Sew Along.....

I managed to get a bit done this week.  Loved sewing the robins, but the red squares were fiddly, but look great.

I hope to get the rest of the border done this week along with the last square.

This is the design for the last section, a Christmas stocking, pretty simple and straight forward.

I hope to have it all completed by a week today.

Durene has some patterns featured in the The World of Cross Stitching magazine  January 2026 edition.  Its the three Home Sweet Home banners on the front cover.

Secret Santa..........

 

We Will Rock You............

On Wednesday we went downtown Toronto to see the musical We Will Rock You at the Ed Mirvish theatre.  We were given some money for Christmas from my mother, and decided to use some of it for tickets to see this.

I have seen a few things at this theatre and they always put on great productions.  That being said, would I go and see this again, no.  The only things it had in common with Queen were the songs the actors sung.  It was a weird storyline, the second half was better than the first.  There were a lot of high school students there watching it and they seemed to love it.

For us, I am glad I bought cheaper seats.  We saw the musical Just For One Day and that was a 100 times better.

Food for thought..........

Saw this on Facebook and thought it was worth sharing:

When I turned 65 , I sat in my favorite chair, looked back at my life, and whispered to myself,

“So… this is the beginning of the final stretch.”

And slowly, the truths I had avoided all my life began to surface.

Kids? They’re busy writing their own story.

Health? Slips away faster than sand through open fingers.

The government? Just headlines, promises, and numbers that never change your daily reality.

Aging doesn’t hurt your body first — it hurts your illusions.

So I sat down with myself and carved out a handful of bitter but necessary truths.

⸻

Kids don’t save you from loneliness

Children grow, life pulls them in every direction, and you become a memory they visit when time allows.

You smile… and yet something inside you remains strangely hollow.

Kids bring joy — but they are not a shield against loneliness.

⸻

Health is not forever

One day, the outings you once jumped into with enthusiasm feel like a marathon.

You realize health was never a background character —

it was the main pillar holding your life steady.

⸻

Retirement and money

Retirement is not a reward — it’s a reality check.

Depending on the system is like standing on thin ice.

Bills grow, needs grow, prices grow… but support doesn't.

⸻

So I rebuilt my life on new rules — honest, sharp, practical rules for living with dignity.

⸻

Rule 1: Money is more reliable than anything else.

Love your kids, cherish them —

but don’t make them your retirement plan.

Save for yourself.

Even small savings create big freedom.

Financial independence is dignity.

⸻

Rule 2: Your health is your real job

Nothing else matters if your body refuses to cooperate.

Move. Walk. Stretch.

Guard your sleep like treasure.

Eat cleaner. Reduce the poison disguised as sugar and salt.

Illness doesn’t discriminate,

but it respects those who take responsibility for themselves.

⸻

Rule 3: Create your own joy

Waiting for others to make you happy is the fastest way to heartbreak.

So you learn to enjoy the small things —

a peaceful breakfast, a good book, music that warms the soul.

When you know how to make yourself happy, loneliness loses its power.

⸻

Rule 4: Aging is not an excuse to become helpless

Some people turn aging into a performance of complaints.

And slowly, even those who love them start stepping away.

Strength is attractive.

Resilience is magnetic.

People respect the ones who stay capable, not the ones who surrender.

⸻

Rule 5: Let go of the past

The good old days were beautiful — yes.

But they’re gone, and there is no return ticket.

Clinging to the past steals the present.

Life today may look different, but it still holds moments worth living.

⸻

Rule 6: Protect your peace like it’s your property

Not every argument needs your voice.

Not every insult needs your response.

Not every relative deserves access to your emotions.

Peace is expensive.

Protect it from drama, negativity, and draining people —

even if they're your close ones.

⸻

Rule 7: Keep learning something — anything

The day you stop learning is the day you start aging.

A new recipe, a new word, a new app, a new hobby —

your brain needs movement just like your body does.

Learning keeps you young.

Stagnation makes you old.

⸻

Strength and freedom still belong to you

Aging is an exam no one can take for you.

You can adapt, rebuild, and rise stronger…

or sit back, complain, and wait for someone to rescue you.

And if ....

No one comes to rescue you ....

Stand up for yourself ...

Because you still can..

And that single truth is enough to transform the rest of your life.

Unknown author

Fresh-ie

That is the name of the paint colour I chose for our laundry room.  

I bought the BeautiTone Paint from Home Hardware.  2 gallons to paint a 12' x 16' room and it took around 1 1/2 gallons to do two coats.

