Public Service Announcement!

Our clothes dryer has not been working properly for a while now.  The error messages were coming up more frequently, so had to throw in the towel and buy a new one.  We also decided that having one delivered in the summer was easier than waiting until the colder weather appears.  It's more or less the same one as the last one as other than it this one works!! LOL 

One of the biggest issues with dyers, is making sure you clean out the vent both inside the dryer and the vent going to the outside to prevent fires.  We had bought this kit from Amazon that attaches to a power drill and it works a treat.

We cleaned it out before we hooked up the new dryer and this is what came out of the vent.  It was pretty clean, so was happy with that.  Plus it's an easier job to do when it's not freezing cold and covered in snow, so a summer job!!

(image credit)

So clean out your dryer vent before it gets too cold out.

Sugar Free Banana Muffins.....

 I got the recipe from here.  I had bought a bag of over ripe bananas so as we were plowing through them I figured I would use some of them in a muffin recipe to go with our morning coffee.  Now, I did replace 1/2 cup of flour with oats.  I would like even more oats in it, but not sure how that would affect the recipe?  I did sprinkle some regular sugar on the top, more for appearance than anything, as they were plenty sweet enough.

I made 6 larger muffins and baked them for 35 to 40 minutes.  Will make them again.  Super easy recipe.  I guess you could also add nuts to the recipe if you wanted to?

I got the strawberry tidbit plates from Kitchen Stuff Plus a couple of summer's ago, they are melamine and are perfect for a cookie, or a small treat.  

Then while I was in the kitchen I washed out the cutlery drawer and sorted it all out again.  The gap on the right hand side is where my knives are kept, I washed the holder and was waiting for it to dry.  Ever since I lined my drawers with the drawer liners, it has made it so much easier to keep them clean.  

I also washed out the under sink cupboard and straightened all that out.  I think I need to do a drawer or cupboard per day while making supper, as that way it's not a huge chore all at once?

I love it when I can get a couple of jobs done while doing other things!!  Now to tackle the fridge this week and strip that right down!

Brass......

Growing up my nana and pop had a lot of brass ornaments in their home.  Pop had a lot of brass horseshoes as he loved the big cart/working horses.  Anyhow, those needed cleaning and I remember her cleaning them.

One of the ornaments was an ashtray on a stand.  After they passed away, my mam must have got it, and one year she brought it over for me, as I always loved it.  I was looking at it the other day and thought it was looking ready to be cleaned.  I probably cleaned it last June before my mother came over.  Figured I would be in trouble if it wasn't cleaned when she came.........I know daft!!

So hunted out my Brasso and other cleaning things and got to work.

Now the one thing I loved to do as a child was put my feet on the bottom of the ashtray and move it back and forward like a pendulum.  I can still here my nana shouting at me; "Our Gillian stop doing that!!"  It still makes me smile.

So after a bit of wiping down it looks a little better.

I have no idea if it was ever used as an ashtray.  My pop smoked a pipe.  No one else smoked.

The one thing it was used for was to put your cup of tea or coffee on.  That's why my mam put this coaster on it as well, to make it more stable.  I have a coffee table by my seat so use it instead.

I hope one of the kids takes it after my day.  Age wise it has to be at least 60 years old.  I remember it as a small child and I will be 60 this year.

So there you go a good job jobbed for another six months and lots of lovely memories brought back for me to smile about.

Washing Machine Cleaning...........

I can blame my son and daughter-in-law for all this work 😏  We were talking the other week about our front loader washing machines and they were complaining about the mould on the seal and how they are having to clean out the filter because Liam insists on rolling around in the dirt in his snowsuit.....don't ask???

Anyhow, I decided to order some product from Amazon for both of us to clean the mould off the seal.  I got it and decided to try it before giving the product to my daughter-in-law just to make sure it works.  You can see it here on Amazon, and I give it a 10 out of 10.  It works so well.

Make sure you read all the instructions first.  Also if you are not keen on using chemicals, this product is not for you, it has acid in it.

I left it on for 6 hours, and there is enough product left in the tube to do it again.

This is what it looked like before:

This is what it looked like after.  You do have to do a machine cleaning cycle after you have done this to remove any remaining product after you have wiped it off.

Now at the bottom of my washer and probably yours, is a door.  Inside is a filter.  Mine even has instructions on how to clean it all out.  Make sure you put a pan or towel on the floor to catch any water.

As I have had this set for five years and never cleaned it out, it was not only filthy it stunk.  Gosh was it stinky.  

The water in my bucket was black.

However after all said and done, and a little bit of work, my washer is sparkling clean.

I won't be leaving it so long next time.

