the garden I was all day.

One job I did get done was get an edge dug around the tree closest to the road on the front, as it had merged into the grass.  This was the before:

 This was the after.

 We have two trees in the front garden, this being the other garden bed.  I got that dug over earlier in the week.

From these photos the grass doesn't look too bad, but believe me when I say that it is more weeds than grass.  Luckily for us the weeds are green 😉

I also dug up a bag of weeds using my handy dandy dandelion/weed extractor that I blogged about here.  I also cut the back grass, and the side of the house grass (the one we re-sodded) and "whipper-snipped" all the edges.  So all in all a productive day gardening wise.

My goal is to try and get one area a week cleaned up.......figures crossed I succeed.  How is your garden doing?

Appleby Lane is now up and running...........

As I mentioned before it is a Facebook only store.  The link to the store is on the side bar, but also here it is.

For the people who do not use Facebook, I will do a post once a week updating what I have added to the shop, and if you are interested in anything just post a comment (I WILL NOT PUBLISH IT) with your email and I will get back to you.

The search for the store you need to search Appleby Lane 64 on Facebook.  I am also on instagram @appleby.lane64  I will say I am very new to instagram and don't fully understand it all, so again a learning curve for me.

As you will no doubt understand this is a work in progress and there will be many updates and changes while I am doing it.

Things will settle down and get back to normal on my blog, hopefully in the next week, as you all must be getting fed up of hearing all about Appleby Lane...LOL

Again, I will say thank you for putting up with me regarding this.  I would love it, if you could pass on the info on my shop to your friends.  I will be holding a giveaway in July to thank everyone for their support.

Blogs I follow........

Sunday seemed as good a day as any to wade through the blogs I follow and see who is still blogging.   

Turns out I was following just over 270 blogs, by the time I had finished going through them all, I am now following just over 130.  I knew about the odd one of two that had closed down, but did get a surprise or two at a couple of others who had closed their blogs.

I stopped following anyone who hasn't blogged in the past nine months or more, as I figure they had given up blogging, just not closed down their blog.  I think I need to go back over my list as I know there are others that I don't have much of an interest in now.

I think like everyone our interests change over the days/months/years and what interested you last year may not interest you anymore.

Of the 403 people who follow my blog, I wonder how many of that number actually read my blog on a regular basis; not very many I guess?

I need to sort out my blog and figure out where to go with mine.  Doing this one job is a start of tidying things up.........will warn you it is not a five minute job!!

Decisions, decisions..........

I am up and down about my blog at the moment.  Should I continue with it or should I say goodbye to it?

From my lack of posts recently I have been leaning towards saying goodbye.  I am finding it more of a chore than a joy at the moment.  Writing a blog should not be a chore, it should be done with joy and because you want to do it.  I think you can tell when a person is writing a post because they feel they "have too," and I can even see it in my posts.

I still haven't come to a decision whether or not I will carry on, but would love to hear how you feel about your blog and if you have had those times when you say enough.........

P.S. Life is good, busy but good.  Got a lot going on though.

Some interesting facts and things for a Friday.......

Have you heard of an island called Tristan Da Cunha?  I hadn't either.  It's part of the UK’s Overseas Territory of St Helena, Ascension and Tristan Da Cunha.  I have heard of St Helena and the Ascension Islands.  This is the most remote inhabited island in the world, with St Helena being the closest place to it at 2,000 km away.  Wikipedia has a lot of interesting facts about the place including photos here.  Why I even stumbled across this was I was reading an article on Daily Mail Uk about St Helena getting an airport in 2016; you can read more about it here.

Do you know what my most popular posts have been on my blog? You'll have had to have been around a few years to know.

There are two that come up time and time again.  Back in 2008 and 2009 I did a series of posts about 50 + 1 Recipes for various fruits and vegetables.  The most popular of them are Blackcurrants and Carrots.  They are looked at on a daily basis.

50 + 1 Recipes for Blackcurrants

50+ 1 Recipes for Carrots

Now to be fair I know all the links don't work on these posts as it's been a while.  I was thinking of maybe doing a more updated list of each one?

I still look at the Home of the Week every week, here is the link to this week's.  I'll pass as it's overpriced at $2.35 million, and the concrete wall at the end of the street, will NOT muffle the noise, I don't care what they say!!

The Condo of the Week isn't much better to be honest; here's the link to that.  At $460,000 the price isn't too bad, but again the noise from the Don Valley Parkway will be a major nuisance and make using outside impossible, as that road is busy 24/7.

