Why should I.......

......care if the house is clean, the laundry is done and there are meals on the table; but I do?

......say I am fine when people ask, rather than saying; no I'm not?

......agree to things, when really I don't want to do them?

Your turn.......why should I/you..........

Why?

If you look on the middle left hand side of this photo you will see a house and a garage door partially open?  Can you see it?  To the left of the arch, just below our blinds?

I am confused a couple of our neighbours constantly leave their garage doors open a couple of feet during the day; why?  Is it too air them out?  Is there a benefit to doing this?  Granted they only do it when its not raining or snowing; but I am still confused as to why.  If you have a garage do you do this?  Should I be doing this?  Lots of questions.........

I didn't want to post a closer photo as they do have a car parked on the left hand side of the garage, it is a double garage.

I answered in the comments, but am putting it here.  no animals, that particular neighbour is not an animal lover, and no laundry, no one does that.

How to negotiate with a 3 year old and win!!

Miss N. has a teddy which she carries around with her EVERYWHERE.  Teddy is a bit worse for the wear but Miss N. loves him.  When dd was doing Miss P's  8 month photos, she asked Miss N. if she wanted to have her photo taken?  She said no, but teddy wanted his taken.

Below with Miss N. is Annabelle.  Annabelle was given to me Christmas 1967, so she will be 50 years old this coming Christmas.  At the same time I was given a pram to put her in.  It turned out I preferred the sit on tractor of the neighbour boy and he loved my doll and pram?

 Miss N. has taken a shine to Annabelle and carts her around with her when she is at our house.  She wanted to take Annabelle home with her.  I said fine but then I keep teddy...........

 Annabelle is still with us, and teddy went home with Miss N!  Just in case you're wondering, teddy loves to eat Shepherd's Pie and uses the toilet just like Miss N!

Death..........

I was reading a blog post over at John's and thought I would add my two cents with my own blog post.

What happens after you die has changed so much over the years.  Once upon a time you would have a church service for the deceased, the  clergy would say many heart felt words about the deceased; whom he would probably have known.  There would be special funeral hymns; Abide With Me being a favourite.  Everyone would be wearing somber colours and there would be a wake/tea after wards to remember the deceased.  The deceased would be buried, occasionally someone would be cremated and be buried in a church yard/cemetery where loved ones would visit regularly and put fresh flowers on your grave on special occasions.  At least that was how it was when I was growing up.

Cremations are more popular, nowadays.  Anything goes when it comes to clothing worn at a funeral.  Here in Canada we can view the body in the days up to the funeral; like a lying in State situation.  Music can be anything from the funeral hymns to country music and popular music.  The last funeral we went to the great grandchildren and grandchildren drew and wrote messages on the casket/coffin.

Prior to coming to Canada 28 years ago I had only seen one dead body, my grandad and that was only a quick glimpse.  Since coming to Canada I have seem numerous dead people, even watched someone take their last breath.  It seems to be more open and welcoming, and more involved here in Canada.  When I think of funerals in Britain they are a more staid somber affair.

I swore I would never get cremated, but over time I have changed my tune.  I know that our children love us to bits, but I also know they would never visit us if we were buried somewhere.  Realistically they are busy people and it would just be another job for them to do by making the trip to the cemetery once or twice a year.  I would rather they remember us as we were and when they think of something that reminds them of us.

Things have changed when it comes to remembering the dead.  What are your thoughts and have you changed your ideas on what will happen to yourself after you die?

On a lighter note.  The kids gave me an envelope for Christmas, I opened it and the first thing I saw were the words URN INSERT.  My first thought was, "do I look that sick?"  However upon further reading it was a membership for this from here:

I get four seasonal inserts for a pot/urn for the garden.  It has nothing to do with death!!!

Learning something new

Would you believe I have been knitting now for nearly two years?  I am not an expert knitter, still haven't knit a pair of socks but I am a bit more confident than I was when I first started.

