Toddlers........

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After running around after our Little Munchkin for much of Saturday I have decided where ever she gets all that energy from I want some of it.  What's the secret?  Does anyone know?

Can't believe it's the last day of May, where did the month go?  It was a fast month, that's for sure.

We are sailing...........

Was watching Coronation Street and was laughing at the scene where Lloyd and Tyrone were singing this on the trawler; yes they were as drunk as skunks.  Haven't heard this song in years.  Very feminine looking Rod Stewart in this video.



For those of you who are not in the know, Coronation Street is a British Soap Opera that is older than I am.  It's very British and I know the stories aren't real but devoted Coronation Street fans do get wrapped up in the story lines.  I am excited to see Kylie back in the next week or two, as Callum is just getting annoying now.........mind you wouldn't mind waking up beside him in a morning he is very easy on the eyes.  He might have an issue though waking up next to me though!

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Have a great weekend!

Look who is back from their vacation.......

Now just to muster up enough energy to start sewing.  I have a lot to catch up on that's for sure.

This week's "Home of the Week," is quite nice but of course pricey at $990,000.  Again it's all about location.  I love the roof line, and learned something new; it's called a "Mansard Roof."  I will say I do like the outside more so than the inside.  For city living it's nice as long as you don't mind being in such close quarters with all your neighbours!!

This week's "Condo of the Week," is a lot nicer inside that outside.  However even at "only" $470,000 I'll pass.  It's very sterile inside, or should we say "well staged!"  And I still can't get over the outside.  It reminds me of a hard done by, run down council estate, where the renters don't care.

So this week's "Cottage of the Week," is again a huge mansion with an equally as huge price tag of $2.7 million.  If you are looking for a never lived in house, then this is for you.  This one was custom built, but then the owner's decided not to move in????  It is a nice looking clean cottage/mansion I wouldn't mind owning, if it were only $270,000!!!

By the way, luckily I am thick skinned, as I don't know how many people I have talked to via the telephone or internet this past week have all said the same thing to me:

"Would love to see you, BUT, don't come anywhere near me until you are well!!"

But I want to share everything with you all....LOL

So let's see........

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Dh - not sick  (thank the lord!)

Gill - strep throat

DS - flu/cold

DIL - flu/cold

DD - strep throat

SIL - strep throat

Munchkin - strep throat

So the blame game begins.  We have all blamed one another for this latest outbreak.  Our Little Munchkin was the prime suspect as she is a walking germ factory; however she wasn't showing any symptoms of this, just her usual nasty "smoker's" cough and a runny nose. One thing about our family, we love to share!! 

Then just to add to all this misery, my doctor announces that Our Little Munchkin will probably take up to two years to stop getting sick when in daycare.  As I said that's no flipping good as when she gets sick I get sick.

Finally for your viewing pleasure:

Did it?

Yarn Along - May 27th 2015

I haven't done much in the way of knitting this week, but I have learned a couple of things.  I bought the Spring 2015 issue of Simply Knitting.

 In it was this free flower brooch kit.

I figured I would give it a go, despite the fact it had a couple of abbreviations I knew nothing about.

Luckily my mam mailed me this booklet she got free from the Daily Mail newspaper in Britain.

Discovered:

sl means pass a stitch from left-hand needle to right-hand needle as if to knit or purl without working it.  Who knew? Don't see the point of this, but did it all the same.

M1 means a knit wise increase (same as inc.)

yo means yarn over; where you make a new stitch by placing yarn over right hand needle.

s2kpo means slip two stitches from left-hand needle to right-hand needle, one at a time, knit the next stitch and pass slipped stitches together back over the stitch; which in turn forms a left leaning double decrease.

Luckily there was a page in the book that showed me a step by step on increasing, as I wasn't sure about that.  Plus by reading over the abbreviations and meanings a couple of times I managed to understand what they were trying to say.

I have read this great book this week.  Well worth the read and I have just ordered the sequel to it as it was that good.  You can read my review here.

If you want to see more knitting goodness please visit this week's Yarn Along:

An oldie but a goodie.......

Took this from an old post of mine as I am still not feeling 100%.  Sorry in advance to all my American friends, but you have to admit it is funny!!

A Message From the Queen

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas , which she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, David Cameron, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

(You should look up 'revocation' in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

1. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour', 'favour', 'labour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise'. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').

3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as 'like' and 'you know' is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as US English. We will let M*crosoft know on your behalf. The M*crosoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.

4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not ready to shoot grouse.

6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

7. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

8. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.

9. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

10. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

11. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

12. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Don't try rugby - the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.

13. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

14. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

15. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

16. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

God Save the Queen!