Now for those of us who want to live a bit of a fantasy life and own one of the top ten most expensive houses for sale in Toronto, this link is for you.  The prices range from a measly $14.6 million to $28.8 million; I know pocket change for some!!!

And finally here is a photo of Our Little Munchkin taken at daycare on Thursday.  She is back to being a happy camper, as she is feeling fine again.  She finishes her antibiotics on Monday, so we have bets on as to when she is sick again....I would give it a week, so the beginning of March!!

This is what the day care said:

The Nora on the Bus Goes Up and Down! 

Nora rode the tiny bus around the classroom this morning.

Answering a couple of questions......

Why don't I just burn the paper I am shredding?

Well it clogs up the fire I find.  As per the waste people I can put the shredded paper in our organics bin:

So it may take a few weeks to get rid of all the bags but it's as good a place to get rid of it I think?

Got a lot more shredded on Saturday and got a couple of drawers cleaned out as well.

Have we been house hunting?

Yes and no.  We know what subdivision (estate) we want to live in.  We have been to many open houses so we have figured out what model home we like.  However until we have a firm offer on our house we won't go house hunting in earnest.  Now as this subdivision is for "Active Adults," I can safely say that there is always some houses up for sale due to people dying, going into retirement homes, just moving because, moving down south to the warmth or moving up north to their cottages.  

At the moment there are a couple of houses on the market that we like, so we know we will find something.  Within the next month the housing market will pick up, so we are expecting more houses to come on the market.

How does the decluttering challenge work?

All I am doing is trying to remove 25 things per week from the house.  So that at the end of the year you will have 1300 less things in the house, whether it be clothing, books, Christmas Decorations and just stuff you don't use anymore.

I need to be more consistent in removing things that I don't use and one of my big things is magazines I have a habit of hoarding.  Need to find a home for over 100 Prima Magazines; any ideas?

As it's freezing cold still it was a good day for a stew on Saturday.  So I made Lentil Stew with garlic bread for supper.  Click on this link for the recipe. Both Vegetarian and Vegan friendly.

I also managed to visit a few blogs on Saturday, hoping to visit many more today!!

What the heck happened?

I input my March grocery numbers into Excel and up popped $413.84 for the amount spent in March???  Savings, only $48.04...........pretty miserable if you ask me!!!

April HAS to better regardless.  Yes I know we had Easter, but in the scheme of things that shouldn't have made too much of a difference but I guess it did?  Ideally I would like to only spend $200 this month, but realistically $300 is a better number for us.  Remember also that my grocery totals include all cleaning and personal products as well as food items. 

For the first three months of the year I have averaged out at $315.36  a month in spendings, and $63.17 a month in coupons and savings.  I need to do better!!

I published another couple book reviews here, if anyone is interested?

I spent a lot of Tuesday morning on the computer catching up on blogs.  I know shocker.  If I didn't pop by your blog and comment on it, please yell at me!!!  I also deleted 310 Spam messages that I had received in my Spam box since March 26th.  I still get a lot of Spam messages coming through on my my comment page as well.  That's why I moderate all my comments.

An older friend in her 80's is deciding to have a cleaning out session in the hopes of having a garage sale when the weather is better.  She has a HUGE collection of Precious Moments ornaments like this one:

Now I don't claim to know anything about them, but said I would try to sell some on Kijiji, as I can do that for free.  Does anyone have tips or hints on selling these?  She doesn't have a computer, or a digital camera, so I thought I'd help out with this.

Streets Alive! Leacock Chairs in Orillia

On Wednesday I met up with Jane in Orillia for lunch.  All along the main street were these giant chairs which are this years Summer outdoor art project for Street's Alive  They are Leacock Chairs in  honour of local writer Stephen Leacock

Here are some of the chairs I took photos of:

I will post more about our day out over the next few days.

A Big Thank You........

for everyone that pops by and visits me at my blog.  However don't be shy in leaving a comment, even if all you say is hello.........

To all my new followers, a big thank you as well, I would love to get above 300 followers, that's my next goal.


I have set myself a challenge which will be good for me, and that is not having anything to eat after my supper.  I have a habit of snacking while I am watching tv, which is a bad habit.  It's been nearly a week now and although I have had the urge to snack I have been good and haven't.  It's not a lot but it's a start.  I also want to cut out having a snack in the afternoon next when I have a cup of tea.  I'll start on that next week, as having a cup of tea generally means having a cookie or a piece of cake.


I am taking baby steps and don't want to tell myself I am going on a diet, as that will totally put me off and I won't do it.  It's a mind game thing with me, because as soon as I think of the word diet, it means I can't have anything to eat.  So I will try it this way to see how things go.

