Out with 2019...........

Can't believe it's already December 31st 2019.  This year has just flown by.  Not sure if it's due to the fact we are getting older.....I find time seems to fly by, or we have been busy?

I was trying to think back on the year and I guess at the beginning of the year we were busy sorting out bits and bobs for jobs we needed to get done this year on the house.  We made a list and I am pleased to say we completed the list, albeit in a roundabout way with some of the jobs.  What we did discover was that the easier jobs turned out to be more time consuming than the harder jobs.

We thought for sure we would have a heck of a job getting someone to re-caulk all the outside windows, but no that job seemed to go by without a hitch.  We couldn't do that job ourselves.  The biggest pain in the butt job was getting the air conditioning unit installed.  That should have been a simple job that turned into a real pain.  All the jobs that we did do this year were mainly general maintenance jobs that should be done every now and then with an aging house.  Although our home is only 13 years old.

Vacation this year was back to Britain.  We went for various reasons, and overall had an enjoyable time with good weather😲 I will say Britain and good weather don't generally go in the same sentence😋  It's still a very expensive country as far as we are concerned and will say we have no plans to go this year.  We find it very tiring so want a vacation this year doing our own thing.

Appleby Lane..............my new "baby" was started this year and for a new business it went well I think.  I learned a lot of new things regarding it and overall it was a very positive experience.  I have taken a couple of weeks off and now I need to figure out where to go with this; as you can only sell so many sets of produce bags...LOL  I want to stay true to what I like to make, so will go from there I guess?

Health wise, it's been a mixed bag for me and hubby and I guess we have to try and make 2020 a year when we concentrate on a healthier lifestyle as we are getting older.

Overall though 2019 hasn't been too bad of a year.  Tomorrow I'll post what our plans are for 2020.

Have a good New Year's Eve everyone...............

This is how I feel........

Must say I am glad Christmas is over and done with for another year.  I know New Year's Eve/Day is a day to celebrate but we never do much on that day.  It used to be the day I took down all the Christmas decorations as I had the day off work, but nowadays with not working I usually have them down sooner than that.  This year everything was put away on Boxing Day.  I wanted the house back to normal and not all cluttered up with Christmas stuff.

I do leave the Christmas cards up until the 12th night; you can read more about that here.  My hubby works for most of the Christmas period as he is in maintenance and the factory is shut down for the Christmas holidays, so all the machinery must be serviced, etc.  So I barely see him for the two weeks.

Our son hosted Christmas this year and it was lovely to see everyone and enjoy a lovely Christmas meal.  Dh and I were spoiled by the kids and I got a Nespresso coffee machine from them, and dh got a sound bar for the tv.  Santa was good to them as well from what I could see.  The kids got lots and lots of toys to play with, so they were happy.

I have taken a couple of weeks off from Appleby Lane and one of the jobs I am doing is decorating the downstairs bathroom.  What should have been a quick job has turned into an extensive renovation.  Dh started back at the end of November.  I will do a post about it all soon as we should be finished with it all in the next week or so.  If we had known what we were letting ourselves in for we wouldn't have started it when we did...........the joys of buying a house from someone who thinks they know it all😒

Oh yes I have eaten way too much, so need to get back into the healthy eating way of life again..........right after I have eaten the last of the chocolate😁

How was your Christmas?

Update on health...........

Had another check up last week at the doctors; it had been three months.  I had blood work done the week before and as I can check the results online I knew it wasn't as positive as it should/could have been, so knew in advance that was not good news.

So I was not at all surprised when I went in that she "strongly suggested" that I take the diabetes medication; Metformin.  I am starting on a low dosage 1/2 a 500mg pill twice a day for a week then a full 500 mg pill there after.  I go back to the  doctors in three months time and hopefully by then things will have settled down.

Today's Christmas Song:

Hosting a get together today, so busy, busy.......

Here are a couple of music video's to tap your toes too!!



And here is a Christmas tune by the same lady:




Have a super Saturday..............

Obsessed with these..

On a night I can sit for hours watching these video's on Facebook.  Love that they are using very short and all are so varied.

The one I watched the most was Gogglebox Fanpage  You can also watch them on Youtube here


 I also love Drew Binsky and all his videos on travelling all over the world, you can see them here on Facebook and here on Youtube Videos.  The following video is in Lebanon:


There are many more; that I will share with you over the next few weeks.

Today's Christmas song is an updated Christmas carol:

It's the little things..........

At our last house our sofa was placed in the middle of the living room, and so my dh installed receptacles in the floor.  We have a similar layout in this house with the sofa, so again dh installed receptacles in the floor.