My dryer has had a thorough clean out as it was playing up, so hubby had it all apart.

One job on our list is to renovate the laundry room at the end of the year.  Looking forward to sorting it all out.

New cleaning solution

I decided to try a new to me all-purpose cleaner.  I have tried the dishwashing liquid from the same brand and was very happy with it, especially the scent, so thought I'd give this one a try.

I really enjoyed the blurb on the side of it, very good marketing.

So I cleaned down all the kitchen cabinet doors, counter tops, top of the cupboards etc.

I would give it a 9/10.  It worked as advertised and didn't leave a residue.  I wiped everything down with a microfibre cloth, but found I had to go over it with paper towel, which has nothing to do with the product, but my cloth's.

The product lost a point because I found the smell of the product odd.  It's supposed to smell like grapefruit, and if I remember correctly the dishwashing soap, smelled lovely and it was grapefruit.  To my mind this did not smell like grapefruit, in fact it did not smell like citrus at all.

Other than that I have nothing negative to say about the product.  If I remember rightly it was around $6 for the bottle from Wal-Mart, and it has no chemicals in it, which was a win. Not sure I would buy it again though.

Busy day

I hadn't planned on doing much on Wednesday as I was really tired on Tuesday for some reason, but I ended up doing a few bits and bobs.

I put away all my Christmas decorations, other than these two miniature trees.  They will stay out until the 12th night.

I made a big pan of turkey soup.  I just added some soup mix (grains), an onion, carrots, tin of Italian diced tomatoes, can of coconut milk, turkey and turkey stock from yesterday.  It was lovely, very tasty and very filling.

A couple of you mentioned you liked my little man.  I think I got it from Kitchen Stuff Plus, here in Canada.  However there are plenty to choose from on Amazon.  They are called Silicone Pot Lid Lifters, you can see some here.  As I said yesterday, they work really well.

Before Christmas I was busy cleaning out my kitchen drawers.  I had cleaned out my cutlery drawer, but wasn't happy with it.  I think Christmas Eve I went to HomeSense and picked up some storage bins for the kitchen drawer.  I quickly put them all in my drawer and it has tidied it up.  Not 100% sure whether I like the layout yet.  I have put my larger spoons, masher, ladle etc on the counter top in a utensil container.  I am not a fan of those, but it makes more space in my drawer.

The knives are in a Joseph & Joseph knife holder.  Love the bottom layer, but the top layer doesn't work well.  I have our steak knives in there.  I lined the bottom of the drawer with contact paper.  I either got it from the dollar store, or Canadian Tire, I don't remember which.

Considering I hadn't planned on doing much I got a lot done.

By the way is your house like ours, covered in glitter?  Everywhere I turn, there are sparkles....LOL  And I have dusted, swiffered and hoovered.......

What the heck?

Not sure what happened to me on Wednesday morning but I had a burst of energy and cleaned out some kitchen cupboards?????  I have been thinking about doing this for a while.  So after I had blown out the bottom of the driveway I set about doing them.

Got rid of some instant coffee with a 2014 (???) expiry date on it, that I found wwwwaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy back in the cupboard.  Seriously, how did I miss that?  

I now have some bags of things to donate to the charity shop.  Threw out numerous plastic lids that didn't belong to anything. I mean it's like having numerous socks with no partners, right?

I still have more to do, but this was a great start.  I need to be more aggressive with; "If you haven't used it in ages, get rid of it."

Still puzzled though where this burst of energy came from....😄

Good Friday was a good day.........

Did some cleaning, did the laundry, changed the sheets and have now gone from the winter flannel sheets to the lighter cotton weight sheets, hubby is not going to be happy, but I will be 😉

Dd is hosting Easter this year on Easter Saturday, so my contribution to the meal are some baked goods, which I prepared on Friday.  Will share photos with you at a later date.

We had snow flakes on Good Friday morning.  Now even though the sun was shining and the skies were blue, it was nippy cold out there.  We went for a quick walk around the block later in the afternoon with our hoods up and wooly hats on.  That wind was biting.

I managed to finish all the background's in the numbered squares on my cross stitch and am now doing all the back stitch before I start on the borders.  I want all the numbered squares finished off first.

Looking forward to Easter Saturday, hope to have lots of photos.

All out of sorts

Prior to me getting sick I had quite a routine going.  I knew what I was doing and when I was doing it.  These past couple of weeks my routine has been blown to bits.  Only now am I starting to get back to normal.

I am writing this on Thursday night for publication on Friday morning.  Today was the first time I have "made" a proper evening meal; cabbage roll casserole. I am making that as I had cabbage that needed using up.  For the past couple of weeks we have been eating, sandwiches, soup, bagels, things that are super simple, as hubby cannot cook. I have got lots of veggies to use up from this month's produce box. 