Cindy posted a good recipe on her blog the other day.  She actually posts good recipes on her blog most days.  Anyhow, I did "my version" of her recipe by using and Old El Paso Taco kit instead.  It was not too bad, I didn't use the full seasoning package that came with the kit as I find it too spicy for me.  This is what mine looked like, click on the link above to see what the original looks like.

I know no low calorie, but remember I'm not actually on a diet per se!!!

Nasty, nasty, nasty

also, itchy, itchy, itchy.  I am having bad reactions to insect bites this year.  This one is on the top of my under arm and is driving me crazy.

I even went into town to get some oral medication to take, as the Benedryl stick just wasn't doing the job at all.  So I took two Benedryl pills just after 11 am, and then rang Jane but I ended up having to cut the conversation short as I could hardly keep my eyes open.  I ended up going to bed for an hour, but still felt groggy after I got up.  So I guess I won't be taking many of those pills.

I checked my site meter for the first time in a while and it seems I am averaging around 324 people visiting my blog.  To all of you a big, big thank you for popping by to read my blog.  Please feel free to leave a comment, as I love to read them. ( I have installed a site meter it's at the bottom of the page and was free, so anyone can install one here is a link: http://www.sitemeter.com/)

Picked another pile of raspberries also on Monday morning, so will make jam on Wednesday.  I think I will have more than enough rasps to make all my jam.  It is stinking hot around here, so hibernating indoors with the a/c on.  I have no idea how we managed the first year here without a/c, even Molly is just going out to do her business and is right back in again because of the heat.

Off to work today, have a terrific Tuesday everyone!!

Bitter cold again..............

It was blowing a gale force wind on Sunday which in turn made it feel freezing cold outside.  However that didn't seem to stop the snowmobilers and there seemed to be plenty of them out and about on the trails.  Its not something I have ever done is snowmobile, as I am not big on outdoor activities when its minus 100 outside!!!

I was talking to my mother on Sunday and she was telling me all about the going's on in Britain with the rotten weather they have been having.  It seems to me a lot of problems stem from the "Health and Safety" issues, maybe someone from Britain could explain it better than me.  What we both were saying that people have gone soft.  My mother was telling me when she was born, she was born at home and her god mother made my mother her first snowman, out of the snow that has blown in through the crack in the bottom of the window panes the day she was born.  Yes it was a minature snowman, but the windows were that drafty and old.  No one had central heating like they do now, and the year she was born was a bitter, bitter cold winter.

We lived in the country and very rarely were the schools closed.  My mother was saying the city schools are closed, as some teachers can't get to work.......so why close the school, get teachers to take extra pupils in their class.  Over here if its too cold to let the kids out at recess/playtime, they have indoor recess, where the teachers do something fun with the kids.  Things are a changing as they say and I don't think for the better do you?

On a more positive note when we were out on Saturday I picked up a couple packet of seeds.  A packet of cress, as I love egg and cress sandwich.  Over here parsley is the garnish of choice, but quite often in Britain its cress (please correct me if I'm wrong.)  So I have a craving for an egg and cress sandwich, so plan on growing some.

  I also picked up a package of heirloom sweet peas. 

Now granted our risk of not having frost will not happen until after May 24th, I can dream what my garden will look like and there is nothing more lovely than a bunch of sweet peas.

Did you remember to put your money in your pot for the daily savings club?

Today's money saving tip:

Turn off the television. One big way to save money is to watch less television. There are a lot of financial benefits to this: less exposure to guilt-inducing ads, more time to focus on other things in life, less electrical use, and so on. It’s great to unwind in the evening, but seek another hobby to do that.

I want to make some changes to my blog, is there anything that you would like to see more of?  Or anything that you want to see less of?  Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated........

Before and after, books and a blog....

The raspberry patch before:

The raspberry patch after:

I can hear you saying, WHAT HAPPENED???? Well me, my dad and dh decided as I don't have time to prune everything by hand and clean the patch out, I would put the lawn tractors blade as high as possible and mow them for this year.

They are so overgrown and full of weeds, we figured it wouldn't do any harm for one year. This way come Spring, I can start and thin them out and dig out the weeds etc, and make a fresh start on the patch.

Only one small problem I went and got a puncture in one of the tractor tires, so that sucked!!

I mentioned yesterday I would like to buy "The Backyard Homestead," by Carleen Madigan, well the book is published through Storey Publishing, and when I looked at their site I couldn't get over what a great variety of books they have.