I have used BeautiTone before and have always been very pleased with how it goes on and the feel of the walls afterwards.  It is also a Canadian brand.  I paid just under $85 CDN for the 2 gallons.  So the same price as buying from Home Depot and cheaper than buying the Benjamin Moore brand paint.

This is the colour chip.  You can see it here also on their website.

I wonder who comes up with the names?  I do agree it is a fresh looking colour.  Sort of an aqua/pale green/pale blue mix, my typical colours I always choose!

Hubby has been on with this laundry room reno for a few months now, and we still have a ways to go.  He was at a point though, that he had finished the drywalling and sanding of the drywall, and I was fed up of the dust 🙄  So I wanted the walls primed to stop the dust and decided while I was in the mood, I would paint the walls at the same time.

The next job is to put the flooring down, then the drop ceiling, electrical/lights, baseboards, door and window trim, new sink and cabinet to install and new cupboards to install.

So I will update you with photos when that's done.  I want it done by the beginning of June 2026.  It's keeping him out of mischief, so I am happy with that!

Marks and Spencer

 When you think of stores in the UK, Marks and Spencer's is one of the top stores, that is classical British.  When we first came to Canada in 1989, there were actual Marks and Spencer's stores in our malls.  We continued to buy from them, just like we had done when we lived in the UK.  There was nothing better than Marks and Spencer's underwear in my opinion.  As with a lot of stores, they closed down and we had to wait until someone came over (usually my mother) to bring things from the UK.

Now Marks and Spencer are shipping all over the world and they had a black Friday sale with 20% off (I think) everything on the Canadian site plus free shipping.  So I bit the bullet and picked up a couple of things I had, had my eye on.

For some reason I thought they had a warehouse over here in Canada, so was surprised to see the box had been shipped over from the UK.

The distinctive green colour of Marks and Spencer.

Mine were pretty boring buys though.  I got a couple of bath sheets.  They are so fluffy and big; a great buy.  They feel so luxurious.

I love a good tea towel.  I do prefer an Irish Linen tea towel, but have had them from Marks before, so knew the quality and these are as good as always.

As always, super pleased with the quality and the speed.  It was probably no more than 10 days from when I ordered to when they arrived.  

Are you a fan of Marks and Spencer?

Dueling Jingle Bells

This is fun and very different.  

What do you think?

Sew Along and problem solved.....

 I completed last week's section and it looks lovely.

Now as you can see I have completed a lot of the right hand side border.  I had struggled with the left hand side to the point where I didn't want to do it.  I have been doing cross stitch for over 40 years, but could not wrap my head around that border pattern on the left hand side.  I finally figured out what the problem was.  My brain reads from left to right, so I turned my work around so the present box and the decoration box were at the bottom.  I then sewed up the border from left to right in no time flat.  There is still some parts to do on that border.  For the top border, I will turn my work upside down so the Santa is upside down and on the left hand side and work the border left to right again.

Very happy with this weeks section, which is the bottom middle section and includes British Robins.

Very, very pleased with how it's all looking.

Update:

I worked away on it on Friday afternoon, loving the Robin. 💖

Goodreads Reader's Favourite Books 2025

I can actually say I haven't read any of them. (I have put links to the books, if you click on the titles)

Fiction: My Friends by Fredrik Backman

Historical Fiction: Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Mystery & Thriller: Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson

Romance: Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

Now there are more categories which you can read about here.  The one I would be most interested in reading is the Mystery & Thriller one, "Not Quite Dead Yet."

Have you read any of them?  Have you decided to put one of the winners on your list to read?

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow..........

It started snowing on Tuesday lunchtime, and as I am writing this on Wednesday night, it's still snowing.  Suffice to say we have a little bit of snow 🙄 We had over a foot on the ground first thing Wednesday morning and hubby blew out the driveway twice on Wednesday.

So in case you want to see a little snow, here you go!  The one good thing about the snow, was that it was reasonably light, not the wet heavy stuff.

The funny thing though, is the weather forecasters are saying that it's not 100% certain we'll get a white Christmas 😕  Personally I would say we are 100% guaranteed to have a white Christmas but what do I know 🤷

Recently in my feed I have had video's popping up from Spud Brothers.  They sell baked potatoes with different toppings in the UK.  You can see them on Facebook here.  I love baked potatoes, and have been craving them since seeing these video's. 

Wednesday night seemed like a baked potato type of night, so here is my version.  Now I only had small potatoes, so baked a few smaller ones in the air fryer for 40 minutes.

Sliced them in half, added a little butter and baked beans on the top, just regular Heinz Beans in Tomato sauce.

