Sunday Song

From 1977 - Thelma Houston; Don't You Leave Me This Way

I remember dancing to this.........

However I prefer this version and remember dancing to this as well.

Which version do you prefer?

It's August?

Where on earth has the first seven months of the year gone too?  Time is flying by way too fast for me this year.

Is it for you?

Fall, Halloween and Christmas in July.........

It's not often I go to the mall, but I went to two last week and the one thing I noticed was how along with the back to school stuff being in the stores; there was also Fall, Halloween and Christmas stuff in the stores.

In Homesense all the Fall things were in the windows.  I do love Fall it's my favourite time of year.  I also am a big fan of glass and mushrooms, so they caught my eye, but I didn't buy!

Hallmark of course had all their Christmas ornaments out.........

along with the Fall pumpkins and various Halloween things.

Nothing like covering all your bases, right?

I will say I have made a really good start on my Christmas present shopping and have been picking up things since the beginning of the year.

Have you made a start on your Christmas shopping?

Cross stitch and more........

My weekly crafting, reading and puzzle making post.

It was flipping hot last week and this week is not looking any better with temperatures in the 30's all week....BOO!!!!!  Therefore it's all in the red this past week.

I am reading this book at the moment.  It's good, but it's taking it's sweet time getting to the nitty gritty of the story.  I seem to be in a World War II genre of reading books at the moment.

The puzzle is slowly coming together.  I have been busy this past week with hubby being off, so haven't had chance to do much.

What have you been up to in your spare time?

I Am: Celine Dion - Official Trailer | Prime Video

I watched this yesterday, what a very brave lady she is.  If you get a chance watch this, it is well worth it.  It had me in tears.

I also thought her performance at the Olympics was breathtaking.

We saw her in concert back in 2008, and you can read about it here.  It brought back some good memories reading that blog post.   I hope she will be able to perform again in the future.

Sunday Song

A catchy tune for Sunday!

A trip to the doctor's office.........

If you're a regular reader, you know our doctor's office is over an hour's drive away from where we live.  However hubby needed to go and so I made an appointment for both of us.

The reason I needed to see him was to get a prescription for a Shingles vaccination.  I have had shingles three times in my life, the last time being a year ago.  However, I have never seen our family doctor regarding this.

The first time was when I was 20 and had shingles when I gave birth to our son.  The second time was in the Fall of 2022, and the third time was in the Spring of 2023.  When I explained this to our doctor, he actually asked me if I was sure if I had, had shingles!!  How could three doctors be wrong!!!!

Anyhow I got my prescription and went to our pharmacy by our home.  Thankfully our insurance covered the cost of the vaccination, which was $165; but had to pay $15 out of pocket for the pharmacist to administer the injection.  It will cost another $165 for the second one in October and $15 for the pharmacist to administer the injection.

Have any of you had the shingles vaccination?  

Day out

It was hot and very humid yesterday, so as hubby is off and cannot sit down for any length of time(!!) I decided we'd have a drive to Vaughan Mills mall, to have a walk around in an air conditioned area, so hubby couldn't work outside in the garden and then complain to me how hot and tired he was!!!  I know, I tell him to sit down but he doesn't listen...LOL

Anyhow, other than buying a couple of things in the Tommy Hilfiger store, as there was a super good sale, we didn't buy much of anything.  I did however call in at the Kate Spade store, and had a look around.  I saw these the last time I was in there and decided to take  some photos to share with you.  The first two bags are more collector's items than anything, as honestly they hold very little.  Your phone and a couple of small items maybe; but I do love the look of them.

The peacock had a long strap and should be over $400 as per the Kate Spade site, here.  I thought it was neat but not practical.

The flower pot again was so different, nothing like I have seen before.  It opens, apart, you can see it better here.  Again over $400 before the sale.  I could see this worn with a long flowy dress at a garden party?

I did like the peacock wallet but even with the 40% off it was $140, again you can see it here.

We had lunch in the food court and had enough left overs for our supper.  Hubby of course went outside when he got back home to do some more work on a project outside, until it started raining!!  No wonder he is tired.

