Busy, busy, busy

Life is busy around here at the moment, so I thought I'd pop in and fill you in on what has been and is going on.

The folk that bought the house had their walk through on Sunday afternoon, so the house got a good clean through before they arrived so that was good.  At least it got me ahead of the game for the week.  Haven't heard anything back about their visit, so assuming they were all happy, happy with everything?

Not sure if you remember when we were being attacked by a very amorous Red Cardinal last year?  Well this year we have a woodpecker who sounds like a jack hammer on our roof.  I have to keep chasing it; it's driving me potty!!!

Got our new bed delivered on Monday:

It's a beige linen material with antique bronze nail heads.  I have to tuck in the coverlet now though to make it look right.

Had a mammogram on Monday and I'll say what I always say,

"A man must have invented that machine!!"

Haven't been around by the new house since Saturday.  They have been doing the tiling.  The neighbours above us are moving in tomorrow; wish it were us.  Picked up some more bits and bobs for the house, will have to take some photos.

Narrowed down the choice of drapes from the bedroom; going to go with the Ashton ones from Bed, Bath and Beyond:

At work on Wednesday, so will be back on Thursday.

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2014 Drawing For Art Event.........

Every year we got to the "Drawing For Art" event held at the Station Gallery in Whitby.  Last night was the night, and I must say I wasn't looking forward to it, as the previews of the works were a bit more unusual than normal in my humble opinion.  Also they had hiked the cost of the ticket to $225 and a lot of our "crowd" didn't go.  However must say we had a lovely night, the "nibbles" were really  good, tried Baba Gahnoush for the first time, LOVED IT and we were picked before the first half was over.

We got our number one pick.  A pastel entitled "Autumn Sunset," by Ruth Greenlaw.  

My photo does not do it justice at all; so here is a link to some more of her works.

Off to the Creative Festival today in Mississauga, no rest for the wicked as they say!!!!

To dye or not to dye? That is the question.

Back when I first started this blog in May of 2008, I wrote whined about my hair.  Over the years things haven't changed and I am still whining about my hair.  I have gone the route of having it professionally dyed, styled etc; to home dying it myself.  I am at a point where I am not grey all over but have a lot at the front.

Exhibit A:

That photo makes me look awful I must say, but never mind.

I went to the hairdressers today and we got talking; this was the first time I had been to this salon.  I told her we were moving to an active adult community up the road, and yes she told me they had a lot of clients from there.  I was telling her about how I wanted to let what little colour (hair dye) left in my hair grow out and try to go "au natural."    We talked about how much natural colour I had left and how much grey there was etc.

Came to pay and she charged me seniors rate!  I politely told her I wasn't a senior, and she thanked me for being so honest........

The family found this all very amusing............me well....do I dye or not {{{SIGH}}}

Sold!

The lawn tractor was picked up today.  Bit sad to see her go but she has gone to a good home down in Chatham.  The people were saying they have already cut their grass twice.  Luckily for us ours is no where near ready for us to cut and I hope it stays that way!!!  We do have a regular gas lawn mower, so we will keep the grass immediately around the house trimmed.

It's a big relief that it sold, as now we only have little stuff to sell and if it goes it goes if not, not the end of the world.  We are holding onto the trimmer for a couple of weeks, just to trim around the flower beds.  That's our most expensive thing we have left at an asking price of $300, it's worth well over $600 if bought new.

I have been researching drapes/curtains/blinds and other window coverings recently.  Where we live now we have blinds in the bedrooms just to keep the light out and two blinds in the family room, again to keep the sun out.  Otherwise we don't have any window coverings.  With us moving back into a subdivision, we will need window coverings.

I have more or less decided to go with drapes/curtains and sheers/nets for the bedroom.  I have fallen in love with these drapes from Pottery Barn:

I like the way they hang and with the lining they will keep out the light.  We are going to head down to Yorkdale on the weekend and check out the store.

I also love this range of bathroom fittings especially this mirror:

I am still searching for the perfect light fixtures for the living room.  I have narrowed it down and this is number one at the moment.  The photo doesn't do it justice.

So that's me for the moment.  Kijiji is keeping me busy.  Got my first load of laundry hung out and dried today, FINALLY!!!  Then of course there is packing and sorting stuff out.

Hope everyone is doing okay, sorry for not visiting any one's blogs.

Nora is ready for the summer........

She had her first swimming lesson on Thursday and by all accounts it was a huge success.  She is a water baby through and through.

Did I show you a photo of the Easter Bunny.  What will they think of next?