I still go to a sit and knit not every week, but a lot of the time and the last time I was there, a lady had brought in a pile of books that she didn't want and asked Angie to sell them and donate the money to charity.  So I had a look through them and picked out a couple including the one below, you can read more about the book here (it's an Amazon link).

What caught my eye was this poncho.  I remember having a poncho back in the 70's and thought it looked simple enough while trying out new to me stitches.  Did you have a knitted poncho back in the 70's? 

I did have a few issues, so turned to Angie for guidance, and this is where I learned something new and something so simple that you wonder why I didn't think of that.

The pattern involves purling two stitches together and then a yarn over.  I was getting mixed up with all of that, so Angie suggested I put in stitch markers everytime I did a pattern repeat so I could make sure I had enough stitches on my needles. 

Those stitch markers are a blessing it makes is so much simpler for me to see where I am.  I am quite excited to see how I make out with this.  The yarn I am using is Patons Misty, which is 48% acrylic, 32 % nylon, 10% wool and 10% mohair.  So it should be quite light to wear and pretty with it.  It is a pale green with a bit of beige in it, very Spring like.

I have to thank Angie for lending me her large stitch markers, mine are smaller and wouldn't fit around the 9.00 mm needles.

Instant Pot, decluttering and Netflix........

Remember my Instant Pot post from Tuesday?  It seems everyone who has one loves it and uses it.  I am still on the fence, so will wait until the Black Friday sale in November and revisit the idea.  I think I can manage to live without one until then.

I am still working away at decluttering.  I have been trying to sell a number of unwanted items online with mixed results.  We have a local Facebook site for our area.  I have to shake my head at some people.  They are all gung-ho wanting your items and then just muck you about.  Other people its a simple transaction that goes by without a fuss.  Having a yard sale is a no, no where we live, another one of those delightful rules we must abide by........

Loving Netflix still.  We are now on season 9 on Midsumer Murders, and every episode we say, "we didn't see that coming!!"  We have yet to figure the plot out on any of those episodes........LOL

My mam had a big birthday last week.  Here is one of her cakes; my younger brother had this one made for her:

When you ask her how she is; she always says "I'm fine."  And she is always cleaning, that's why there are all the cleaning items on the cake.  Love Mrs. Brown.

Music Concerts

Over the years we have seen a number of musical acts in concert in Toronto.  Toronto is just "down the road" (1 1/2 hours) from where we live and a large city so all the big musical acts perform there.

However we haven't been to any recently because we can never get tickets.  Adele was here last year; tickets sold out before we could get through, Lady Gaga is coming, again tickets all sold out right away.........BUT.....go back a few days later and you can get tickets but at super inflated prices, from people reselling them.  A couple of "good" seats, not the best seats by any means but good ones are priced at over $2,000 each, who can afford prices like that?  The "nose bleed" seats were heading towards the $200 mark.  We saw a Shania Twain concert in "nose bleed" seats and swore never to sit in those seats again as they are too far back.

So I guess I will have to make do with Youtube videos.  Oh and the reason I wanted to see Lady Gaga is that I would bet she puts on a great show with all the dancers and costume changes etc?  Some of her music is not to my taste, some of it is; overall though I know she puts her heart and soul into her stage performances.

Here is one of my favourite Lady Gaga songs:




and another one:

Instant Pot...........

It seems as usual I am way behind on the latest thing/trend.  For those of you not in the know like me it's a fancy pressure cooker, with many, many other features and people love, love, love them.

now if you click on this link it will take you to Amazon where I got the photo from.  I read through a couple of the reviews on these and everyone seems to rave about them.  Like many people the less time I have to spend in the kitchen the better, but are these a worthwhile item to buy when there is just two of you in the house?  They also seem to be quite expensive; someone did say to wait until Black Friday or other good sale days?

I am still not decided about this, so I thought I would ask you if you had one and why should I get one; or not get one as the case may be?

Been Busy.......

