Last full day of Summer............

Where did the summer go?  Have to say Fall is my favourite season of the year.  What is your favourite season?

With Fall comes hopefully cooler temperatures.  We had a light frost on the rooftops last week.  The a/c hasn't been on in a couple of weeks.  I will again pay $100 on our gas bill this month so I am in a credit ready for the bigger bills that will arrive in January and February.  It will be interesting to see how our utility bills pan out in this house.  Still haven't had a bill yet for the property taxes.  Putting money away each week towards it, as when it does come in I am guessing they won't wait forever to be paid!!

We got our water softener put in just before we went on vacation.  We got a Clack 1 Water Softener.  It was a lot more expensive than the ones you buy in a big box store, but we have a lot of issues with our water and it has done wonders.  Our water in the toilet doesn't look brown anymore, and we can now drink the water; so well worth the money.  For people with Water Softeners in Ontario; we are finding that TSC is the cheapest for the salt for the softener.  We were buying at Lowes, but they have hiked up their prices to around $6.50 a 20kg bag.  TSC's is around $5.50 a bag, that's for Windsor Select Plus Salt.  If you know of anywhere cheaper I am all ears.

How is your Christmas Shopping coming along?  I have made a great start and my Christmas box where I put $20 a week is looking healthy.  Have to buy for three grand kids this year as well. 

Saw all of them last week.  Our Little Princess is growing up so much and is so well mannered.  She is 20 months old and is such a good talker.  Our Little Munchkin is 10 months old and will be walking very soon.  She eats everything you put in her mouth and is getting more verbal.  Then Our Little Guy, well he is so tiny compared to the other two, heading back towards the 6 lb range.  He seems to be getting a darker skin tone also and is quiet as a mouse, unless he wants feeding.  I am guessing when he gets older he'll have to find a voice when the other two are around, otherwise he'll never stand a chance...LOL

So there you go a bit of everything in this post.

I restrained myself quite well I think!!

On Thursday we went to the new home builders to pick out the finishes on the new home.  I should mention I know I haven't shown you plans, photo's etc of the new house; I am waiting until we have firmed up on it.

Our appointment was for three hours we were finished in under two hours.  We have been there and done that twice before so now know how this process all works.  As most of their standard items are really nice we had very few upgrades.  We also stuck to pretty neutral colours, as we can jazz things up with accessories; things that can be replaced at very little cost.

Below is the colour of the kitchen cabinets; we have chosen a slightly different door profile.  The granite is for the kitchen and directly underneath of it is the floor tiles for the kitchen, breakfast area, powder room and entrance hallway.  Plus the ensuite bathroom, with matching wall tiles for the shower and around the tub in the ensuite bathroom.  To the right is the sample of the hardwood floor which is going on the main floor and the stairs to the basement.  The two bedrooms will be carpeted in a beige colour.

 The light was terrible in the showroom, but this is the exact same kitchen and handles we have chosen.  Also those are the exact same appliances we are getting as well.

Here is a list of upgraded things we are having to pay for:

Pots and Pan drawers in kitchen: $400
Hinged corner cupboard door: $400
Matching panel for breakfast bar (matches kitchen, instead of drywall) $1085
Jetted Tub: $1100
Vac Pan for central vac in kitchen: $145
Upgraded linoleum in basement bathroom: $175
Extra socket in bedroom: $110
3 x electrical boxes behind all bathroom lights @ $50 each = $150

We are getting a quote on tiling the ceiling in the ensuite shower.  Quotes also for granite counter tops on the vanities in the powder room and ensuite bathroom.  Also we may pay $350 for a rough in for the water softener.

So I think overall the total may come closer to $7,000 rather than the $5,000 I had budgeted.  However I am very happy with my choices of upgrades and here is why.

Pots and Pans drawer in kitchen, if you already have one you know why you would never do without them, they are great.  A hinged corner door gives you more access to a corner cupboard.  Matching panel for the breakfast bar, just finishes it off and makes it more custom looking.  Jetted tub, well that's a personal preference and I love it.

We will get a central vac at some point and the vac pan in the kitchen is great, had one in the last new house and used it.   It's also a heck of a lot easier to install when they are putting in the kitchen rather than later on.  In the bathroom in the basement for the builder to put in a ceramic tile floor it would have cost us close to $1000 which is ridiculous.  I do not like linoleum flooring; and the builders standard was not to my liking, so we went up one level and found one I could live with and at $175 it was a heck of a lot cheaper than the tile.  Down the road we can upgrade that bathroom if we so desire.