This may seem like a minor thing, but it makes such a difference, as now we can have table lamps on our end table's either side of the sofa.  There are two sockets in each receptacle and dh chose a brass finish but they do come in different finishes.

So the next plan of action was to find a couple of lamps for the end tables.  I didn't want to spend a small fortune, but do have to say I have expensive tastes and all the ones I liked we $200+ each.  Then there were many I liked but the shade wasn't right, or the base wasn't right, so after exhausting many options I finally found what I liked at Home Depot of all places.

This lamp comes in separate pieces, so you buy the base and the shade separately.

 The shade has a quilted look to me, or even fish scales.  It's an off white colour, but more white than ivory which is what a wanted and best of all it was only $25, you can see it here.

 The base is a metal one and I like how it isn't solid so doesn't look to heavy and clunky and  it was only $40, and you can see that here.

 They are a decent height and I am so pleased with them and they didn't break the bank.

We have bought a new sofa and our daughter took the old one on the weekend, and the new one doesn't come until Thursday so I will show it too you then. The living room is looking a bit strange without the sofa....

Today's Christmas music a classic song from my teens:

Has anyone been to see these guys in concert?

They come to Toronto most years and I have never been to the concert.  One of these days I will get tickets and go, I think it would be worth while.

The other day I was humming a Christmas carol and you know what I couldn't remember all the words to it.  That made me sad, as I have always remembered the words to Christmas carols.😞

Saturday's show..........

It was a super show, with a great turn out.  Only one negative Nelly, who thought she could buy the same things I was selling at the dollar store..........go ahead then!!  Anyhow here is a photo taken of me by the local radio station:

(photo credit)

Do you see who is looking over me?  My table was by the Queen.  For those of you who have been following my blog for a while, remember I have a decal of the queen on my car? See this post   She was my good luck charm on Saturday.

This show made up for all the other shows, and I had a good time and sold a lot.  I now have to regroup and plan out what to do next.  One thing about these shows though is you never know what will sell from one show to the next.  My biggest sellers so far had been the soup bowl cozies, but this show it was the produce bags.  

As the weather is going to be nasty today I think I will have a pajama day and just take it easy.  These shows are tiring but as I said productive.

Oh and as It's December 1st, let's play lots of Christmas music:

"Bloody" pain..........

Went to have blood work done this morning, had an 8:30 am appointment.  Got in right away and it was the nurse who had tried to take blood from me last time.  She had so much trouble last time she had to get someone else to do it and they managed to get blood from me right away.

I mentioned this too her, saying you had trouble last time, but decided to give her another chance, plus I drank more water than I did the time before.  Anyhow, she tried my right arm with no luck, then tried my left arm with no luck, so back to my right arm this time using a child's needle and managed to get some blood flowing.

However, the pain was awful, I mean bloody awful, you would have thought she was jabbing the needle in harder and twisting it around.  It got to the point I couldn't stand it anymore and said enough.  She had one vial full, but the other was only maybe a quarter full if that.  I told her at this point she had to get someone else, as no way was she touching me again.

I broke out in a total body sweat; like a hot flash on steroids.  I was nauseous and did not feel well at all.  Another nurse came and took blood from me no issue............meanwhile my right arm looks like this:

It is so sore; I am not happy. Told the second nurse that in future I will be asking her to draw blood.................

Middle Age, Old Age, Whatever Age

It's exhausting being middle aged.........just saying!!

Millennial's

Love this and so true!!

Another craft show, want your thoughts.....

I have another craft show coming up this Saturday November 30th.  I am only participating on the Saturday, as I have mixed feeling about participating in, in these types of events.  

Here is my "photo collage" I had to submit to get approved for the show.  My daughter did it for me and I do love how it looks.  Everything in this poster is available to purchase.

I have found there's a 50/50 chance of it being a total washout or a success with a craft show and there are pro's and con's to them.

Pro's:

• you get to meet a lot of lovely people........and I have met some great people
• you make a lot of contacts and get your name out there
• you sell your things
• you get to see what other people are selling/making
• you go to places you have never been before

Con's:

• you sell nothing (thank goodness it's never happened to me....yet!)
• you meet some very strange people
• it's tiring, especially if there are not a lot of people attending
• it can be demoralizing when people hum and ha over things and nit pick
• it's hard being nice and smiley when you know for a fact people have no interest in buying anything

As this is my first year doing this, I am making notes about various places and make notes of what I sell at each event.  The verdict is out yet on what I will do in the future regarding craft shows.  

Do you like going to craft show?  Have you been a vendor at a craft show?  I would love to hear your thoughts about this.........

The art of distraction.......