I have been busy decorating our bedroom.  Funny thing is dh walked in as I was painting and said it doesn't look any different colour wise to what it was.  My response was good, then if I have missed anything  you won't notice.  I painted it a pale cream/beige colour.  The biggest change is all the trim.  They were also painted cream by the builder, now they are a bright white.  Trim to my mind shouldn't be any other colour than white.  It makes the wall colours pop.

Someone else in blogland was also decorating and they were saying how much harder it is to decorate the older you get.  I have to agree.  I had been picking away at the trim all the week, so all I had to do on the weekend was paint the walls twice and paint the window trim and a little bit of the skirting/baseboard.  I managed to get one coat of paint on the window and baseboard trim, and one and a half coats of paint on the walls on Saturday.  I finished the walls and trim on Sunday.  I was so tired and my back and hands were hurting so much on Saturday, that I knew I couldn't finish it all on Saturday.

Fortunately I am still at a stage with my back that a good nights sleep cures the aches with my back and as long as I wear my braces on my hands through the nights they too recover,  and on I go the next day.

So we have had three nights sleeping in the spare bedroom which is in the basement.  We have large windows in both the bedroom and family room, so although not the brightest of rooms, they are not too dark.  I must say I am looking forward to being back in our own bed, as I had  a duvet and a bedspread on the spare bed, which is much too hot for me.  Dh loved it and was as warm as toast.......me, I sweated like a crazy person.

So all I have to paint now is the spare bedroom.  Luckily I am not at this stage:

Do you enjoy decorating the rooms in your home?

Catchy tune from ad.......

This is also a catchy tune.



I actually like the look of the Kia Soul car.  Does anyone own one who is reading this post?  Or knows someone that does?  Any thoughts on this car?

Oh and a Happy Valentine's Day to you all.

$1.15 Million over asking price........

With the housing market being as crazy at the moment; but this article caught my attention.  The house was listed for $1.19 million and sold for $2.3 million.  This house is in Toronto but when you look at it, I wouldn't pay $500,000 for it, never mind over $2 million.  It looks better on the inside than on the outside.  I wonder if the buyers are going to tear it down and build a mini mansion in it's place?

We were out and about on Saturday having a drive by looking at some houses that caught our eye on MLS.  If you have bought and sold homes before, you like us know that the photos don't show everything.  We drove by three and of the three only one was a possibility and then it was too gut; which at our age is too big of a job for us.  Plus when I spoke to the real estate agent by telephone he was very abrupt, so that put me off.  A good sales rep would have asked questions about what we are looking for etc.  We are in no hurry to move so can take our time looking for the perfect home to retire too.

We are looking to move as we are fed up of paying condo fees that by this coming June will have increased by $120 since we moved here three years ago.  For what we get for that money it would be better in our pocket!!

We also got rid of our guy who shoveled the driveway of snow.  He confused the heck out of us, as we never knew when he was coming and most of the time we ended up doing it ourselves.  Plus it won't kill either of us to do it.  Mind you we got a blast of winter here on Sunday, so out came the shovels........

The Poison Garden

Who knew there was one?




It is at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland.  The Alnwick Gardens are a 12 acre walled garden that features many gardens and other attractions.  It is now on my list of must see places next time we visit Britain.

I was reading this article about how it could take 1,000 years to clear Laos of unexploded bombs left from the Vietnam War......pretty poisonous situation if you ask me........

Not the most happiest post for a Sunday......

Goals........

we all have them, some small, some big, some you know you can achieve, while others you know you are going to struggle with.

One of my goals for this year is to declutter the house of things on a weekly basis.  Some things I will donate, some will be thrown out and some will be sold.  I have made a start on cleaning out cupboards and so far it is proving to be a success.  If I can remove at least 7 things per week, it means there will be 365 less things in the house by the end of the year.  Now lets hope I don't bring 365 things into the house!!!

Do you have goals set that you know you can achieve?

Odds and ends from online......

Saw this over on Mother Earth and thought what a good way to use up some old t-shirts........

