Giving charitable gifts at Christmas

Over on Carla's blog on her sidebar there is information about giving World Vision gifts as Christmas presents.  I thought that was the neatest thing, as I do have a couple of friends I buy for that honestly they don't really need anything and I always feel unsure if they will use what I normally get.  However giving them a gift card and letting them choose what they want to "buy" for someone else in the world makes perfect sense to my mind.

Is this something you do at Christmas or birthday's?  Also do you know of other organizations that do this?

On Monday I pottered around the house, it was a gorgeous day and I was able to get the laundry dried outside and not light the fire until after lunch.  Mind you it cooled off a lot when the sun went down.  For the time of year we are having super weather.

Suffering from "blog burn out"

Not sure if that's the right expression or not, but don't seem to have the same enthusiasm as I normally do for my blog at the moment.  I think it's because I am juggling more "balls" at the moment trying to get a lot of things done in a short time.

I am finding the older I get the faster time flies by.  Also I don't feel as organized as I used to be.  We're on a deadline to have the attic finished by the 16th of May, so we are busy doing things in there every day now, including me.  I am getting to the stage where I will start painting the walls and ceiling.  The goal this week is to get the ceiling painted twice.  I know it doesn't sound a lot but I have work and visitors and other things planned also this week, so fitting in painting is hard. 

I cancelled guests coming for dinner this past weekend as we were so busy, so am not doing that this week.  I don't remember when we last had anyone over to the house, other than the kids.  Then there is the garden, the grass is growing like crazy and I know I could start cutting it if I wanted, but with the price of gas up to $1.369 a litre I am putting it off as long as I can.  I need to spend a week just going through the raspberry patch weeding it.  Never mind weeding all the flower beds and the veggie patch!!

Oh and did I mention the state of the house.  I am sure you can write your name in the dust!!!

My goals for today though are to clean the bathrooms. 

Do a load of laundry.

Go and vote.

Do more work in the attic, still got some primer to put on a couple of places and sand down the baseboards where I filled in the nail holes.  Hopefully get the first coat of paint on the ceiling.

Made a gourmet supper........I am being sarcastic here!!! Got four chicken breasts out of the freezer yesterday, so will cook them and have two for tonight's supper and two for tomorrow nights supper.

Got a couple of phone calls to make.

Try and clean some of the house.

Plant the cotoneasters.........though I already know that won't happen!!

Plus a hundred and one other things that need doing.

So all in all I am feeling a tad overwhelmed at the moment and the blog is being neglected because of it.  Do you get days/weeks like that?

Fall is a beautiful time of year (photo heavy)

It was a lovely day on Wednesday and in the afternoon I cut the rest of the field.  After I did that I took photos of some of the views from around The Acreage.

Last day of September already, no idea where the month has gone too.  I wanted to hold off putting on the heating or the fire until at least October, and I am pleased to say we have managed to achieve that.  My next goal is to try and keep it off until October 8th.

I also got dh's hair cut as well before supper. This must be the fourth time I have cut it and I think I am starting to get the hang of it.....finally!!!  Dh was fed up of paying nearly $20 for a haircut, so I bought some clippers for $100 and I started to cut his hair.  I know the more I do it the better I get.  I also know that another couple of times I will have paid for the clippers by dh not going to the hairdressers.

Trying to save money where ever we can............

Cute........

Dd was nominated to make a cake and 60 cup cakes for her boyfriends cousins baby shower this weekend.  Luckily her "future" mother in law is baking the cupcakes for her, and dd will decorate them.  Below is the "topper" for the cake.  She has bought a cupcake tree and is decorating that as well.

I will post a photo of the finished cake and cupcakes when dd sends me one.  By the way the baby will be a boy and the colour theme is tiffany blue and brown.

I actually had a day at home on Thursday.  Must say though although I got a bit of work done I didn't get as much done as I would have liked.  I kept getting sidetracked with other things.  Managed to get a couple of columns written and submitted.  Did a pile of laundry and got that all ironed. 