Talking of Government's:

P.S. Our little Munchkin and both of her parents are down with strep throat?  I have a doctor's appointment booked for Wednesday, if I don't feel any better,

Hand's up whose not feeling well again...........

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Yep that would be me again.  Can you believe it????  No neither can I.  I feel like I have golf balls in the back of my throat, I have a fuzzy head and my ears feel full.  I went to bed before 8 pm on Saturday night and slept solidly until 5 am and dozed on and off until just after 6 am.  I can't have caught anything from Our Little Munchkin, even though she is coughing like a trooper and has a runny nose again.  I have started taking allergy pills again, as I am sleeping over at dd next weekend and they have two cats.  So I am hoping it maybe some reaction to the allergy pills; although I took the exact same brand all last summer with no problem.

I was in McDonald's on Sunday afternoon getting a coffee and muffin for dh and I and I managed to drop two full cups of coffee all over the floor.  The tray wasn't balanced and off they went all over the place.  Ever wish the floor would just suck you up?  The girls were so nice about it and gave me two more cups of coffee which I managed to carry to the table without dropping them.

If you liked the photo of the cat above, you may like this which is doing the rounds on Facebook:

Jane, I know this is so, so wrong........but it is funny!!!

When Our Little Munchkin comes for the day.........

Put her to work right away; so she earns her keep:

 When it's time for a break put a bit of Elmo on.....

Then a bit of Peppa Pig after that:

 Then make sure she understands your instructions for cutting the grass inside of the house!!

Our little Munchkin has loved this Elmo tune since she was a tiny one:

Couple of interesting things I thought......

I deleted just over 2,300 spam messages from the blog.  I hadn't cleaned out the folder since the beginning of April.  You would think people would have better things to do than send all that spam?

As you know I belong to a book club, and we meet once a month, year round.  At the June meeting we are going to choose books for the next 12 months.  We all get to choose, but you do have to have read your book of choice.

I get to choose and the book I had in mind I hadn't read, so I ordered it from the library through inter-library loan.

You can read a preview here.  I am thoroughly enjoying it so far.

I live in a "small" town of 25,000 people and there is a lady in the library who as part of her job co-ordinates the book's for the book clubs in town.  There are 17 book clubs that she deals with.  Ours isn't registered with the library, and I am guessing there are probably more that are not as well.  For a small town I thought that was a lot of book clubs?

Are you part of a book club?  Are there a lot of book club's where you live?  How many members are in your club?  We have 12, but usually average around 9 or 10 members attending each meeting.

A Simple Supper and the home of the week

This is one of the fastest easiest meals to make.  

Chicken with Pasta and Veggies.

Ingredients:

1 chicken breast per two or three people, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 tsp minced garlic or too taste
Salt and Pepper
Pasta Sauce, whatever your favourite is
Veggies (see below)
Pasta
Oil

In a saucepan with a little oil, brown the chicken breast.  Remove the chicken from the pan and add onion and garlic, and soften.  

Add the chicken back to pan along with the veggies that you are using.  In my case I had mushrooms and broccoli.  The more veggies you use the more this meal will stretch.

I had a jar of Alfredo Sauce, so I added that to the pan and let it simmer. 

 Meanwhile, in another pan I cooked the pasta.  In this case it was a Tricolour Rotini.  Again use what you normally would when you are making yourself or your family a meal.

With prep time, this meal could be on the table in 20 minutes or so.  It is so adaptable with using as much or as little meat as you want.  Adding more veggies and you can switch it up by using rice, noodles or even mashed potatoes.   A side of salad and some garlic bread would make this a simple fast meal for a weekday.

This week's "Home of the Week,"is a $1.6 million beauty.  The inside is gorgeous, but the outside area looks a little iffy???  Gorgeous floors, and very tastefully renovated.  I would take the house, but would have to move it to a different area.

This weeks, "Condo of the Week," is not bad from the inside, but it's a sketchy area where it's located.  At $850,000 it's not cheap either.  You are right downtown so it's all about location.  There is a lot of light coming inside of the home, but that could be just how the photographs were taken?, b

The "Cottage of the Week," is GORGEOUS, but at $2.4 million is it a cottage?  I don't think so, but it is perfect, I could just move in there and not change a thing.  Hopefully they would sell all the furniture with the place as well, as that is also perfect.  Now just to win the lottery!!!

Helped out Angie at The Knitting Basket yesterday with the blog and got another blog post out and sorted some more things out from a marketing point of view.  Enjoying doing it and looking forward to the sock knitting class in the Fall now!!

Random things................

Missed my blogging anniversary again, I started blogging on May 19th, 2008.  This post is my 2,439th, and I have had 1,132,507 (as of yesterday afternoon) page views during that time.  Here's to many more blogging years ahead of me.

