Busy, busy

No photos today.  Busy painting the trim.  Everything is to prime first, then I paint two coats of top coat, so it generally take two days to get all that done; as with the humidity and damp weather we have had it's slow to dry.

I am also knitting something.  I will post photos of it on Wednesday.  You will have a chuckle when you see it.

Then I don't know about you, but I can spend hours talking on the phone........well not hours, but quite a bit of time.

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Actually that can't be me, as I have no idea how to put rollers in mine or anyone's hair!!

My computer is behaving itself at the moment, only because as soon as I have finished doing whatever I turn it off.  I used to let it sit all day and only turn it off on a night when I went to bed.  It does go to sleep mode when I leave it on, but I found it was freezing up and taking forever to load a page.  So we'll see how this goes and go from there.  

I am hoping to try and get caught up with everyone's blog later in the week.  I have just realized it's the last day of June, half way through 2015 already, gosh the year is just flying by.

Monday songs........

Do you have a favourite song that includes the word Monday:



 This is one of my favourite songs:
 









Your turn?

New Resident in our garden and she is Royalty!

 
Look at the crown she is wearing!!  The "stone" body is actually resin, so no stones were harmed in her making.  Here she is looking at the new English Lavender plant:

I picked up this red Astilbe as well.

 As well as this pretty Dianthus.

We have yet to put down the new mulch. 

 Already the garden is looking a lot better.

We do pay for gardeners to come in on a weekly basis to cut the grass and every other week to weed the gardens.  They are paid through our monthly maintenance fee and they are USELESS!!!  I have contacted property management and basically told them that in an email, also cc-d board chair.  Haven't heard back from them yet.  So that's why we are putting mulch over everything in the hope of keeping the weeds down.  The state of the garden's is a sore point with me at the moment!!

I AM HAVING MAJOR COMPUTER PROBLEMS AT THE MOMENT AND IT'S BLOODY FRUSTRATING!!

What a beautiful night....

After supper we headed to the garden centre.  Dh wanted mulch for our garden.

Saw this as we walked in, it was all real, I think willow:

 Bought 30 bags of mulch.  Managed to get 25 in the bed of the truck.  5 bags had to ride with us.

Sun was shining bright at 7 pm. 

 Parking lot was empty.

 Tomorrow this car park will be full.

 We had to keep stopping the truck as we wanted to make sure everything was good in the back.  One placed we pulled over was by this cemetery.

 Shame it is beside a busy road.

So I guess we are going to be busy tomorrow.

Can't wait to see what your comments are today.....

Every week, the Toronto Life magazine/website posts in their real estate section, Home/Cottage/Condo of the week.  Not every week; I in turn post about them on here.

So my question is when you hear the word cottage what do you envision?

Why am I asking this?  This week's "Cottage of the Week," to my mind is NOT a cottage.  Not only is it an island, which is fine, but it has a price tag of $12 million.  My idea of a cottage is somewhere small, cozy and a place you can relax, without worrying that you may or may not disturb or make a mark on the designer decor.

The "Home of the Week," is pricey at $5.8 million, but according to one of the comments on the post, it's the going rate.  When I was looking at the photos I kept thinking there was something missing, it wasn't until I got to the end I realized what....painting's, there is nothing hanging on the walls.  One of the closets is full of clothes so someone must live there?

On a side note.  Our daughter and son-in-law got married at the Golf and Country Club that this house backs onto.  Nice area, close to the city, so that's why the price is what it is.

The "Condo of the Week," is on the market for $700,000.  It's okay but doesn't show well, as it looks cluttered to me and I am not a huge fan of that sort of duct work being exposed, but that is just me.  The outdoor terrace is nice though, but if that a/c unit is noisy it won't be a great area to sit.

I spent a great couple of hours at The Knitting Basket, helping Angie out with a couple of things with her blog and Facebook page.  Pop by and say hello if you have a minute.  I love the shawl pattern she posted on there.  That yarn she is featuring would be lovely knit in it.  But NO I WILL NOT BUY ANY MORE YARN UNTIL I FINISH SOMETHING!!!!  The two balls I picked up on Thursday while there don't count do they???

Quiet day on Wednesday for me.

Other than going to the mail box never left the house all day.  I did get some more trim painted, which is a good job, jobbed, as I say.  Got a load of laundry done, again another good job, jobbed.  Even got a bit more of the baby hat knit. I like those sort of days, when you get things done without any other distractions.

Back on the 16th dd and family came over as the boys, (ds and son-in-law) went golfing with a couple of their friends.  Meanwhile dd and our Little Munchkin stayed at home with me.  Our Little Munchkin went for her usual two hour sleep at lunch time, while her mummy made her a pair of shorts and I did some knitting.  Here she is eating her snack sitting by the kitchen window.  She loves looking out of it waving at everything and everyone going by.