Then grated cheese on top of them.  They were so good and tasty, and totally not healthy...other than a lot of fibre!!

On Tuesday we had some errands to run and ended up in the north end of the city.  We had a gift card to a restaurant in the north end, so had our lunch there.

Hubby got a chicken sandwich and fries.

I had fish tacos with fries.  No spice at all and even the fries were good.

Both our meals were tasty.  We had a $50 gift card and I had a $10 off card as well.  I had water to drink, hubby had a diet Pepsi or Coke.  The bill came to the high $40's before she took the $10 off.  I told the server to keep what was left over from the gift card as her tip.

BUT......if I had, had to pay for this meal in cash, she would have got no tip.  She had a bad attitude, and I don't normally reward people for bad behaviour......just saying!!

So there you go weather and a couple of meals......my rip roaring exciting life 😂

We are busy with some other things, which I'll tell you about in a couple of days.

If I were younger

and had unlimited money, I would love to renovate these homes:

There are 11 homes up for auction with the guide price of 550,00 British Pounds.  You can see more photos here.  Here is a link to the virtual tour.

It looks as though someone started the project and ran out of money.  I would say it is probably a money pit, but the potential could be endless!!  This is in the same county where we used to live in the UK.  Quite a variety of properties on the site with a wide range of prices, depending on where they are located.

The BIGGEST Flashmob Ever: Carol of the Bells with 100 Musicians in Paris!!

I love this song..........

DAY 1 OF TURNING $5 INTO $10,000 BY THRIFTING

I stumbled upon this on You Tube.  Really neat what she is doing.

Here is the second one in the series if you liked the first one:

Food prices forecast to increase in 2026, with meat leading the way

A video well worth watching.

Luckily for us, we don't eat meat every day.  Gone are the days when it was meat and two veg every night for our supper.

I swear it's one thing after another with everything increasing in price.

Have you changed your diet due to the increase in food prices?

Sew Along another week down...........

 It's looking good I think.  This week's was both the Christmas Tree and the Ornament.  Both were pretty easy to stitch.

I got very little done though on the border.  No excuses, just didn't get as much done as I should have done.

This week's will be going in the bottom right hand corner.

She has just released a new Christmas pattern on her Etsy site, you can see it here.

Looking forward to doing this weeks, all those presents, which is appropriate as I just finished wrapping all the Christmas presents yesterday.....

Are you done with wrapping all the presents that you have to give out?

Soup's On!

Thursday was a cold snowy day, with bands of snow coming in from the lake all day.  Now granted it wasn't like the foot of snow we received a week ago, but it was a few inches.

We were due to go west of Toronto to watch eldest grand daughter in a gymnastics competition, but decided with the weather the way it was we would stay at home.

On the weekend dd brought up a veggie tray with a dip and left it with us.  There were carrots, celery, cauliflower and broccoli.  I chopped up the celery, carrots, along with an onion using my new chopper; which by the way works great, and stuck them in a bag in the freezer for later use.

Thursday was a soup kind of day and decided to make a curried veggie and lentil soup.  One veggie I hate with a passion is celery.  So I knew I had to make sure to disguise the taste of the celery.

Dd also left a package of this Boursin cheese.

So I put that in the pot to melt with various seasonings and cooked everything through.

Pureed it all with my stick blender and I have to say it was pretty good, and no taste of celery!!!

Is there a veggie you hate?

The Official Canadian Temperature Conversion Chart

50° Fahrenheit (10° C)

· Californians shiver uncontrollably.

· Canadians plant gardens.

35° Fahrenheit (1.6° C)

· Italian Cars won't start.

· Canadians drive with the windows down.

32° Fahrenheit (0° C)

· American water freezes.

· Canadian water gets thicker.

0° Fahrenheit (-17.9° C)

· New York City landlords finally turn on the heat.

· Canadians have the last cookout of the season.

-60° Fahrenheit (-51° C)

· Santa Claus abandons the North Pole.

· Canadian Girl Guides sell cookies door-to-door.

-109.9° Fahrenheit (-78.5° C)

· Carbon dioxide freezes to make dry ice.

· Canadians pull down their earflaps.

-173° Fahrenheit (-114° C)

· Ethyl alcohol freezes.

· Canadians get frustrated when they can't thaw the keg.

-459.67° Fahrenheit (-273.15° C)

· Absolute zero; all atomic motion stops.

· Canadians start saying "Cold, eh?"

-500° Fahrenheit (-295° C)

· Hell freezes over.

· The Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup.

The last one makes me smile, as that is so true!!!