Got an email from the property management office.  Do you know I sigh when I see one of these in my inbox now, as I wonder what on earth is happening now.  Part of this one said:

THE WATERING POLICY IS AS FOLLOWS:

May 1^st to September 30^th

1. Even numbered houses may water on even numbered days and odd numbered houses on odd numbered days
2. The hours for watering are from

8:00 pm to 10:00 pm ONLY

NO MORNING/ AFTERNOON WATERING

I sent them an email back saying this:

"Well that's silly those times. Why can't we water early morning?  We are early to bed and very early risers. "

Now we don't go to bed at 8 pm, but by that time of night, we are settled in, probably sitting in our P.J's watching tv.  I do not want to be outside watering my gardens.  It will be interesting to see if they allow morning watering's which is what I do and what I will continue to do regardless of the policy.

Went to Barrie on Wednesday morning to spend some gift cards and called in at McDonald's for a cup of coffee and a muffin.  $1.75 for a small coffee and muffin, plus you get a sticker to put on your card, so every 8th coffee is free.  Can't beat that deal.

It was a fresh fruit salad type of day on Wednesday, as I had a lot of leftover fruit laying around.

Still have a large piece of watermelon as well in the fridge.  Nothing says summer weather like watermelon.

Speaking of the weather, the annuals have had to be covered the past couple of nights due to the risk of frost.  Dh has had to scrape the frost of the windows of his truck in a morning.

Talking of windows.........the window cleaners are here to do their twice yearly cleaning of our windows.  Fat lot of good it will do as these trucks are still wandering back and forward, stirring up all the dust.

Finally, got the window guys back again to see about repairing our basement windows.  Would you believe we have been in this house nearly a year?  I will do another post about our year end report that we have to submit to the builder.......as I have a "few" things to say!!!

Yarn Along - May 20th, 2015

I only have one finish this week for Yarn Along. Too see what everyone else has been up too, click on the icon above.  I completed my knitted hat for myself:

I used Martha Stewart Alpaca blend yarn I  picked up a couple of years ago in Michael's.  I would make the body of this hat a couple of inches longer as I prefer to turn up my rim like in the photo below.

I am still plowing along with the baby blanket:

and reading this book:

Also spent a few hours at The Knitting Basket on Tuesday with Angie and the gang.

Helped her get her next blog post out, you can read it here

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Pink to make the boys (and girls) wink!

Picked up this pink Gerber Daisy to put in the middle of our patio table for the summer. Bought it at Wal-Mart for $10.  All photos taken with my smart phone.............remember that bloody phone that is a heck of a lot smarter than me! By the way I can't get emails on my phone at the moment, as I have managed to turn something off; what or how I have no idea {{{SIGH}}}

 I love this photo:

Pretty Serious Question for you all..........

When we take our other half into clothes stores, they generally have comfy chairs for them to relax and pass the time while we do our shopping, right?  So when we accompany them to the DIY stores why is it this is the best they can do?  I got up off my "delicate" backside to take the photo.  That is my handbag on top of a pile of skids where I was parking it and my backside while waiting for dh.

 Gardening season is upon us so I will be showing you what we have been up too over the following days/weeks. We got permission to put up the privacy screen, and have picked up all the bits for it taking advantage of a tax free sale at Lowes this weekend.  In the two tubs underneath the Geraniums are zucchini plants; four in total.

 This corner of the deck are the rest of the veggies and herbs.

I did pick this up also:

Pineapple mint, thought it might make a nice tea?

Photos from Saturday......

Our grands arrived on Saturday for a visit.  They were all as good as gold and are growing like weeds.  Our Little Man, is such a good boy we never hear a peep from him, mind you he can't get a word in edge ways for his sister!!!

 I was given a tomato plant, a green pepper plant and a container that contained a rhubarb, strawberry and blueberry bush by our kids.  The Princess and little man's parents gave me two gift cards, for Tim Hortons and Chapters, and a Risotto kit!

 We kept the two girls busy for a little while watering the plants.......

 As you can see the deck got watered as well!!

 The girls are ten months apart, but Our Little Munchkin is practically the same height of Our Little Princess now.  

 They both go to school at the same time, as Our Little Princess is a January baby, while Our Little Munchkin is a November baby.

 Our Little Princess chatter's away none stop.  She was helping her Granddad weed the garden and the questions were coming out of her mouth a mile a minute.  With a lot of WHY'S in there!!

 Our Little Munchkin was quite happy to let Our Little Princess do the talking!

We got lots of hugs and kisses from them all, which is a perfect way to spend the day!