I need to get caught up with grocery shopping, as I have only been doing the very basics.  

In fact for the last two weeks, everything has been the bare basics.

I have started a new cross stitch project and will give you a little peek into it over the weekend.

I now need to get back into the routine of cleaning as well....BOO!!!!

Do you have a routine you like sticking too?

Keeping busy.........

It was my birthday last month and I got some gift cards.  I ordered a couple of puzzles with one of the gift cards.  Only one has arrived so far, but I am really enjoying doing it.  Also it is satisfying my sweet tooth without actually eating anything!!

I also have a couple of books still to read and review:

When I get bored with that, the house could do with a Spring Clean!!

What are you busy with?

I need an intervention......or a cleaner!!

This is what our dining room table looks like at the moment:

The sad thing about all this, is I actually know what everything is for.  I just need to spend a day sewing and get the place tidied up!!!

Meanwhile I posted three new book reviews on my Book Review Blog here.

Oh and yes you can blame me for snow, as I did wash my car on Tuesday morning.  It was above freezing, so thought I'd take advantage of it!

I must start writing things down........

I had a couple of things that I wanted to share with you, but do you think I can remember what they were?  I don't know.  I could understand it if I worked full time, had a few kids running around the place and a hundred and one other things to do, but I don't?  I am one of these people who are more productive when under the gun.  I need to start writing lists again, so things happen.

I do know I want to get a couple of things done today, so I guess if I write a list here maybe things will get done, who knows?

• Drop of a bottle of wine at the make your own wine place for them to taste it.  Dh says it's awful tastes like gnat pee......meanwhile me who doesn't drink had a taste and enjoyed it.  At this point dh said there HAD to be something wrong with it!
• Call in at the bank and pick up some US dollars before the Canadian Dollar drops even lower.  Both dh and I keep saying we have a recession knocking on our door in Canada.
• Pick up prescription pills in WalMart pharmacy, that have been ready for a few days; another case of forgetting to pick up.
• Steam clean the ceramic and hardwood floors.  DONE
• Water tubs outside.  We pay for our water through our monthly maintenance fees, but I have started using the dish water from washing dishes to an attempt to save water.  It has been hot and dry, so I am thinking the reservoirs must be getting low? DONE
• Finish knitting another gnome for a gift.
• Make supper, a ham and pasta dish; no recipe just making it up.
• Watch Coronation Street; VERY IMPORTANT "JOB."

I know there are a lot more things I have to do, but as long as I get those done I will be happy.  It's going to be up to 39 oC  (102 oF) with the humidity today so this afternoon all the blinds will be closed and I will be hibernating.

Oh and finally I MUST find time to visit everyone's blogs, as I am so behind in doing that.

If it's hot where you are try and stay cool.  If it's cold where you are try and stay warm.  Have a good one.

Just popping in.........

to say it cost me $39.25 for all the postage for this years Christmas cards........so far!!  I am hoping it won't be anymore.

I spent most of yesterday afternoon cooking; for both us and dd.

I made dd a sausage risotto, Swedish meatballs and gravy, and a couple of bags of mashed potatoes.  

For us I have two meals of Swedish meatballs and gravy, plus a meatloaf all ready to cook in the freezer.  Two portions of mashed potatoes and three small bags of ground beef and onions all fried up ready to add to a meal.

Today I am making sweet and sour chicken and rice; one meal for us and one meal for dd and son-in-law.  Plus I want to make a carrot cake and get the ingredients together for a Loaded "Baked Potato" Soup for Wednesday's lunch while I am at dd.

I am on making a Sour Dough Starter as well at the moment.  I wanted to see how easy/hard it was to make my own Sour Dough Bread. I am using this recipe.  I am day five of making the starter and won't get chance to make any bread until Thursday at the earliest.  

Do any of you make Sour Dough Bread?  Any Tips if you do?

I am also getting my winter tires put on the car this afternoon and this morning I want to get the bathrooms cleaned and all the attic tidied up.  I got the new basement all sorted out so that's one job off my list.  

I guess I had better get on with it all as it will soon be 2:30 pm when I have to leave the house to go to town to the garage.

Have a good day!

Busy, busy day....

On Monday we managed to clean out the garage.  This is the before:

This is the after:

Dh took a truck load of garbage to the dump, luckily it was light in weight so only cost $8.99 to dispose off. The blue tarps are to go on the log pile to keep it dry and a big one has to go on the garage roof, as we need a new roof, but it will have to wait for another year.  It was too windy on Monday to go on the roof though.