Christmas is changing........(Spolier alert about Santa!!)

 albeit slowly in our house, but it's changing.  

This year I am giving Christmas cards out to only immediate family, and people who we will see in person.  Years gone by we would have up to 50 or more cards from various people.  Our kids only send cards to immediate family as well and I think that's under pressure from me!!

I am normally organized and have everything done and wrapped by this time.  Not this year, and instead of a pile of presents, it's a couple of small gifts and money, other than for the two boys, as they are only 4 & 7 and don't understand the concept of money yet, not like the older ones.

If I hadn't of had that party on the weekend, I know I would be not doing as much decorating around the house.  I think it would have just been the tree and a couple of other things.

Now we have grandkids, we have not had Christmas Day at our house in years, and I love it...LOL  At the end of the day Christmas is for kids, not for us oldies!!  These past two years it was one or the other of our adult children and their family away over Christmas, and again that's fine.  When there are inlaws involved, you have to share, which I am totally fine about.

The older we get the less we are bothered about Christmas.  However, I do love to see the kids' face when they open their gifts and I love the excitement they have about Santa coming.  I also enjoy threatening the two little ones with, "If you don't listen, I'm going to have a word with Santa and tell him you've been a naughty boy!!"  As that threat still works!!  Listening is a major problem with the boys.....just saying!!

The next bit is a SPOLIER ALERT ABOUT SANTA!!!

With the girls, the 12 year old, does not believe in Santa, sorry to disappoint you if you still believe in him!  However, she hasn't actually come out and said it.....just in case Santa does not come!!  The 9 year old is on the cusp of not believing, but again doesn't want to come out with it, just in case!!

So yes, Christmas is changing around here, but my memories of Christmas's past will always remain.

How about you?

Shopper's Drug Mart Bonus Redemption......

This past week was a bonus points redemption event at Shopper's Drug Mart.  I had been saving up my points and had 130,000 points that I could redeem for $200 worth of free product.

Here is what I got for under $17 out of pocket.

I got 4 bottles of Aveeno body lotion, for the winter.  A Dove shampoo and conditioner.  An eight pack of Activia yogurt, a jar of pasta sauce, and two loaves of bread.  Plus some chocolate/mint cookie things for the Christmas party.

Also four pizzas for the freezer, a couple can's of baked beans, 4 litre bag of milk and the big ticket item 5 containers of coffee which if I had, had to pay for would have cost $95.  When did coffee get so expensive?

Pleased with what I got and everything was things we use and need, especially the coffee.  If you're in Canada, and collect PC points, did you cash in this past weekend?

Christmas Party.........

I am part of a group of ladies, that gets together once a year for a Christmas get together and favourite things gift exchange.  My daughter was hosting it at our house this year.  Four out of the seven of us live north of Toronto.  The other two live closer to the city.  I live in the middle, so our house is the perfect mid location.  

We try to have the party on the last weekend of November before the weather turns bad and everyone gets too busy.  

We had one person who is vegan, another who is vegetarian and another who does not eat beef.

From bottom to top, there was a beef lasagna, a veggie lasagna.  A green leaf salad with pomegranate's and a raspberry vinaigrette.  A vegan lasagna, this one and it was so good, a bit pricy though. Cheese tortellini with rose sauce.  Garlic bread, homemade veggie samosa's someone brought, veggie tray and dip.  The fruit punch was made with pineapple juice, can frozen lemonade, cranberry juice and ginger ale.

The dessert tray, and it was yummy........the cupcakes were all vegan as well.

We do a favourite things gift exchange, where we buy everyone, something we love that's around $20.  I forgot to take a photo of my gift I got for everyone, but it was a Christmas ornament set that you had a cross stitch and a diamond art kit.

One person gave us personalized travel jewelry cases and personalized bracelets.

Another gave a box of shower steamers.

Another gave a compact chopper...........which is handy as I have always wanted one.

Another gave this water bottle, always handy.

Another gave various bathroom products.  Again super useful.

Daughter gave us that handmade Christmas ornament, which is lovely.  A tool which scratches off the things on scratch and win tickets, and the Cashingo ticket, which I ended up winning $3 on.  I normally use a ten cent coin to scratch the numbers on those cards, I never knew there was a scratch card scratcher, here is a link to them on Amazon, super useful thing.

Here is a close up of the ornament.

We also do a craft and this year we made mosaic coasters.  Below are mine glued to the wooden coaster before they were grouted.

Here they are all grouted.

Here are mine all grouted.  We have to wait 48 hours for them to cure then we can seal them.

All in all we all had a lovely day and it was good to catch up with everyone.