They even have a blog called Inside Storey which is really intersting. I found all this by googling Carleen Madigan's name, and up she popped with this blog entry about Fiddleheads.

Monday morning.......

as most of you know I prepare my posts the night before and they post at 1am of the day.

We were away most of the day on Sunday, when we got back we were pooped. So I will do another post later today..........

Odds and ends, this and that, bits and bobs.....

Ever had one of those blogging days when you just think to yourself what am I going to write about today? Well today (Monday) is one of those days. Not sure how you all do it, but I tend to write a post one day to be posted the next day. I have my posts published around 1am our time so that there is a new post for you to read in North America when you get up in a morning. I guess its also there for your morning reading in Europe as well? It's just you guys down under that have to wait until late morning, early afternoon to see what I have written about today.

I do pride myself on being pretty organized and do tend to write a number of posts ahead of time. My weekly recipe posts I was working a month ahead of time. I have been lazy and I am still working on November 14th's post. I think it's because the veggies I am choosing are more unusual and its harder finding the recipes. I know this weeks Brussels sprouts one was a real doozy finding 51 recipes, but I persevered and found 51.

Then there are some weeks when I could write six posts in one day, but I find one per day is more than enough, other than when I do the photography posts, you know the Watery Wednesday, Skywatch Friday and Today's Flower posts. I do those posts as I enjoy taking photographs, and seeing what other people have done, inspires you to experiment and to try harder.

When I write a post I want it to interest you as much as it interests me. But as I generally lead a pretty boring life, some days its hard finding things to write about.

For example, this is what I did today.

Got up, had my breakfast, read the newspaper and did the sudoku puzzle while eating my breakfast. I then finish my cup of tea, while I do my daily journal report for my column that I have on Phancy Pages I also catch up on my emails etc.

I then went for a shower, and cleaned the bathrooms. I threw a load of laundry in the washer, by this time its nearly 8:30am. I called my mother, but she was having her lunch and told me she would call me back. I then washed some dishes, made some fish cakes for supper and prepared a romaine lettuce for supper. I hung the laundry on the clothes horse to dry and did a couple of little jobs.

By this time it was 9:30am and my mother called me back. We talked until nearly 10am. I made a cup of tea, went and got the mail and read the mail while I was drinking my tea.

By this time its 10:20am, so I went upstairs and gave that a good clean. It didn't take too long, as we only use two of the four bedrooms, so I only ran the duster over the two bedrooms we don't use. I polished all the oak staircase down, and then hoovered all downstairs as well. Just for added excitement I am including a photo!!!



By this time its after 11:30am. Did a couple of little things before 12 noon. Had lunch at 12 noon and watched MASH while having my lunch. I then wrote a bit more of this post. I then went and did some sewing for a while and finally finished off my nephews quillow for Christmas. Came back downstairs and did the ironing. Surfed the net while I had a cup of tea.

I then made an apple crisp. Now while supper was cooking I popped in to visit some blogs and over at Cathy's she has a couple of You Tube clips which are so, so funny, here is a link to one of them.

After supper things got super exciting I watched the news, had a shower, then watched both my soaps, Eastenders and Coronation Street. Then watched Little People Bigger World, then went to bed. What a day, eh!!!

Actually this post didn't turn out too bad, as I added a couple of recipes, that I had posted ages ago, a couple of other links, a funny and even a photo. Not bad for having nothing to say!!!

I am obsessed, I need a favour, my hair AGAIN!!! And see how the world would vote in the US Election.......

As you will have noticed I have been playing around with the look of my blog. Wish I'd left it alone, but never mind. While I was playing around with it, I lost my counter at the bottom, so I put a new one on called "Sitemeter." Now I have to say that is one of the neatest things ever. I have become obsessed with it, well with a section of it anyway. There is a world map, where there are dots which indicate where people are checking in from. I mean its great I just love it. I know little things amuse little minds, but this keeps me out of mischief.

Of course the most dots I have are in Canada and the United States, followed by Britain and Australia. There are the odd dot from other places, but I seem to have big gaps in Eastern Europe, Asia and South America.

So this is where the favour comes in. Do any of you know any other bloggers in the far flung corners of the world? I am sure you do. Would you mind asking them to pop over to my blog. They don't have to comment or anything. I just want to see some dots popping up in out of way places.......am I strange or what?

When I checked my world map on Thursday morning I got all excited as there was a dot in the pacific ocean, it turned out someone in Hawaii had popped in. I also had some one in Lithuania pop in, got all excited about that as well.