I was at the dermatologist's the other day.  He's a tiny little man and a chatterbox.  One of the reasons he's a chatterbox is that it distracts you from what he is actually doing.  This is how it went with me!

Doctor had to take another mole off my body this time on my rib cage.

I mentioned we lived in the "snow belt" area; which means we get bloody snow whether we like it or not😕

Doctor getting ready for procedure........

Doctor: "are the ski hills open yet?"

Me: "I don't know?"

Doctor: "Do you snowboard."

Now this is where a video of this conversation would have made me millions on YouTube.....

Me: "The only bloody snow I have any contact with is when I shovel it!!"

Now what you don't hear me say to myself is:

"Is he a doofus or what, do I LOOK like I snowboard?????  I am a woman the wrong side of 50, with not at athletic bone in my body.........I have the grace of a fairy elephant.  Put me on a snowboard and I may as well have the ambulance all ready and waiting to put me in at the bottom of the ski hill.......that's if I can actually make it up the hill in the first place!!"

By the time I had processed all of this he had taken the mole off.............perfect art of distraction.......well done Dr. Chang!!

Still doing it many years later............

Back when I started this blog in May of 2008 I wrote a post here about how I put money away for various things on a weekly basis.  All these years later I am still doing it, albeit some things have changed slightly.

I still put $20 per week in each of my birthday and Christmas boxes.  This is something I do religiously and now I always have money in those boxes ready to use.  It also helps that quite often, especially for the adults, I give cash gifts for their birthday's and Christmas gifts.  As cash is always welcome I find!!

I have a third box and I put $50 away each week in that.  Now that box isn't earmarked for anything in particular, but we'll use that money if we go away as spending money.  Or we emptied out the box just last week to put towards some new furniture we have bought.

Over the years I have seen many savings schemes come and go.........this one works the best for me though!!

I go to the bank once a week and take out a set amount of money, and after many years I have had to increase the amount I take out, as I can't seem to make it last through the week.  There are a couple of reasons why.  Groceries have gone up a lot and we are trying to eat a lot more healthier.  However saying that we don't eat a lot of meat.  I am now spending $100 a week on groceries, sometimes more and there is only two of us.

Since we got the Ford Escape I am using a little more gas/petrol than I did with the Fiesta.  Also since moving to the city I am out and about a lot more; spending money.  So I can see where the extra money is going.

We are fortunate we can afford these extra expenses.  I often wonder how young families with daycare expenses, mortgages and more groceries to buy survive/manage?

Looking at other people's lives........

I was doing a show on the weekend and at the next table to me was an older lady with a table full of her old Christmas figurines and porcelain Christmas trees.

My initial impression of her was that she had, had a hard life,  She was all of 4 feet 10 inches (she told me later how tall she was), had a huge hump on her back (due to various surgeries, again told me about that) and looked around 80 years old.

It turned out she was much younger; don't know the exact age, and had a son in his mid 30's that had tested her throughout his life, especially through those high school years.  What he got up too was lots of stories, and he was in and out of trouble throughout those years.  He'd turned his life around though and was a manager at a local business and she was very, very proud of him and rightly so.

She had gone through numerous life altering illnesses and as I told her, "I am quite sure you should have been a cat, having nine lives."

Despite lots of set backs she was a positive woman, who made a point of helping out others, and had an open door policy for some of the neighbourhood kids that she had unofficially adopted as her grandchildren.  She had two dogs, both rescues and one had numerous neurological problems due to abuse and a cat.  She loved them to the moon and back.

The more I talked to her the more I admired her.  She had made the best of what life had thrown at her and still had a smile on her face............we all should take a leaf from her book I think........

(image credit)

Christmas Cards...........

It's that time of year again, and as always I am torn...........I have also just let out a big sigh.

I have cut way, way back and will again re-evaluate who I will send too this year.  I personally don't see the point of sending someone a Christmas card if the only contact I have with them is once a year through a Christmas card?  

Remember how I used to agonize over the yearly Christmas letter, when most people couldn't be bothered to write a letter back?  Why should I bother if they can't be bothered?

Then there is the postage, it just goes up and up.  I was fortunate this year, as I was able to send my immediate family's cards through a free mailer that Canada Post was doing, so saved a little money there.

In this day and age of social media and emails, I know I can reach out to them if I want, and they can reach out to me, but will admit I do miss getting and reading a newsy letter.

Yeah or nay with Christmas cards?

I will be following these instructions word by word.......

Or maybe not!!!!  I will however be sewing for a bit of the day as I do have a show again this coming weekend, and do want to replenish some stock.  I did finally get a couple sets of soup bowl cozies finished yesterday:

I love both patterns.  Which one do you like the best?  I sell these in the shop for $15 a pair.