Another day out today, as hubby has doctors appointments in the morning and afternoon.  He is dropping me off at the mall in the morning while he goes for his morning appointment.  I don't enjoy either the doctor, or the office of his morning appointment, so he can get on with that.  The afternoon one though, both of us are seeing our family doctor.  I will fill you in on that tomorrow.

Packed lunch

Hubby takes a packed lunch every day for his lunch at work.  As he is retiring soon, I thought I'd record what he took for lunch for one week at work, so I could look back and remember what I used to pack.  

I will say for many years he took sandwiches, but he wanted to change it up a couple of years ago, so change it up I did.  Then we got one of the divided lunch boxes, so changed it up again.

He takes lunch four days a week, and on the fifth as he works only until lunch time, he just takes a couple of snacks/breakfast and has lunch at home.

So here is what he took one week for his breakfast and lunch.

Monday: He had, a wedge of cheese, a boiled egg.  Two cooked sausages, sliced up with a small container of mustard.  A bag of crackers, cut up cucumber and dip.  Melon, a pudding and a yogurt.  He did not eat it all.

Tuesday: A muffin, a Scotch egg, crackers, cucumber and dip.  Yogurt and pudding.  The melon was under ripe, so had to throw it out.

Wednesday: I had lunch out the day before and I didn't eat my spinach and feta pie from the Greek place, so gave that to hubby with the dip.  A boiled egg, cucumber, crackers, Bear Paws yogurt bar, a granola bar, a pudding and a yogurt.

Thursday: Cucumber and dip, a Scotch egg, cubed cheese.  Crackers, Bear Paw yogurt bar, Fruit Filled bar, a granola bar, a banana, a yogurt and a pudding.

He has no fridge to put his lunch box in, so uses a couple of ice packs.  However, when the temperature is very high outside, I have to be careful with what I pack in his lunch.

When we eat lunch at home, we often eat Ryvita crackers with cottage cheese or Hummus and rice crackers.  Along with fruit and granola bars, or apple sauce.  We have our main meal at night.

It's not a mistake...

 

I am so glad I am not a follower of fashion!!  This isn't a mistake.  Who goes out in miss matched sneakers?  This was on our local auction site.

Back again.......

 Just got caught up with my temperature cross stitch.

We are more than half way through July, and honestly I am over Summer.  I am not a fan of the heat and the humidity.  The humidity really drags me down.  We did get a couple of "cooler" days last week, but still too warm for me.

I have just got this book from the library, so far, so good.

I have also started this puzzle:

This one is a bit bigger than my usual 1,000 pieces.  I got it on clearance at HomeSense for $11.  When I get a puzzle, I sort out the edge pieces from the inside pieces.  Then put the outside edges together and then start on the inside.   My table is just big enough to hold the 1,500 pieces.

Is that how you start a puzzle?

Sunday Song........

Such a pretty song..........

Sunday Song - A classic

This song never gets old  I get goosebumps every time I hear it.  We have seen Sarah Brightman in concert twice.  Now I love her voice, but not a fan of Sarah the person, sorry.  Andrea Bocelli's voice is perfect with Sarah's in this duet.  Enjoy!

Just under a week......

Went to the passport office last Wednesday, and it was delivered by Canada Post the following Tuesday.

Really glad we didn't pay extra for them to be rushed through.  Excellent service I would say.

We could travel with a British Passport as well, but find it's as easy with just the Canadian one, plus it means going to downtown Toronto to get one of those and it's total gridlock downtown unless you use the subway.

Funny story, last time I was on the subway I was with our daughter and she told me off for talking to a stranger.  It turns out that's something you don't do on a subway; who knew?  Also I have no sense of direction at all on the subway, so am not allowed to go on it by myself!!!!

I wonder if we'll be getting another 10 year passport, as we'll be 70 and 76 when this one expires?

Time to pass on the baton..........