There is now plenty of room in the garage, even with the tractor to park my car inside.  Mind you it helps that I only have half a car!!!!  I am up to 5,750 kilometres on my mileage with my car.  So I am averaging just over 1,000 kilometres a month; no idea where I go?

Monday was a perfect drying day and I took advantage of it with a pile of laundry, which in turn makes plenty of ironing  to do!!  Then I started cutting the grass, which really needed cutting.  Have you noticed how early it starts to get dark now?  I see the leaves are starting to fall as well.  I hope not to have the heating on for another month yet, but we'll see.

Have you entered my giveaway yet?  Click here to enter.

I need more people visiting the house.....

Why, because it makes me clean the house!!!!  I have someone coming for lunch today, so on Thursday I was busy cleaning the family room.  The coffee table was over flowing.  Here is the before:

And here is the after:

Still got a lot more cleaning to do, but it was a good start.

I dug our first potatoes out of the garden to make a potato salad, they were good.   Also finally cooked the beets that Cindy gave me the other week........I know Cindy I was lucky they didn't go bad, but I kept them in the fridge since I got them.  Cleaned out the fruit in the fridge and made a fresh fruit salad, the recipe is here.

Had bought three chicken breasts with bones in, skin on.  So ttok two of them off the bone and flattened them out to and stuffed them.  The other chicken breast along with the bones I poached in water.  We had the stuffed breasts on Thursday night, and the cold cooked chicken will be good with more salad and homemade bread tonight.  Although time consuming it feels good to prepare things from scratch.

This week's "Home of the Week," is very nice, but very expensive.  Hard to believe it's just short of $5 million, but the property taxes are over $31, 000 a year.  Who on earn can afford that?  It has seven bathroom's which is a little strange for a four bedroom house, don't you think?  Love the back yard and thought the light fixture on the upstairs landing was interesting.  If I was given it and someone else paid the property taxes I wouldn't say no to this one!!!

This week's "Cottage of the Week," is great; however the price tag isn't, as at $1.6 million that's way overpriced.  It actually looks like a cottage, though I would get rid of the astro turf/artificial grass looking carpet in the porch and the dining room!!!  But hey that's just me........  Perfect getaway if you had the time, money and the energy!!!

The "Condo of the Week," is actually nice, but not for me.  Also at just under $2 million I could never afford it.  However if you have a high flying career and entertain a lot this place is perfect for you.  Love the views and it's not too far from downtown.  Though by the comments they are saying it is too far west of the city for true city people.  I could honestly imagine myself sitting on the balcony watching the world go by on the water.

Sign of Spring and home and condo of the week......

I have seen some robins over the last couple of days, so that means the better weather is on it's way.  We still have some snow but not too much.  The warm temperatures that we have had these past couple of days has been a big help in melting it.  I am starting to see some signs of life in the garden finally.  I noticed that there are lots and lots of buds on the blackcurrant bushes..........GREAT.........considering I can't stand blackcurrants.

This week's Home of the Week is okay, a bit pricy, but according to the comments, it's under priced and should sell for $3 million +  I could live in it, but I don't think the photos do it justice?  Love the ceiling in the dining room and the stair bannisters.  I wish there were more photos of the outside garden space.  Also I wonder why they painted the brick of the house?

The Condo of the Week is also okay I guess, but not much in outdoor space.  I found the comments very interesting again. There was something missing from this place though, it didn't seem very family friendly as it was advertised as a family friendly condo.  I do like that it is a two storey.

I am getting antsy with my hand being in cast and remembering I haven't to over do it.  I got this way last time.  Plus my cast is starting to look grubby which doesn't help.  I managed to get the kitchen floor washed and all the dining room chairs polished.  Mind you as we had a south west wind on Thursday morning, the fire was smoking back into the house pretty bad, plus the ashes blew back on me when I opened the patio door, so I need to give the living room a really good clean again................I got the worst of the dust cleaned up but need to give it another go over again today.

I still have one more book to read and review for this month, so want to get that done before my cast comes off.........but between me and you it's proving to be a tedious book.  I don't know what is going on this month, not sure if it's just me, or all these books are really hard work.

Poor Molly is in a state of shock at the moment, as I walked her twice on Wednesday and once on Thursday.......yes I am antsy!!!!!  Looking forward to the weekend, as dh has actually got both days off, which is very unusual, as he normally has to work on a Sunday.  So we are hoping to get the snow fences taken down. 

A busy Friday and some photos........

Had another busy but productive day on Friday.  However my poor hands are suffering for it.  So here are a couple of photos, as typing is not doing my hands much good at the moment.