 When Granddad came home from work we all went to McDonald's for an ice cream.  That bib lasted all of two minutes around her neck.  At least she sat still while she shared her mummy's ice cream.

Then while her mummy and Nana were busy looking around the store, Granddad pushed her around in the trolley, both as happy as Larry. Our Little Munchkin, loves her Granddad!!

Got "stuff" to do today, which means leaving the house.  I do enjoy those days when I can stay at home; are you a homebody?

Small bits and bobs for Yarn Along.

Nothing major finished other than another dishcloth.  I used this pattern on the top dishcloth; the bottom one is a plain knit one.

I went to the Knit and Sit at The Knitting Basket on Tuesday.  Angie is having a table sale throughout the month of June and I was able to pick up some goodies, like this yarn which I am making into a baby hat for the little girl born earlier this month.  This baby hat was well received, so I thought I would make her a larger one.

It's such a bright and light hat and so girlie.

I also picked up these goodies:

The three smaller balls, are for more baby hats, as I have another baby due in October (no relation to us, just friends), so want to include them in the gift I give the new parents. I love knitting with that type of yarn.  The larger ball is for a project I have in mind......I will reveal more later!!

One thing I have discovered that like quilting, my stash of yarn is getting bigger and bigger, and I swore up and down I wasn't going to start a stash of yarn!!

If you do a craft or hobby, what do you have a stash of?  And is it out of control (LOL)?

For more Yarn Along posts, please click on this link.

Cheap and Cheerful Closet update.......

I got the front hall closet decorated and put back together over the weekend.  We normally put custom closet organizers in our closets, but don't have the funds for that at the moment, so did a cheaper alternative to tide us over, for well under $10.

This is the closet painted.  When the colour first went on, it reminded me of a nasty dirty diaper.  It dries a lot darker and the colour grows on you...thank goodness!

Here is the finished closet.  It is not only a place to store our coats and shoes, but also where some of my cleaning things go, so it does double duty:

To try and tidy up the things I put on the shelves, we got a five pack of clear plastic tubs and some "chalk board" label's from Michael's.

 Not sure if you can see, but my bill came to $9.12 and that included a couple of buttons.

 The chalk board labels are great as you can erase the writing as long as you use the chalk or chalk based pens, like I have for my chalk board.

 So when you are happy with your writing just pop the label on the box.  Try not to tear it like I did!

Those chalk board labels are a new to me thing, that I think I will incorporate in other places in the house.  Have you discovered anything new to you for the house recently?

I am so behind in visiting people's blogs at the moment, so please forgive me.

Just saying............

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Not feeling the best............nothing to worry about.

Short and sweet.........

Happy Father's Day to all the Father's out there:

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The good thing about decorating....

well other than finally there is some actual white in this house along with some colour.........I mean builder's beige does get old fast believe me; is that when I decorate I have Stingray Music on the TV and listen to the oldies station.  It's good to catch up with all the great tunes and hear ones you haven't heard in a while like this one:



Dinner on Friday night was good.  I didn't take any photos, but I will describe what we had.  We started with a platter of assorted starters, basically samples of various things, which included pickerel in a tempura batter, antipasto, chicken and pork kebab, and a giant shrimp with seafood sauce.  That was okay, not the best but not the worst.

For our main, I had sesame seed crusted salmon, with jasmine rice, various steamed veggies and a "salad" of mini sprouts.  It was all perfect, right down to the steamed veggies, 10 out of 10.  Dh had bacon wrapped pork tenderloin, with mashed potatoes and steamed veggies.  Again dh said it was really good.  For dessert, dh had Lindt Chocolate cheesecake and I had the Bailey's Irish Cream creme brulee, that was 100 out of 10, I could have just eaten that all night.  Gosh it was good.  Dh had a couple glasses of wine, while I had water with my meal.........I am a cheap date!!1

A bit of a sad note.  There was a funeral party there and the deceased was a young man in his 30's.  They were all on the patio drinking and then came into the restaurant to have their meal just as we were going.  Always sad when it's a younger person who has died.

This is the third year in a row we have been to the same restaurant for our wedding anniversary, we both decided next year we need to try something different!!

Do you dine out in a fancy restaurant's for special occasions?

I wasted four hours of my life.........

turning this:

into this:

 I will never ever use a skein of yarn as is, it must be put into a ball before I use it!!

I picked up this magazine the other week, I love it, it has so many great ideas in it.  You can get it in Chapters here in Canada:

 It came with a free kit to make a spotty dog key chain.  So I wasted an hour doing that...LOL

Did manage to get the closet doors finished, that has been a job and a half, due to my incompetence.  You wouldn't have thought I have been painting/decorating houses since we bought our first house when I was 18 years of age.  I swear I am getting more senile as I get older.