Full instructions here 

Back when dd got married, both of us bought a fascinator from Blair Nadeau.  She has just released her 2017 Celestial Wanderer Collection; it is gorgeous.  I struggled to find one photo I liked the best as I love all the collection but did think this was pretty:

The shoulder chains/necklace is something I have never seen before and are equally as pretty:

This next link is for the Canadians......do you remember Zellers?  Remember when all the stores closed down?  Well there are still two Zellers stores open; one in Ottawa and one in Etobicoke.....they are not your usual Zellers stores though, they are more like clearance stores for The Bay and Home Outfitters.  You can read more about them here.

And finally my dream job has been posted online: A chocolate tester for Cadbury's, you can read more about it here.  Just wish it was here in Canada not the UK.  Can you imagine taste testing all that chocolate?

Update on the Grandchildren

As you know we have five in total, so I thought I'd update you on them all.

Our Little Princess Miss N is now 4 years of age.  She was 4 last month and her parents registered her to start school in September.......where did the time go?  She is a chatter box and a bossy boots...LOL  She loves everything and everyone and is a joy to be around.  I got caught in the middle of an argument about who Rapunzel's mother is/was with her and our other Miss N.  One was adamant that the wicked witch was her mother, while the other said it was the queen.  Don't remember how I got out of agreeing with one or the other!

Our little man is 2 years and 5 months old and is a busy boy.  Although he was slow to start talking his vocabulary is coming along leaps and bounds.  He's also an amateur "naturist," as he does feel that clothes are optional!

Little baby J is 8 1/2 months old and is our fledgling supermodel.  She has legs that go on forever that girl.  She is a petite little thing and is as quiet and laid back as they come.  Mind you getting a word in edge ways with the two siblings she has would be hard to do!!!  The photo below was taken at the end of January

Below is Miss P that photo was taken at the beginning of January when they were in the Bahama's for our son's wedding.  She is a mommy's girl and growing like a weed.  She has four teeth and is crawling and pulling herself to a standing position.  She will be 8 months old on the 15th of this month.  As I told her mother be careful what you wish for, as she was walking at 9 1/2 months and was always on the go!!  Miss P looks exactly like her sister did at that age.

 Then we have Miss N.  Like her older "cousin," she also starts school in September and is a bundle of energy.  She's now in the last class at daycare and they are preparing her for school.  She loves her gymnastics class, she enjoys swimming, but HATES doing swim classes.  She got ice skates for her birthday and only "tolerates" going skating.  I guess it doesn't help if you spend most of your time on your bum if you can't stand up!!  She loves her sister and has a lot to say at times.  She is looking more and more like her dad.

When the two Miss N's get together they interact with one another and it's fun to watch them both.  Generally the older Miss N "controls" the situation while the younger Miss N goes with the flow.  They love one another and are always asking for one another.

They are all going to an indoor play centre today.  I was invited but I have had a headache all week and going to a play centre with a pile of screaming, excited children is not my idea of fun, so I passed...LOL

Both of the children's mother's go back to work in June.......where has the time gone too?  

Happiness and sadness

When I look at the colours in the photo above I think of Spring, Daffodils, Baby Chicks and Sunshine; which in turn make me feel happy. My apologies for the quality of the photo, but the lighting was terrible on Monday.

I knit one of the dishcloth's while watching a movie on Sunday afternoon; American Sniper.  Now prior to watching this movie I knew NOTHING about Chris Kyle and what he had achieved while in the U.S. Navy SEALS and during his four tours of duty in Iraq.

It was an eye opening movie for me and without spoiling the ending for anyone who has not seen the movie or read the story, I remember saying out loud, "OH!"  I was totally engrossed in this movie; and how these poor military men and women survive their tours of duty without totally cracking up is beyond me.  Being away for many months at a time seeing and doing what they do in war; then coming home to a "normal, happy life," must be so hard.

This of course brought on a feeling of sadness, however not only for the military but for the ordinary people who have to live in these war torn countries.  This topic can bring up many differing opinions in people and that is not what I want to debate here on this post.  