So pretty, pretty please ask your blogging friends to pop on by.



Now my hair..don't groan. This is so unusual, well for me anyway, that I thought it may interest you all.

About a month ago I started to experience an itchy scalp. So of course the first thing that popped into my mind was head lice......aaarrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhh!! However I also had a burning sensation on my scalp. I knew I hadn't been near anyone with head lice, but I checked myself and couldn't see anything.

It sort of went away, but every now and then, it would flare up. Anyhow this past week, I have been past myself with the itchiness and the burning sensation. I will say I had changed shampoo from Herbal Essenes to Pantene, so I figured maybe the Pantene was irritating my scalp, so switched to Dove, which is very mild. However things got no better.

So on Tuesday I got dh to check my scalp and he couldn't see anything. I decided to put itchy, burning scalp into Google to see what popped up and you won't believe what it said..........STRESS This was caused by stress??? Dh had a doctors appointment on Wednesday so I went along and got the doctor to look at my head, just to make sure there wasn't anything there. He confirmed my scalp looks perfectly normal, no dandruff, no head lice, no redness.

Isn't that the strangest thing you have ever heard? Now I will say I have had a couple of things going on this past couple of weeks that have made me feel a bit stressed, but nothing overly exciting. This has never ever happened to me before.

Now I need my hair cut and dyed, but honestly the thought of putting dye on my hair is not at all appealing as my head feel as though its on fire. I did however go and get my hair cut today, at "N's" house and she did a great job. I will be going back to her, as I can afford to have it done there and she is a really nice person. She also said she had another customer who has the same problem.

We agreed to keep off the dying of my hair at the moment, until my scalp settles down, so I am going to be very multi-coloured for a while.

Finally my friend "P" sent me this link and it is really interesting. Click on the link and see what you think.............it tells you what would happen in the US election if the world voted.

Happy 2 Month Anniversary to Me!!!

On May 19th 2008, I stuck my toes into the big blogging pool for the first time. I wasn't sure how I was going to manage all the technical stuff like posting photo's, adding hyper-links etc. Then of course what on earth would I write about that would interest anyone else?

However two months later ThatBritishWoman blog is still around, and I reached a milestone yesterday of 5,000 hits on the blog...YEAH!!!!! So I figure I must be doing something right somewhere?

Two months later, I still love to blog. I do still have minor panic attacks now and then about what on earth am I going to say this week, but you know something always pops up. I am still puzzled by the technical aspect of things, and would love to make my blog fancier like other people's. I am learning things every day. Just the other day Nita, from Phancy Pages, emailed me to tell me how to put a degree sign in my recipes, ALT 0176 Did you know that? I didn't? I would love to put a strike, a solid line through words, as though I have crossed them out, but have no idea how? So if anyone knows that please let me know. Is there a list of codes out there that tells me how to do these things. I would love to be able to change the font and colour of my posts, don't know how to do that either. Also where do people find all the neat pictures, as I would have loved to have put a Happpy Anniversary pitcure on this post?

One thing I found really funny with blogging is the conversations within conversations that go on. For example, you may be reading a post about baking a cake. You read the comments, then all of a sudden there is a comment about yes you can buy that toaster from that store. And you're thinking what has that got to do with a cake? However I have discovered that the original poster had maybe asked a question on another blog, and that person is answering her back on her own blog. The first few times I saw this I was puzzled, as to what was going on. Now, I hold my hand up to being guilty of doing this....LOL

I must say one thing about blogging, its addictive. I do try and limit my time on the computer, but more times than not, I figure I'll just pop on for a few minutes and next time I look up an hour has passed.

Another thing I have learned there are such a lot of creative people in this world, and thanks to the internet, we are just a click away, if we have a question. I have learned a lot about people, about the countries they live in, about what is considered normal in their country. About different ways of doing everyday things. I am a firm believer you should try and learn something new everyday. It keeps your mind active and stimulates the brain.

I have no regrets at starting this blog, and have to say 99.9% of people have been super nice.

So here's too many more months of blogging!!!! And a big thank you to you all for visiting me and commenting on the blog, as without you I would be talking to myself......even more than I normally do!!

A Big, Big Thank You to you all........

for coming over to look at my blog. It has been up and running for less than a month, and I have already had 1000 hits, I hope that is the right term? I can't get over that.

When I started this blog, I honestly thought no one would be at all interested in what I have to say, or what I do.

I am so pleased with how its all coming together. Thank you for popping in, please say hello while you are visiting, and hope I can continue to "entertain" you with my posts.

Thanks,

Gill :0)