The other day Craig featured the following artist.  I had never heard of this guy before, but his is very talented:

It's one of those month's.........

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Every time I turn around another bill pops up.  I had to pay a years bill on the water heater this week.  Long story behind this, from now on it will be around $30 a month for the water heater, which I think is expensive.  At the old house it was $165 a year.

Now the year's warranty is up on the furnace.  There are five years warranty on certain parts but its prudent to have it serviced yearly etc, so that will end up costing well over $300 a year I can see.

Oh well on wards and upwards as they say..........

On a brighter note it's our wedding anniversary.  We have been married 32 years.  Happy Anniversary dear and here's to another 32 years!!

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We are having a dinner out on Friday with a gift card the kids gave us at Christmas.  So that's a good thing as they say!

Simple Baby Hat - Yarn Along

Managed to get one small finish this week a simple baby hat.  I have also started "The Mermaid Chair," by Sue Monk Kidd on my Kobo.  I sent a request in electronically back in March to order this book for the Kobo and I got it this week.  I guess if they get numerous requests for certain e-books, when funds allow they order them.

 I used this pattern for this hat,  Super simple and didn't tax my knitting skills too much.  I also love this type of hat for little ones.  I knit it in the newborn size, and from that 50g ball of cotton yarn I have a bit left.  

This is part of a gift for a newborn called Hannah who was born at the beginning of the month.  I would love to fill you in on more information of this little one, but it was like pulling teeth getting the name out of my dh.  You know men, not really fussed about the details!!

Back to the book, I reviewed "The Invention of Wings," and "The Secret Life of Bees," earlier in the year.  Both also by Sue Monk Kidd.

For more Yarn Along Posts with Ginny, please click on this link.

One year today.........

we moved into this house.  We love the house, and if it were on five or ten acres in the countryside it would be perfect.........

Anyway I made a start on painting the doors and believe me there are many.  I am hoping you can see the difference in the colours, as there is a major difference believe me.  This is just the first coat.

 That's the front closet doors, first coat done.

 Another job I did get done was post reviews for all the books below here.  "A Perfect Ambition," was a great book, can't wait until the next in the series comes out.  Totally different subject to what I normally read. 

I just have to remember walk don't run with painting all the doors and trim:

Just in case you want to know what the weather is like in my neck of the woods..........

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And the older I get the more my body tells me it doesn't like damp days!!

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Is it raining where you are today?  And we are half way through June already, another month flying by.

Hmmm, wonder what I am going to be busy with?

Last week our local Home Hardware had a grand re-opening sale.  One of the great deals was Beauti-Tone Velvet paint at just over $20 a gallon after tax.  It's normally double that price.  We made sure we could buy now and tint (add colour) later and bought ten gallons.

This Saturday we popped in to see what colour's we liked and they had the semi-gloss on sale for $30 + tax per gallon.  So we picked up a gallon of that.

All the paint chip colours are for Beauti-Tone paints.  We are going pretty neutral and in my "usual" colour pallette!!  Not 100% sure what room will be what, but I think the green F037-0 will be the powder room.  CZ13-0 will be the dining room, it's a dark room.  CZ15-4 will be the rest of the main floor.  I am thinking CZ16-4 for our bedroom, or at least one wall, as we have an extra high ceiling in there.  As I said that's what I am thinking today, by tomorrow it could be completely different!

So when am I going to paint.....not quite yet.  On Tuesday we "celebrate" our first anniversary of being in this house.  The house is painted builder's beige; even the trim and doors are painted the same builder's beige.  To have them paint the trim and doors white would have cost us another $900.  You can buy a heck of a lot of paint for $900.

I submitted out Year End list to the builder last week, of things that need attention that should be covered under the warranty.  They have until the middle of October to complete these jobs {{{SIGH}}  Of course some of the things that need attention are walls and ceilings; so although I can paint some area's I cannot paint them all.

I am however going to start on the trim, as there is a lot I can get done when the whole house needs painting.  I always seem to start decorating when the hot weather arrives.  At least we have a/c so I'll just hike that up.

I have had good luck with this brand of paint and it doesn't hurt that when you buy six cans of paint you get one free.  I have one more to buy then I get a can free.

Anyone else decorating?

Which one do you prefer?

I took this photo on the way home from knitting on Tuesday.  All are the same photo, which one do you prefer?

On a side note, Our Little Munchkin was sent home from daycare as she was covered in hives again.  Dd called doctors office and they said it could be leftover medication in her system.  Then the antibiotics are giving her the runs poor thing.  She can't catch a break at the moment.  Here is a photo of her taken last weekend: