Favourite Things #7

I love my Swiffer products.  I have both the duster's and the floor cleaner.  I have been using these products for years.  I have both the short and long handled dusters.  The long handled one is so handy for getting up into high and low places; saves me bending over!!

To clean the floors I use the regular wet mopping cloths, and for my hardwood floors use the wood ones.  I never buy any other than the Swiffer brand, but the dry sweeping cloths I use Walmart's own brand.  It's cheaper and does as good a job as the name brand.

I dry swiffer every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Below is what I picked up on one of those days.  I have no idea where all the dust comes from in our house.  There is only the two of us living here?

Do you use the swiffer brand products?

Hot and Humid...........

so of course I am hibernating.  The older I get the worse I feel in this weather.  My poor head has been pounding so fingers crossed it will break and rain soon just to clear the air.

I picked up a parcel from the Post Office on Tuesday.  I had ordered some books from Book Outlet  They had emailed me a $10 off code when you spend $30 so I thought I'd take advantage of it.  I ended up getting these books for a tiny bit over $30 and that included tax and shipping.  It is cheaper to buy a book than a magazine and I know I can get $1.50 at the used book store for them when I have done reading them.  Have you read any of these books?  I have started on Knit, Purl, Die by Anne Canadeo.  I love reading books that involve knitting despite the fact I can't knit for toffee.

 This is the two girls' toy basket.  Our little Princess also knows where to go to get books on the shelf as she loves to be read too.  Our little Munchkin isn't really into it yet. I have to read more to her as she does have a lot of books at home.

Do you like the colour of our hardwood floor?  Gosh it is a pain to keep clean and marks so easily.  I make everyone take off their shoes when they come in the house; which actually is something that is typically done anyway in Canada.  However I can't afford to have folk walk in the house with dirty shoes that may scratch the floor.  I brush and dry swiffer it nearly everyday.  The marble border to the left of the border is part of the fireplace.

Oh, and finally we got our first gas bill for the house.  It was around $85 and that included $25 new account admin fee, that we had no choice but the pay.  We only use the gas to heat the water during the summer.  As we don't have a bill to compare it with, is that pretty normal usage or is yours higher or lower?  Remember without the fee it would have only been $60.

So I am guessing you're all ready to strangle me with my lack of posts?

I would love to say I have been super, super busy but I haven't.  Well I have been busy but can always be busier if you know what I mean. So lets catch you up with what has been going on.

House:

No grass.........which = lots of dust and stupid me went off my allergy pills.  Suffice to say I am suffering royally with allergies and am now back on allergy pills for the foreseeable!  I am hoping we will see grass by the end of September........it if comes before hand it will be a bonus.  If I look out of our back windows today this is what I see:

I think I have shares in the Swiffer company, with the amount of their product I use at the moment!

Got the basement organized and tidied up a bit, so we don't have to step over boxes to go from A to B.  I now know where everything is, sort of, and that in itself is a huge help.

Dh has got the central vac working and the garage door opener installed and running.  Still don't have my car parked in the garage as it needs a tidy up, but that is dh's domain, so I leave it well alone.  Talking of my car, Betsy is looking worse for the wear, due to the dust.  Now me making this comment must mean it's bloody bad, as I NEVER clean/wash my car, but even I am fed up with how she is looking!

The Central Vac we purchases is a Beam Electrolux Alliance Special Spring Edition (it's white not black). It cost us just over $1,100 (including all taxes) and was well worth the money, very pleased with how it works.  Plus I got a "vac pan" installed under the sink cupboard, so I can sweep the kitchen floor, kick the lever and all the dust/crumbs etc, is sucked up through the vac pan.

The garage door opener was a Craftsman from Sears.  We have one double garage door and I got a 1/2 hp opener and it works fine.  I picked it up on sale for well under $200, and it came with two car openers, a key pad and an opener to put by the door to the house.  We have purchased this type of opener before and have always had good luck with them.

I have to say the way the builder finished off the garage makes it look immaculate.  Never had such a good looking garage interior....LOL

Dh's next job will be installing a custom closet organizer we got from Solutions.  We are big fans of their systems and had done a few closets using their product.  I will post about that when we put it up.

We, actually dh is helping renovate our daughter and son-in-laws basement, so that is also taking up a little bit of time.  My job is to take care of our little munchkin.  Here is her 8 month old photo which was taken last week:

She is of course sitting up, she is crawling and she can pull herself up to standing and walk around furniture.  She has got her four top teeth in all at once, so the poor thing hasn't been awfully happy, but she is over the worst as three of the four are through.  So that will be six teeth in all.  She is a grand eater and dd has been teaching her how to pick up pieces of cracker herself.  She will also "kiss" you when asked.  Do I sound like a proud Nana?  I know shut up!!

I have been busy reading.  As not only have I been reviewing books, I also attended my first book club meeting.  Thoroughly enjoyed it and a great set of ladies.  The book club with max out at 12 members and we have 11 members at the moment.  To read my book reviews you can click on this link.  If you have read any of the books I have reviewed I would love to hear your opinion.

I have much more to talk about, as it's been quite an eye opening experience moving from the country to a community where the average age is probably at least 60 to 70.  I know you will not only laugh at but also commiserate with me about some of the daft things that happen around here.

On that note I will sign off and try and get another post written for tomorrow.

Oh, and please feel free to yell at me for not writing more posts...LOL!

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

As I was reading Kim's blog yesterday, she was worried that the property around her is going to be sold and developed on, taking away her no neighbour living in the country feel.  It made me reflect on where we live.  We have five acres and our neighbour owns 39 acres, all around us.  Imagine a "C" shape, we are the hole in the "C".  Luckily though for us, our township only allows 2 severances per original homestead/farm of 100 acres.  In our case those severances have already been done.  We are the original homestead, the neighbours above us have the 39 acres, and behind us is another property with the rest of the acreage.  So there can be no more dividing of the land.  Also the land directly behind us is so hilly that it's not much use for anything other than pasture.  If anyone wants to put animals in there, they are going to have to re fence the whole property which I actually don't have a problem with.  Also I have no problem living next to a field full of animals.  So I think I can safely say we shouldn't be getting any more neighbours of the human kind any time soon!!

My poor old swiffer gave up the ghost the other day.  I have had it since they first came out, so it has earned its keep!!

 The new one looks all very fancy dancy, and is actually a bit longer, as although I am only 5' 5" the old one was a bit short.

 We went to dd's on Saturday afternoon and we took them, including ds out for supper to Mr. Greek.  It was good and it had been a while since we had, had Greek food.

I made dd a birthday cake.  However mine isn't as fancy as when she decorates cakes.  Mine was a packet brownie mix, with store bought frosting to go on the top.  Her "pet" name is Cons, that isn't her real name.

I had bought her a cake pan the same as the one I had baked the brownies in, so I took the cake down in the tin, and brought hers home.

Managed to get some more jobs done in the garden, including planting some more spring bulbs.  Fingers crossed the squirrels and the mice don't eat them all!!