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?