It was such a nice day I had the windows open in the house.  I even barbecued for supper.  While looking in the freezer I found a couple of burgers and a couple of hot dogs laying there so figured they needed to be used up.  It's something we don't eat a lot of, so it always makes a nice change when we do have them.

In case anyone is interested here is a link to my column in the Orangeville Banner, I am whining about the hydro bill............

A bit of this, and a bit of that........

Tuesday was a super warm day, with temperatures up in the 80's.  I personally prefer temperatures in the high 60's, low 70's.

In amongst everything else I did on Tuesday I put together another Sudoku birthday card I had been working on.  This time I did the numbers in green so they are easier to read.

I also emptied three more boxes of "stuff" into the spare bedroom closet; it's only taken me a year and a half!!!  Most of it was my sewing stuff and scrap booking stuff; which is sort of strange as I am not a fan of scrap booking, but do have a ton of photos that need to be put into albums at some point.

I had to talk to Dufferin County on Tuesday to see if they had a permit on file for a septic system for the new extension; they don't.  However she did say something surprising though.  I gave her our tax roll number and she says that our house was built in 1909.  Now the house was sold to us as being built in 1907, and when I went to the archives it stated the house was built in 1911?  So your guess is as good as mine as to when the house was actually built.  Of course back then you wouldn't need a permit to build a house.

Wednesday is going to be a super busy day for me, but the good news is I should be at least toothache free by mid afternoon when I get my root canal finished.  Although I will no doubt be hurting over how much the bloody thing cost!!!  Anyhow I want to be out of the house by 8:30am and hope to be home by 3pm, so another total waste of a day!!!  One of these days I am going to have a full day in the house doing housework........just don't know when!!

A day in the life of a Domestic Goddess........

If anyone knows what that's like, please let me know?


Mine is more like "A Day in the Life of a General Dogsbody!"


Although it was a lovely morning on Tuesday, by lunchtime the humidity had hit again.  I managed to get Molly's blanket and comforter washed and a load of laundry done for us.  I also got a lot of the house cleaned, so that was good.

I had a guy come in and change and service the UV Light for the water softener.  I had been worried about how much salt our water softener had been using, as other people kept saying we were using too much.  Anyhow, it turns out we have very hard water where we live, and that is why we use as much salt as we do.  We go through a 40 kg (approx 88 lb) bag of salt in just under 4 weeks.

I made a dish of Brownies, I saw the recipe at Teresa's blog

Molly was busy watching Squirrel tv on Tuesday night.

The squirrel was laying in the evening sun just relaxing!!!

Today's Peek From The Past is here.  This year that field is filled with sweet corn.  I think I preferred the sunflowers........

Back to work today, hoping to catch up with everyone's blog's in the next day or two.

Oh and nearly forgot, dh bought a battery charger and that is all that is wrong with the tractor the battery is flat.  However I did manage to break to cable box for the tv in our bedroom on Tuesday, so I am back in the doghouse AGAIN..........I should just move in there permanently!!

The good, the bad and the ugly.........

The Good:

Well my column is now up and running on the Orangeville Banner, however it's almost impossible to find it, other then putting in the word "blog" into the search feature on the site, they are experiencing a few technical glitches at the moment.  Here is a direct link to it.  I am not happy with how the column is looking,  but it will all come together no doubt.  I will be using some of the work that I use on the Eden Valley Messenger's site, but generally each one will have their own unique columns.  I am responsible for putting everything together, whereas with the EVM, I email everything over to them and they upload everything onto the site.

The Bad:

Well I knew in the back of my mind that these workmen would run into some sort of problem, as everything we do in this house is an issue.  So today they started to work on our bedroom ceiling and by coffee time they had run into problems.  The reason the ceiling was cracked was the floor joists in the attic are only 2' by 6', rather than 2' by 8's or 10's.  So its not as strong, and when people are walking in the attic, there is some "bounce" in the ceiling, which in turn causes the cracks.