When God was handing out talents, I skipped a few lines; how to mend a car, how to use power tools, you know that sort of thing.  However, I was front and centre when in the "shop until you drop," line😁

The other day I met up with daughter and grand daughters at the mall around 40 minutes from home.  I rather enjoy that mall, Vaughan Mills.  Got a variety of stores and a pretty good food court.  Plus it's a straight drive for me, no going on Highway 401, which is a nightmare I find.

Any how, we got there for 10am and fueled up at Tim Hortons, before we started.  We all had things we wanted/needed to do and I will say we all were in a great mood.  

I came to the store I needed to go into, Kate Spade first.  I have splashed something; coffee maybe, onto my suede handbag.  I am not happy, so wanted advice on the best way to clean it.  Their advice; google it?????  We had a look around, admiring all the bags and deciding, I would drag hubby back there when he is off next to see if he feels like buying me another handbag 😉

We carried on and got more shopping and more shopping, and more shopping!!!  By 12:15pm, my feet were killing me and I left the others in a store to go and find a chair to sit down on.  They came and found me and said lets go to HomeSense.  I said no we're going to eat and dragged them to the food court, so I could sit down for a bit.

After lunch we went to HomeSense and bought a pile of stuff, and headed towards Bass Pro to look at the fish; but after that I was done.  I could walk no more.  I left the mall at 1:45 pm and was home by 2:30pm.  Which means I was shopping for only 3 + hours, but I was pooped.

So I am now officially handing over the shopping baton to daughter and grand daughters, they can get on with it now; I'm getting too old for all this wandering around!!  But let me add, despite how tired I was I thoroughly enjoyed my day, the girls are great to shop with, especially when they have there own money!!

End of an era...........

I sold our push lawn mower this week; got $50 for it.  We have had it years, and honestly haven't used it in  a few years.  Daughter and son-in-law used it also for a few years at their house.  So it has paid for itself, time and time again.

We got it from Lee Valley Tools.  I see they have upgraded it now, when I looked at it here.

So another thing out of the shed.  I am on a cleaning out kick at the moment.  We need to get rid of stuff; especially stuff we don't use!!

I managed to get this lot sorted to go to the charity shop:

I also decided to go through the bill drawer and the filing cabinet to do some shredding:

We had tax returns from 2010.  I checked online here to see how many years you had to keep here in Canada.  It said 6 years, so I kept 8 years just to be on the safe side.  We had info from prior properties we sold, medical receipts from the early 2010's, all stuff we don't need.  Took a while as the shredder kept over heating despite me oiling the blades and only putting a couple sheets of paper through at a time.  

When was the last time you had a session of shredding things?

Air Fryer

I finally gave in and got one.  I actually bought one the other week but when I got it home it was way too small, so returned it.  Canadian Tire had this one on sale for $175.00  As you can see it's the big one, but what I liked most about this one it has two baskets, so you can cook more than one thing at once.

I will say the downside is the size of it.  It is big, so I have had to shuffle things around and may do more moving things around yet.

I decided to start out slow and easy, so cooked some sausages for hubby, and I had bought some chicken breasts and cut off a couple pieces from the chicken.  We were having wraps for supper.  I tossed the chicken breasts in some Greek salad dressing.  Cooked both items on air fry for 20 minutes.  Both items came out juicy and cooked great.

I do not like using the BBQ, so am hoping it will replace that.  I have some chicken burgers I want to try in the air fryer.  Also have some veggie burgers, so will try that as well.

I will keep you updated on how it all goes.  With it being so hot and humid, it was nice that the kitchen was heated up due to me using the air fryer.

Oh and almost forgot, got a bonus $25 in Canadian Tire points for buying this, so that will come in handy sometime.

Passports and pensions....

Our passports expire February 2025.  As you can't travel with a passport that has less than six months on it before it expires, figured we may as well get them renewed well ahead of time, in case there was a delay.

As we have a CAA membership we got our photo's taken there.  Mine was free and hubby's was just over $10.  So if you have a CAA membership make sure you take advantage of that.  

We completed hubby's Canadian pension application online and the CPP was easy peasy!!  The OAS though, was another matter.  The word that comes to mind with that form was "ambiguous."  The way they worded some of the questions was confusing.  They also required copies of our marriage certificate and immigration papers.