Dh is an electrician so he has a hissy fit at what builders charge for electrical upgrades, so we only get what is absolutely necessary.  The extra socket in the bedroom is high up the wall so we can install the tv on a bracket, we are getting the tv cable outlet at the same height.  The three electrical boxes behind the vanity lights in the bathroom are an extra as they don't normally put the boxes in.  So if we change the lights down the road this is an easier way of doing them.  By the way the boxes cost less than $3 each and will take the electricians all of a couple of minutes to install them.

A tiled ceiling in the shower is an extra but it's worth while and easier to do with the rest of the tiling.  The vanities all come with laminate counter tops, but I would prefer to have the granite ones as I know if I don't do it now it will never get done.

We are up in the air about the water softener as when asked we were told the water is semi-hard whatever that means.  When we were looking at resale houses in the same subdivision, some people had water softeners some people didn't.  We are heading to the GTA Home Show at the International Centre tomorrow to look into them, as I don't know enough about them to make an educated decision.

We have a water softener and UV light here, but we are on well water and it is as hard as heck the water.  If anyone is an expert with water softener's please educate me.  So we are not sure if we should get the rough-in for the water softener or not at this point.  Obviously we will buy our own water softener and install it ourselves if we go down that path.

So there you are another job more or less finished!!

Water Softener Salt and other things........

The kids came up on Saturday, so I popped into town to TSC to get some bags of salt for the water softener.  We like to get the 40kg bags, but cannot carry them down the basement.   So having the kids come up is a bonus.

I got six bags and it came to well over $70.  TSC is the cheapest place around to buy it, and I commented on how the price had risen.  The manager told me that we can expect a larger price increase on the salt, as back in August a tornado hit both salt plants in Goderich.  She didn't say there would be a shortage of salt, just an increase in price.  I am hoping we have enough salt now to last us until next February, then I'll have to make sure I invite the kids up so they'll move it down the basement.

Do you know of anything that has decreased in price?  As everything seems to be increasing in price.

Summer is over around here.  It was a nippy 2 oC when I got up on Saturday morning.  I did manage to warm up a bit by the afternoon and I did manage to get all my laundry dried on the line.  We haven't got our heating on yet, but did put dh's blanket on his side of the bed on Friday when I changed the bed.  I saw and smelled smelled smoke coming out of chimney's, so people are starting their fires.  Ours is laid ready to go, but so far we have held off from lighting it

Last year we didn't have the fire on until October 14th, as per this post and we didn't turn the heating on until October 21st, as per this post.  My goal this year is to keep the heating off until the beginning of October, and not have the fire on until around the same time.

Have you turned your heating on yet, or have had your first fire in your fireplace yet?

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!!

Happy Mother's Day and water softener woes.........

First of all Happy Mother's Day to all you mother's out there. It's Mother's Day here in Canada and the USA.

We celebrated Mother's Day on Saturday as dd boyfriend works on a Sunday. She invited me and dh down for lunch and she made a lovely meal of club sandwiches with Cesar salad and cheesecake for dessert.

Ds, dd and dd boyfriend all clubbed together to by me this Ipod:


As you can see it's in my favourite colour red, and dd downloaded 85 songs on it for me, and I have to say, she knows me so well, as I listened to some of them on the way home and they are great. It's tiny but will be great when I am cutting the grass or in the garden.

Then dh got me Wii Fit:

As I said to dh, I will probably get more use out of this when the weather is colder than in the Summer when I am outdoors a lot anyhow. Still it was great of him to get that for me, so I have been a very lucky mother again this year, helped by being blessed with two wonderful children!!

Now for the Water Softener woes. We have never had a water softener in our prior homes, so this is all new to us. This one in our house was of course icky, and it had no salt in it, plus they didn't leave a manual on how it works. So I picked up three 20 kg bags of salt last week, but haven't had the time to dismantle the tub and wash it all out.

Finally managed to get that done Saturday morning in the middle of a torrential downpour!! I am standing out there with my flowery rain boots on, my bright pink capris and my anorak hosing out this tub. Needless to say I got drenched. In case you were wondering where dh was, he was busy trying to connect the downspout to the eaves trough on the garage, to stop that flooding into the garage. So yes he was soaked as well.

So we put the salt in, but wasn't sure what else to do with it. Anyhow, dd boyfriend found some information in the internet, and we had to add 5 gallons of water to it. So I did that when we got home later Saturday night. Now we have to study the instructions that "B" found and see what else we have to do. It is set up for something, not sure what though at this point.

We're not daft, it's just that we have never had to deal with this sort of thing before so its all very foreign to us!!!