The solution to this issue would be to take up all the flooring in the attic and replace all the joists, can you all say CHING-CHING!!!  Well have to say this house is living up to its name, "THE MONEY PIT."  What we have decided to do, is to get them to repair the ceiling as planned, and if and when it cracks again, I will put up either a faux tin ceiling or wallpaper the ceiling. 

When the house was built the attic was mainly a storage place, not a living place, so that's why they only used the smaller joists.  As we are only using it as my sewing room, and a spare bedroom it should be fine.....we hope.

I must say I am going to be on pins and needles when they start in the basement, as goodness knows what they will discover down there!!

The Ugly:

Not exactly ugly, but I am not loving my latest finished project.  I can't exactly figure out why I am not happy about it, but I generally love my work, but not in this case.  The finished size is 20 inches by 28 inches.  Hopefully someone loves it and will buy it off me?

The front of the table runner:

The back of the table runner, blogger turned my photo around?

Did you remember to put your money in your Daily Savings Pot today?

Today's Money Saving Tip:

Four questions that you should ask before adding things to your life:

1. Do I have something that can serve?


2. Can I make it?


3. Can I buy it used?


4. Can I do without it?


Only when all four answers are “no” do you then go through the research of finding the best price on a new purchase.

A couple of other things.  I have been super busy so haven't had the time to visit everyones blogs, I am sorry.

Also I am having trouble with editing this post, and aligning the text to the left?  Not sure what is going on with Blogger?

A few firsts this week..

Monday night was the first night since last Fall that we didn't have the fire on; and as I write this on Tuesday night, I haven't lit the fire.  Its been lovely through the day, though below freezing overnight, so of course the heating is still turned on, though not on as much.

Tuesday I got the laundry hung out on the line for the first time in 2010.  Granted it was only Molly's bedding but its a start.

For those of you who live in Canada, that smoke you saw in the sky on Tuesday night.............it was me barbquing......or in my case cremating the burgers for the first time in 2010.  So be prepared for smoke on a regular basis now!!!

Monday I started taking Molly out for a walk after supper.  Remember I am one of those fair weather dog walkers.  I only walk Molly when it's not too cold, not too hot, not wet, not humid, and on and on I go with excuses.  Luckily Molly has clicked this is not the most energetic of households when it comes to exercise!!

By the way I said a quick hello to the tread mill as I passed it the other day, poor thing is still hibernating, so I had best not disturb it for a few more months!

On Tuesday morning I saw a raccoon on the back deck, for the first time since we have moved here.  I knew there were raccoons about, I just haven't seen any up close and personal.

Did you remember to put your money in your Daily Savings Pot today?

Today's Money Saving Tip:

Buy compact fluorescent light bulbs and replace your most commonly used incandescent bulbs with these more energy efficient bulbs. Each bulb can save about $30 over the life of the bulb.

A quiet day around the acreage..........

Ever had one of those days when you just do nothing?  Well Friday was one of those days for us.  Now granted I did a big load of ironing, cleaned out the fire, brought in logs, and made meals.  Otherwise we did nothing all day!!!  So I am afraid today's post isn't up to much, just a couple of bits and bobs.

A week or two ago we had a day where everything was covered in hoar frost.  As I was walking to the fire pit to take out the ashes, I noticed this spider web covered in it.  Never seen anything like it before.......

Did you remember to put your money into your pot yesterday?  If not make sure you do today!!

Today's money saving tip:

Invite friends over instead of going out. Almost every activity at home is less expensive than going out. Invite some friends over and have a cookout or a potluck meal, then play some cards and have a few drinks. Everyone will have fun, the cost will be low, and the others will likely reciprocate not long afterwards.

chksnowqueen, thanks for your comments I am glad you like the muffin recipe, you don't have a blog where I can comment........