Thought it was a bit creepy myself.  We never had an Easter Bunny in our house. It wasn't something we did in England and we never did it here.  The kids knew we bought them an Easter egg every year and I can't even remember if they got a new outfit and a toy for Easter as well.........I know we always got new socks in England at Easter growing up.

Easter isn't a big thing for us in this house.  The kids are coming up on Easter Sunday for lunch, but it won't be anything fancy.  Bought Nora some things for Easter and I'll likely by the "kids" some chocolate so they don't whine (dd!!) otherwise that will be it.

Back tomorrow due to this...........

There are men playing drums in my head!!

We have a 5 month old Easter Bunny...........

She has now mastered the art of rolling over.....so even taking a photo is something that needs to be done fast before she loses interest and rolls over!!

Her favourite food is now pureed, carrots, rutabaga and sweet potato, and of course any fruit.

She starts swimming lessons tomorrow, and I am going so there will be photos!!

New house coming along nicely.  Garage door on now and the stair railings, going down the basement.

Put the lawn tractor on Kijiji, had one reply at $5,500, holding out for the $6,000 though.

Heading out today, will report back telling what I was up too tomorrow!!

Please watch this very worthwhile..............

Impromptu Garage Sale

As I have mentioned before I have been selling things on Kijiji.  With the weather being so much nicer on Saturday we had a tidy out and I posted a number of things on Kijiji.  Lots of emails later, I tried to coordinate as many people as possible to come over on Sunday as dh had the day off and I figured he could help folk take things apart and load them into the vehicles.

I also figured while folk were coming for the things they wanted from Kijiji, I would see if I could sell them some other things.

Worked a charm and nearly $900 later, we have not only got rid of a lot of things, we even sold things that I never thought we would get rid of.  Dh hates doing garage sales, but even he got into the swing of it!!

I will say that dealing with folk on Kijiji does try your patience, but needs must.

We have not put the lawn tractor up for sale yet, but as we want $6,000 for it, I feel we should put it on Kijiji sooner rather than later as it may take a while to sell.  We do have a regular lawn mower that we can use to cut around the house, if we have too.

Two gorgeous girls.........

Finally got dd to give me permission to post a photo of her.  Just love this photo of her and Nora.

Nora's outfit is from The Gap, just love it.

 Here she is talking to Sophie, the must have toy for all babies nowadays!!

 She was all dressed up to go to her future husbands first birthday party!!  If that falls through though there is always Prince George!!!

Are we too soon?

Dh took down the first of the snow fences yesterday.  Not too sure if we should have, as we may get some snow later in the week this next week. 

Meanwhile the snow back at the top of the driveway is melting.........albeit slowly.  Still got my snow tires on the car, may leave them on until after Easter just to be on the safe side.

I was "talking" to a friend via Facebook in Oman and their temps will feel like 98 oF today.  Too hot for me.  What's the weather like in your neck of the woods this weekend?

More on the house.........

Went around to the house to see how the bricking was going.  They are getting on like a house on fire and should be completed today.  That is me peeking into the breakfast room to see what is going on.  Where it is white around the windows I think that will be stucco.

 The brick is called Madison County and have to say it is perfect; well considering I had no idea what I had picked!!

I like how the stonework turned out by the bedroom window also.

We are scheduled to close on June 16th and will be moving in that day.

Now as we are moving house of course everything is breaking down in this house (SIGH)  So far we have had a problem with a light fixture.  Need to change a switch on the stove as that is playing up.  Our hoover (vacuum) went kaput, so had to buy a very cheap one.  Hopefully that is it (touching wood.)

The new house......

Haven't mentioned that in a while have I?  Things are coming along quite nicely.  They are on bricking it at the moment.  Dh had to pop into town on Tuesday night and went round by the house and took a couple of photos.  This is the back of the house, you can also see next doors house as well in the photo.  Ours ends where the stone work ends.  Where it is all stoned and there are three windows and a half round window, that is our bedroom.

 This is the front of the house and again next door's house is partly in the picture.  That is their garage you can partly see.

Inside of the house all the drywall has been done including the waffle ceiling in the living room and it is a huge wow factor.  All the crown moulding has been installed; I didn't have my camera when we saw all of this.  I have no idea what else they have done.  The garage floor was poured with concrete, so that is done.  The garage is still to drywall.  The gas fire is in, but not the surround.  I am assuming they will be doing the tiling next.......but honestly don't know for sure.  The people opposite us have moved in.  Have seen them but not talked to them.  Everything is on schedule though which is good.