I do have one question though I was looking up on Google to see if there were any women snipers and nothing came up for the States but there were a few articles on Soviet women snipers and one in particular Lyudmila Pavlichenko.  A movie was made about her "Battle for Sevastopol."  Might be worth checking that one out.

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!!

Sometimes you don't have to know everything.....

"too much information can be as bad as not knowing everything."

That's my thought anyway.  I had blood work done a couple of weeks after I took ill and the results came back with me having low iron.  I have never had a high iron count and have always been on the lower side with my numbers.  With the side effects of the blood thinners things went from bad to worse.  So I started taking iron pills.

Fast forward to the end of January and I was in our doctors office with dh and asked him while I was there if I could have a blood work requisition to see if I had managed to get my iron count up.  Where we go to have our blood work done they offer an online site where you can view your results.  Normally I never bother with it, but as I was the one that requested to have the blood work done, I figured I would take advantage of it.

Pretty easy to access the site and set up an account and easy to see your results.  Especially where they highlight what numbers are either high or low!!  Now I would love to say it was all gobbly gook, but no they even give you links to what everything means.

In my case I am close to where I should be with the iron; but I am popping another iron pill to help it go up even more.  It's what was highlighted HIGH that I know I am going to get a lecture about next time I am in the doctors office!!!

Dh got his blood work done also this past week and we looked at his results, and he has the same issues as me; I guess when you eat the same you suffer the same.........so I guess I should tell the doctor to just lecture us both at the same time!!!!

The sad thing is I know what the problems are, and of course it is what we eat.  I am reading a book called "Your Cholesterol Matters," by Richard Furman at the moment, and do intend on implementing what he recommends in the hopes of improving our diet, but I am only half way through the book, so can't do it yet............well that's my excuse and I am sticking to it!!!  (I will be reviewing the book shortly.)

Netflix.......

When we got the basement finished at the end of November last year one of the things we got was a "large" screen tv for down there.  In our case it's a 50 inch tv; dh thought he had died and gone to heaven having such a big tv.  Prior to that the largest tv in our house was 32 inches........which by the way I thought was fine.

About that time I was going over my Bell bill and decided things had to change with that as it was getting more and more expensive.  The kids kept encouraging us to get Netflix and drop down our tv package for a less expensive one.  One of the things that was stopping us was dh watches a lot of sports and Netflix doesn't have sports.

However for once I got a great person when I called Bell and he walked me through everything and we dropped down our tv package.  We upgraded our internet so we get unlimited internet and set up Netflix.  Dh is not 100% happy as he doesn't get as many sports/soccer/football games as he used to get, and we had to add to add back a sport channel for $20 a month for the British football season.  Overall though we are still saving about $20 a month.

We are enjoying Netflix and are plowing our way through Midsomer Murders and enjoying those.  Have to say we watch mainly the British shows but I have watched a couple of movies Eat, Pray, Love (ok movie nothing exciting though,) and Still Alice (such a sad movie, and I cried like a baby!) a couple which although have been out a few years I have never seen.

I hope one day to get rid of our tv package all together but the sports channels, especially the British football games are proving an issue.  If anyone has any suggestions on how to get those I am all ears.  As I am very technically challenged!!

I am still around

I have been in two minds about closing this blog, but am still hanging in there with it and am keeping it open for the time being.  

Health wise I am feeling good and hope to be off the blood thinners by the end of March, as the doctors put me on them to just be on the safe side, as there is no reason why I ended up with the blood clots on my lungs.  I will be monitored to make sure things are okay after I come off them and if things go downhill then I will be put back on the blood thinners.

My dh hasn't been well and it looks like this is going to be a drawn out affair trying to get to the bottom of it all.  We had hoped to move this Spring, but that has been put on hold until we get all our health issues sorted out.  Can't say I am happy about all of this, but it's something we have to deal with.  As with all things you sometimes have to be patient to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I hope to be posting on a more regular basis, as I do have things to talk about which may or may not interest some people.

I have been reading other people's blogs but I rarely comment; sorry about that but do know I read most people's blogs.