I also picked up my Christmas arrangement for the outside from a local home business yesterday and it is gorgeous:

I just love the galvanized pail its in.

Learned something new this weekend, handy tip.....

We went and bought a new dining room set and had it delivered last week.  The only problem we had was we had to sell our old set:

So I put it on various online selling sites as a set.  Nothing, no interest at all other than someone asked if the chairs were available separately?  I had never thought of selling the chairs separately from the table.  

So I ended up listing the 6 pine chairs, the two end chairs and the table separately and ended up making $100 more than if I had sold them as a set.  Who knew?  It turns out chairs on their own are harder to find..........

Here is our new set, totally different from the old set and it fits better in the area:

Love the frosted glass top and the chairs are actually comfortable!!

The grand children

Have the kids up on Sunday for Daughter's birthday, made them brunch.  They had to leave before 1 pm as the girls were having their photos taken for Christmas.  So here they are all dressed up in their Christmas dresses.  Nora will be six next week and Paige is 3 1/2 now.

 Here they are with their cousin who is growing like a weed!!  He is coming up to 18 months old already.

 The girls love him too bits, and he is starting to interact with them now.  Both girls have gorgeous long hair.  Our little man's hair is looking a bit lighter as he grows.  He is teething so his cheeks are extra rosy at the moment!

So lucky to have the best grand children ever.

Nursery Rhyme.......

The other day I was at the grocery store with my grandson.  Had him in the shopping trolley buckled in and while we were waiting to cash out I was singing him this nursery rhyme:

Clap hands for daddy to come,
Give (child's name) a cake and a bun,
One with sugar and one with plum,
Clap hands for daddy to come.

The guy in front of me turns round and says:

"Did you say sugar and plum?"

Me: "Yes, why."

Guy: "No reason."

Cashier in broad Scottish accent: "Never heard of that one."

Woman behind me in a broad Scottish accent: "Me neither."

I thought this was a common nursery rhyme and British.  Am I wrong?

Had a good cry on Tuesday......

was glad I was on my own.  

Now why was I crying..............you're going to think I am daft but I was watching Coronation Street and it was the episodes where Sinead dies.

(image credit)

I am well aware that this is not "real" but have to say it was well written this story line and the actors portrayed the situation so well.  I have been watching Coronation Street for years, and despite having a love and hate relationship with it, I always keep watching it.  Some storyline's seem to drag on, but this one with Sinead was a heart breaker and a perfect length.

Well done to the actors and the writers on this storyline; I wouldn't be surprised if they won awards for this.

Season 5 Peaky Blinders THERE IS ONE SPOILER IN HERE!!!

I have to say I LOVE this show.  Just finished watching season 5.  There will be a season 6 but not until late 2020/early 2021.  

This season was jam packed full of action, staring my beloved Tommy!!

I can never get enough of that face.......such a tortured soul.

Though Arthur is just getting more and more crazy........and skinnier.

 However after Tommy my most favourite character has to be Alfie........I am sorry but what comes out of his mouth is the dry wit we British love.

*****SPOILER*****

My favourite line from the series was when Alfie asked how did Tommy figure out he was alive?

Tommy replied, "because you wrote to me from hospital asking how your F***ing dog was."  LOL

Alfie was that drugged up he had forgotten...........

The ending episode of series 5 was so good and action packed as usual.

Without giving anything away I am thinking Michael and Gina are behind it all, as we haven't been given too much info about Gina's background and I think there is more to her than meets the eye?

Now there's the wait.........for the next series!!

***One tiny criticism though I wish they would speak a bit clearer, I am going to have to put the subtitles on as I keep missing what they are saying.***

Oh and Polly celebrated her 45th birthday in this series..........I am sorry but 55th would have been more like it....LOL  She looks an old 45 in my opinion!!

Scrunchies.........

Been busy sewing scrunchies this week........well not all week, I was being a lazy bum when it came to sewing this week and didn't do much.

Anyhow, I decided to make these ones in baby corduroy, which means it is a finer corduroy.  Not sure if they will sell, but if they don't I have four grand daughters who will put them too good use.  I love the floral fabric the best; which one do you like?

I bought the basket they are in to put on the table at the next show I am in from the dollar store.  I can think of a couple of uses for it when not using in shows.  I bought another basket for the Xmas Pocket Tissue holders:

Do you shop at the dollar stores.........which by the way half the time things are not a dollar, but that's a whole other story😊

Furry Slippers type of day.......

Woke up this morning to this, first snow of the season:

 😟Not impressed

Luckily I have just received my new slippers from Marks and Sparks.....