Got a couple things bought for it including the garage door opener.  The fan/light for our bedroom.  Have put a deposit down on this table and chairs for the breakfast room; I can't copy and paste a photo over, sorry.  It's nothing fancy and we wanted chairs that were not only comfy to sit on but could be easily wiped down in case of spills etc. 

Got rid of all my canning jars last week and the picnic table outside.  Going to post a few more items on Kijiji over the next few days to try and get rid of more things.  Managed to pack up the toys and games yesterday, so all in all things are coming together okay.

Babysitting Miss Nora............

Here is the little cherub:

Doesn't that face say "I am so sweet!!"

It was our son's 30th birthday on April 4th and dd decided to throw him a surprise party, which by all accounts was a success.  We were invited, but as it didn't start until 9pm and that is our bedtime we decided to pass and babysit our little cherub!!

Nora's parent left just after 6 pm and I had a list of instructions on what to do and what not to do and when.  So as per the instructions we could feed her, her squash and pears (in that order) around 6:30 pm.  So I put her in the high chair and she DID NOT like that one bit and was very vocal about it.  So fine we took her out and decided to calm her down, but that didn't really work.  So figured as per the list she had to have a bath around 7 pm.  Well she has this fold up thing like this which was perfectly fine when Miss Nora was tiny but at 16 lbs, she is squished in there.  Again suffice to say she wasn't happy about having a bath either and the way she arched her back I was surprised she didn't escape.  Miss Nora's parents are buying another bigger bath for her, but hadn't got it before the weekend.

So got her all dried and dressed and she still isn't happy.  Walked her up and down and she stops wailing and even manages to smile at us.  By this point we are heading towards to 8 pm mark, and we still haven't fed her.  Oh and by this point the bloody list has been thrown out.  Managed to get her fed, by giving her the pear first and then slipping in the squash.  She wouldn't take the bottle for love or money though and starts wailing again.  

To cut a long story short I finally got her in the crib at 11 pm.  Poor dh had to be up at 3:30 am to go to work.  There is a footpath in the living room carpet now where we/I walked her back and forward.  Dh and I were exhausted.  We couldn't get over how someone so small can cause so much chaos!!!  Dd and son-in-law came home around 1:30 pm and went to bed.  Miss Nora got up for a feed around 5:30 am and then slept to 8:30 am.  She was back to sleep by 10 am until after 12 noon as she was that tired..........I wonder why!!!

It's when she turns at you and smiles and talks to you your heart just melts, then she has a hissy fit a minute later.  Despite her mother telling me she has strawberry blonde hair I reckon it's more red and she has the temper to go with it.  I told dd and son-in-law to please feel free to ask his mother to babysit next time!!!  I don't think it's fair that I should have all the fun, do you?

Miss Nora had been out of sorts and the change of house, plus everything else must have effected her.  We will of course babysit anytime they ask, as we wouldn't want to miss out.  However dh must make sure he's not working the next day as we need a day or two to recover.

Okay stop the whining I give in........

I have had a couple of people complain about the lack of blog posts recently.  The reason for this is a couple of things.  

• I have got hooked on my Kobo and once I get into a book I forget about everything. 
• I am busy with sorting stuff for moving, which is still including decluttering and getting rid of 25 things per week.
• I just can't be bothered, as honestly nothing overly exciting has been happening and who wants to hear me whine constantly about the bloody weather.........and yes it snowed again this morning; "God please grant me patience with this rotten weather!"

Anyhow it turns out "stuff" has been happening and one thing in particular I "forgot" to blog about and I am getting told off for it.

The other week I was at dd with her best friend and her mother and we had a crafting day making this wreath:

Now little did I realize this would involve me doing work!!  I went to socialize and look after Nora.  Anyway, dd and best friend "K" had other ideas!!  This started out with Styrofoam wreaths that had to be wrapped with grey yarn.  Do you know how long those bloody wreaths took to wrap with yarn???  TO LONG!!!  My poor hands were killing me, but did dd and "K" care, NO !!  Suffice to say I had plenty to say on the subject and as usual they both ignored me.  Both "K's" mom and I managed to wrap one wreath each while we were there.  The girls made all the flowers out of felt, they said if you go on Pinterest there are plenty of instructions on how to do this.  The bunny was made with stiffened felt and it can be taken off to display year round, not just at Easter.

I must say it is pretty impressive looking and it could be hung on your front door as long as it's kept out of the weather.  In my case it has to go inside.

One other thing dh and I did was babysit Nora on the weekend.  So please come back tomorrow to see how that all turned out!!!  Suffice to say I hope to have my energy back by the end of the week!!