The last of the Fall colours, out back of us.

Looking south from our property.

We had a snow shower on Friday morning, lasted all of ten minutes and it melted as soon as it touched the ground.  We are forecast for rain all day on Saturday.

A weary British Woman.......

I need to have company come to stay more often, as it seems to have kicked my butt into action.  I have been doing some tidying up and cleaning.  I walked up and down three flights of stairs 8 times carrying bundles of magazines on Monday.  So next time the doctor tells me to exercise more I will be swatting him over the head!!!!


Oh by the way I think I have a hoarding problem.  I have Prima magazines from 1984, I just can't part with them. 


The horses from yesterday are Belgium's, similar to Shire Horses or Clydesdale's.  Beautiful horses with a lovely temperament.  They are quite old and one isn't too well, and they belong to the farmer across the way.  He bought the miniature horse for his grand daughters.


Here is another photo of Molly waiting to be let back into the house.  She wasn't happy with me on Monday morning, as I bathed her, she really hates it, but it helps her skin and she wasn't scratching as much on Monday after her bath.  That's waste wood in the bag by the door.

Molly fast asleep on her ottoman, with the glorious view behind her.  It set out as a miserable day on Monday but by lunch time the sun got out and it faired up.

My attempt at an artistic shot!!

More of what I have been up too, with photos.

On Tuesday I decided to strip down the book shelves in the family room and clean behind them.  The story of how I came to own these shelves is on this post.  It took me a while to get everything off, cleaned and put back on, however it was a good job, jobbed as I say.

By the way the kids photos are their Grade 12 Graduation photos, which was 9 years ago now; gosh time has flown by since then and they have changed a lot since then.

On Wednesday afternoon, I headed into the attic to tidy some of my sewing stuff up and discovered a few things I had forgotten about. I also sat down and did a bit of machine quilting on this quilt:

I must have been on with this quilt now for nearly three years? I found the original post of when I started to make it back in January of 2009.  To the right of the sewing machine you can see a purple fabric box, I wrote about how too make it on this post.

We bought a new chest of drawers for the attic last month and it is in complete contrast to the one in the spare bedroom:

This one is from Ikea, although I did buy nicer handles for it from Lowes, as I didn't like the ones it came with.   The toiletries are for my brother when he comes over at the end of  the month.

I must say I am enjoying pottering around the house getting odds and sods of jobs done.  That's one good thing about the weather being colder and wet, you get more done inside of the house.

Cleaning the toilet and exercising.........

Got a parcel in the mail on Friday.  I am a Bzz Agent and I am testing the One Step Toilet Bowl Cleaning System for them and that was in the parcel.

The blurb says:

"Do you hate cleaning the toilet? It can be the most disgusting task in the house. Might not be the most difficult task, but it is never ending. Wouldn’t it be nice to remove yourself from toilet-cleaning duty?

Introducing Scrubbing Bubbles® One Step toilet bowl cleaner—the toilet system that works hard to keep your toilet clean and smelling fresh so you don’t have to!


Start with a clean bowl and it will easily keep it clean with just a couple of sprays a day. The powerful cleaner tackles tough stains like toilet rings, hard water marks and lime scale – and helps keep them away.


Simply clip the nozzle over the rim inside the bowl—it securely fits all types of toilet bowls. Then effortlessly spray the bowl with the tap of the foot pedal and walk away! The 360 degree spray will cover the complete bowl, even under the rim."
 
Well I will say it was easy enough to clip onto the toilet, and it smells okay, but you do have to still clean the toilet seat, the part of the toilet that the seat sits on and outside of the toilet bowl, so it doesn't actually do away with all of the cleaning of the toilet.
 
I guess though for people who hate cleaning the toilet, it sort of helps with the cleaning?  I will let you know if I like it.  Do you mind cleaning your toilet?

Have you heard of that expression: "An elephant never forgets."  Well I must be an elephant.  Let me explain.......

Back in the early 90's I got some of Richard Simmon's exercise tapes, "Sweatin' To The Oldies."  I loved them and I used to do them all the time.  Fast forward to this year and dd mentioned she had seen a dvd set of Richard Simmons "Sweatin' To The Oldies."

The kids bought it for me for Mother's Day.  I decided to "do" the #1 dvd, and do you know what I knew all the moves, it all came back to me.  Which is actually funny as if you were to ask me what I did on Thursday I would have no idea!!!!

By the way it took me nearly as long to try and figure out how to turn on the dvd player.  Do you know we have three remote controls for the tv and dvd player?  No wonder it is so bloody complicated.

I enjoyed the dvd and was sweating like a pig doing it with Molly looking on.