Both the pension and passports applications required a visit to the dreaded Service Canada office.  Now depending on where you live this could be an all day job.  However we were warned ahead of time not to visit our local office due to the long lines, and go to another office a 50 minute drive from the house.

Believe me when I say it was well worth the 50 minute drive, as we were in and out in under half an hour.  The person we dealt with was so nice and very thorough.  It helped that we had all our paperwork filled out and we brought with us exactly what they needed.

I will say though I felt that $160 CDN each for a 10 year passport was a little pricy; but it's a need not a want in our case.  They told us it would be back within the month; but it will probably be back sooner, or so I have been told by other people.

As for the pensions; we'll hear back hopefully in the next month or two is everything is good with the paperwork.  As we don't need either of them to start until January of 2025, there is plenty of time to fix any issues that may arise.

Oh and a funny story about the passport photos.  We were going to get our photos taken the week before, but I ended up with a spot/zit on the middle of my forehead for some reason.  I took one look at it and told hubby there was no way on earth I was having a passport photo taken with that huge zit on my face, and having to look at my passport photo for the next 10 years and seeing that zit!!!  

As it happened the photo I took is actually a good photo.  Meanwhile hubby looks like an escaped convict. As I said to the lady, oh no, he's going to get stopped going through customs with that photo!! She just laughed and said yes!!

Sunday Song

This is such a fun song, enjoy!!!

Seriously????

We have had our Patio set for many years and it has served us well.  The only issue we had with it, is storing it and how big the table is.  It seats six.

So we decided to get a smaller one.  I knew selling this one would be more hassle than enough, so decided to give it away for free.  I wanted to keep the chairs as there is nothing wrong with them.

I decided to advertise if for FREE on our local subdivision/estate Facebook site.  Sure enough a local guy said he wanted it.

He turned up and I sent hubby outside to help him lift it into the truck.  Thankfully I didn't go outside!!

As he said to hubby after looking at it in great detail, that no he didn't want it as it was scratched????

Not sure what he was expecting for FREE, but I can guarantee you won't get brand new for free!!

I posted it on our city's free site and it was gone the next day.

Meanwhile we bought this one on clearance in Home Depot.  It seats four and is big enough for us.

Hello July................

We're already half way through 2024, where has the first half of the year gone too?  For me time is flying by this year.  Hubby took this week off from work, so we have been busy catching up on bits and bobs, trying to get some jobs out of the way.  However, poor hubby has been sick with a head cold.  However, when he catches a cold, it also goes straight to his chest, so he has been coughing up a lung and thankfully coughing up green ick.  He has turned a corner and is finally feeling a bit better.

As the Euro's is on, we have been watching a bit of soccer/football.  I caught up with my temperature cross stitch today, and I am up to date with it. It's still hot and humid.  I try and get anything I need done outside done in a morning and then hibernate in the afternoon.

Our daughter-in-law and her sister were telling me about a puzzle they had got but couldn't complete, as it's "The Clearly, Impossible Round Puzzle."

What makes it hard is it's clear perspex which changes colour depending on the light.  It was hard I will admit, and hubby helped me with this.  There is a method to completing this, and once we got into the swing of it; it was pretty straight forward.  However, I totally understand how it could be impossible to do.

I will prepare a few posts for the next few days so you can see what we've been up too.

Sunday Song...........

This is such a lovely song.  I haven't seen much of Demi Lovato lately?

cross stitch update

 This is my latest update; I have completed stitching right up to this past Tuesday.  As you can see we had some stinking hot days last week, and this chart does not include the humidity, so the temps were in the 40's a couple of those days.  Everyone was weary and miserable.  It's a lot cooler at the moment.

As I have finished my paint by numbers I thought I'd start another puzzle, I have two yet to make.  Dh bought me this Thomas Kincaide one for my birthday I think?  It's a 1000 piece one and flipping hard.  

I am making good progress though with it, as I have only been doing this since Sunday.

What are you up too crafting wise?