They are so furry and warm, plus they had 20% off which made it worthwhile in ordering them.  You can see more colours here.  Have to say great service and delivery when ordering from Marks..........

It's Halloween today...........

What are we doing...........................NOTHING!!

How about you?

"The Git Up,"

Love this song and video........
Have you seen it before? It feels like a combo of Big Town Road by Lil Nas X  
 (Did you see Brad Pitt?) 

 and I Don't Care by Ed Sheeran. Some of the comments on the You Tube video are funny: 

 "Editor: I'm very bad at editing Justin and Ed: I don't care" 

 "Director: How much green screens and photoshop do you want in this video Ed: I don’t care"

 "Director:How do you want it edited? Justin and Ed:I don’t care"

Thought this was interesting......

Here is the burrow system of an Eastern Chipmunk:

Although they hibernate, they wake up every few days to relieve themselves, regulate their temperature and eat.  They have quite a system all worked out there, don't you think?

I was so happy yesterday to get a load of laundry hung on the line, especially as it was the shower curtain and liner and all the bath mats.  They smelled so good when I brought them in.

Do you hang out your laundry to dry?

October 28th and no jacket required........

I have been out in the garden raking leaves and got so hot that I had to take my fleece jacket off and finish my gardening in my t-shirt.  I am guessing this will be it for nice warm weather.  We did have some snow forecast for the end of the week, but I see it has changed to rain, which is perfectly fine by me!!

We had a hard frost on the weekend, plus a lot of rain, so it resulted in a lot of leaves falling.  Now I don't know about you, but I prefer to rake leaves when the weather is nicer, even though they were wet.

 Good exercise and didn't take too long.  Also raked up the leaves by the sewer drain and some in the back and side yards. 

 Looks a lot better but that other tree has to drop it's leaves yet.  Look how blue the sky is, it's a wonderful day out there for the end of October.

Diwali 2019

We were invited to "R's" for a Diwali luncheon on Saturday.  I was a "big girl" and decided to suck it up and eat the food.  I DO NOT LIKE SPICY FOOD............even mild spice is too hot for me😕

There was both veggie and meat dishes.

 These weren't too bad, just like corn cakes with a little spice in it.

 These were mixed green veggie fritters and I enjoyed these the best.

 This lamb was flipping spicy, made my nose run, so gave it too dh.

 The daal was okay, smelled like baked beans too me.

 This smelled spicy and didn't look good, so I gave it a miss😊

 Dh said this wasn't as spicy as the lamb so I maybe could have tried it.

There was also naan, rice and salad, so a good variety of things, plus a couple of sweet dishes.

We had a good time and caught up with a few people.  I forgot to wear my sari....yes I have a sari, only worn it the once, but this would have been a perfect time to wear it.........I don't have any photos of me wearing it either.

I was naughty though and kept answering the door just to confuse the heck out of people who didn't know me..........they thought they had come to the wrong house....LOL😁

Overnight oats........

We have jumped onto the overnight oats bandwagon and I must say both dh and I are embracing it.  I am especially surprised at dh as he doesn't normally have breakfast when he goes to work.  He takes this with him so he can have it with his 8:30 am coffee.

Different people do it different ways but this is how we prepare it.

I bought both types of oats to try out and the large flake oats work best for us.  The steel cut oats kept getting stuck to the roof of our mouth.

 Was told to use this particular type of "milk," and so we do.

 The recipe for us is 1/2 cup of oats, just cover with "milk."  I did try using just half a cup and found it way too dry.  We then add a handful of frozen fruit on top and put it in the fridge overnight with lid on.

 In the morning we add a pot of fat free yogurt to it, as we find it too dry.

Have you tried the overnight oats?  Do you like it?

This is how I feel today

enough said!

Ducts, Scrunchies and Peas.....

Odd combination don't you think?

Had the heating ducts cleaned today.  The house is 12 years old and the heating ducts had never been cleaned out.  So just under $250 later (we also have an HRV system) they are nice and clean.  However this is only part of what came out:

Just nasty what we had been breathing in........

I picked up a 50 cent bag of scrap fabric the other day with the goal of making scrunchies for the girls.  Got 8 made with the bag of scraps.

The blue fabric is like a velvet/minky fabric that sheds like crazy, so had to give my machine a good clean out after I had finished.  So a little thread, 60 inches of 1/2 inch elastic and three scrap pieces of fabric and my time was all it took to make those.

Now for the peas.  Made a couple more sets of pea fabric produce bags.  I just love this fabric.

I will thread the drawstrings through after I publish this post, then they are all ready to sell.  A set of three is $20 in my shop.