Banana Muffins

 I had bought too many banana's and had some over ripe ones that even I couldn't eat, so decided to make some banana muffins.  I did a google search for "moist banana muffins and came up with this recipe, for "The Best Banana Muffin Recipe."

Now I followed the exact recipe, but did not put the streusel on the top of it.

I also only have a 6 hole silicone muffin pan, so had to use a 6 hole cupcake silicone pan as well.  So that the muffin pan had twice the amount of mixture in it.

I put them in the oven for the allotted time.  The ones on the left needed an extra 3 minutes until they were cooked, and I cooked the ones on the left for an extra 10 minutes after that.

As you can see from the photo one lot was twice the size of the other lot, due to the baking pans.

The verdict though is I would use that recipe again in a heartbeat, as they are super moist, soft and tasty.

Beware of Scams!!

Son called us the other night to tell us what had happened earlier on in the evening.

They were having their supper and a guy came to the door.  Son answered it and the guys says, "I'm here to pick up the lawn tractor."  Son tells the guy he doesn't have a lawn tractor; the guy explains he has put a deposit down on it from an ad on Facebook Marketplace and was given this address to pick it up.

Son says maybe you have the wrong number/address, but he doesn't have a lawn tractor.  Off the guy goes, and son and family get on with their night.

Just after putting the boys to bed, there is another knock on the door.  It's another guy here to see the lawn tractor.  Again son explains, and again this guy says it's from an ad on Facebook Marketplace.

So someone was using son's address for a scam.  It looks as though one had given a deposit and the other was just going to view it.

Thankfully both guys believed son, because it could easily have turned nasty.  I have heard of this happening, but have never experienced it myself.  It goes to show have even using Facebook Marketplace is now not as simple as it seems.

Has anything like this happened to you?

Sharks in the Water! 🦈

So we were babysitting on the weekend.  Babysat the boys, Saturday into Sunday while their parents were away.  The weather was awful with a lot of rain and Liam picked up a stomach bug so was in bed early poor thing.

Evan will be 3 this coming Saturday and he LOVES the video below.  I mean really, really LOVES this video.

Now to be fair when you first watch it, it's quite catchy don't you think?  However after watching it 100 times (slight exaggeration!!), it does start to get on your nerves; just saying!!!  

This guy is the Australian version of Blippi.

Now between me and you I don't know who is worse.  Blippi's voice gets on my nerves, so maybe Go Danny, or is it Danny Go(?) wins.

Remember when Barney was the hit for all younger kids?  Sesame Street has stood the test of time.  

The one thing I do enjoy is being able to watch kids movies with the kids.  I would never think of doing that other wise!

Is there a particular kids character you enjoy?

Sunday Song..........

May not be the best singers out there, but a very catchy tune!

What do you do if your car has a boo-boo?

 You put a band aid/plaster on the boo-boo!!!

Saw this in a parking lot the other day!!  Never seen a band aid/plaster that big before.  This isn't my car by the way.

Chelsea Flower Show

We have been watching the Chelsea Flower Show on Brit Box.  One of the things I thoroughly enjoyed was a vendor from Denmark with his willow you can visit the site here.

Imagine my surprise while at Home Depot, there were some similar ones.  I had to pick one up.

I potted it up in a tub.

I will keep it in the pot over winter in the garage for this year.  I am thinking that as they survive in Denmark they should be okay here in our 5b zone.

Container Garden

I purchased this modular container garden at Home Depot.  It was on clearance for $79.  I then picked up some plants in the clearance section of Home Depot, along with some herbs and soil to plant them up.

I am too late to plant more veggies, so figured flowers and herbs would do for this year.

I put petunia's in one section.

Basil, chives and parsley for the middle section.

The third was filled with two dahlia plants.

There were a couple of dahlia flowers out.

All in all very happy with how it all turned out.

Cross stitch and paint by numbers update....

 Here is my temperature cross stitch latest update.

We are going to see temperatures in the higher range this coming week.

Then I finished my latest paint by numbers.  I am really pleased with it.  I love the bright colours.

I still have to attach the hanging frame.  Now I have a couple of puzzles to make.