Home and Condo of the week and mortgages

Love this weeks "Home of The Week," despite it's price tag and lack of outside space.  Bit too modern in some places for me, but the size of the bedrooms and the principal rooms make up for that.  At least they did leave some of the architectural details and the details on the outside of the house is really nice.

The Condo of The Week, I could live without.   Although it is a good price for the size of the condo and the location.  It's just way too open for my liking, and if they are putting another two condo towers in there that could block whatever view you have that would not be a good thing.

Think I'll stick with my place in the country!!!

Over at Saving For Travels blog she talks about her mortgage and rounding down her total owed.   I did something similar this week.  We pay our mortgage weekly and it is an uneven number, meaning it isn't a straight $100 (only an example, I wish it were that little!!)  So I rounded it up and added an extra $9.17 per week to it, which may not seem a lot per week, but over the life time of our mortgage it will knock off around three weeks.  We are pretty fortunate, as we hope to have our mortgage paid off before the end of 2013.  So even if you can only afford to put an extra $10 per week/two weeks/per month, it may be worth while doing it?

"The Captive Heart, " by Dale Cramer

"The Captive Heart, " by Dale Cramer

Ravaged by disease, preyed upon by ruthless bandits, the Bender family's second year in Mexico has taken a grievous turn. Faced with impossible choices, the expatriate Amish discover, more than ever before, what it means to live by faith and not by sight


But it's Miriam who must make the hardest choice as her heart takes her on a new and dangerous course. Domingo. "He is gentle," his sister said, "until someone he loves is threatened." Is Miriam that someone?


"Cualnezqui," he often calls her--the Nahuatl word for Beautiful one. The chiseled native has proven himself a man of principle, grace and power, yet is he the pearl of great price for whom Miriam would sacrifice everything, or is he merely a friend? Tormented by conflicting emotions, she's haunted by vivid dreams: Dressed in the coarse cotton pants and shirt of a peasant, she stands on the precipice of a sun-washed ridge searching desperately for Domingo. Domingo the fierce. Domingo the protector.

Domingo the forbidden.


This is the second book in "Daughter of Caleb Bender" series.   As it was a year ago when I read book one, it did take a couple of chapters to familiarize myself with the characters and that was a shame.  It would be nice to read one book after another.

The book had it's high and lows and the drama did keep you wanting to read more.  If I had a negative comment it would be the ending of the book.  Without giving the story away, I had thought there would be closure on the main characters, but you will have to read the next book to see what happens next to them.

I will say, this book does stress how the Amish abhorred violence and showed how deeply they lived by their religion.  It is worth reading, but do read book one first, "Paradise Valley."

Stars out of 5 : 4 If you love reading about the Amish, you will love this book.  Would recommend reading the first book first though.  Just a shame about the ending with this book though.

"Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc.


Available at your favourite bookseller from Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group".

Flipping cold and a tip about cooking.........

Woke up on Tuesday to flipping cold weather, so cold that any moisture up your nose froze instantly.  Also snowed the night before and so the driveway was to plow out as well.  It does look pretty, when you are inside and sitting in front of the fire!!!

I pulled a pound of ground beef/mince out of the freezer to make a shepherd's pie and some spaghetti sauce.  To stretch the spaghetti sauce I added both mushrooms and finely chopped carrots.  I also added around 1/2 cup of Renee's Cesar Salad dressing to make a rose sauce.

Renee's Cesar salad dressing is a creamy dressing and has a garlicky taste so adds that bit extra to a cheap spaghetti sauce it also stretches it further.

Oh it's my brother Nick's birthday today, if you have time pop over to his blog and wish him a Happy Birthday.  You didn't hear it from me, but I have a feeling two four's could be in his age this year!!!!

Update on Molly: she is perfectly fine, though that guilty look on her face still seems to be there........GOOD I say!!

Another recipe, sort of and my new kettle and trivet...........

Picked up a packet of thick pork chops the other week on sale and paid around $7 for the five.  Had hoped to  use them while my mam was here, but never got around to it.  So pulled them out of the freezer and defrosted them.  With two of them I browned them in the frying pan (no oil used).  Chopped a couple of small onions and sliced half a pound of mushrooms, and put them in the bottom of a casserole dish.  Popped the chops on top and topped with gravy made from a packet.  Cooked them in my toaster/convection oven at 325 oF for an hour and a half.  They were so tender they just fell apart.  Had them with mashed potatoes and mashed carrot and turnip; which was leftover from Christmas (had put them in the freezer.

It was yummy and a cheap meal.  I made double the mashed potatoes and will use them along with the left over carrot and turnip to top a shepherd's pie.

On Monday I popped the other three chops in the slow cooker with bbq sauce and had pulled pork sandwiches with salad.  The left over meat will be put into sandwiches for dh's lunch.

I bought a stainless steel kettle the other day to heat water on top of the wood stove and it works a treat.

I picked up this trivet to put it on, it's a turtle:

Monday was a spend day as we picked up more wood for the basement, had lunch out and bought the trivet.......oh well there is always tomorrow I guess?

This daft dog of ours will be the death of me I swear!!!

Why you ask, well last night she decided to eat a full box of Pot of Gold Chocolates and a box of After Eight Mints................so she is suffering.......I totally forgot about them, as they weren't open.  She has been up and down all night and I have no sympathy for her at the moment!!!!

Then to add to it all, I had her to the vets on Saturday, again, as this time she has an urinary tract infection, so along with the antibiotics and I got three months of her allergy pills, that came to another $220+.  So those two vets visits cost over $300.

I know by the sorrowful look in her eyes I should have sympathy but I haven't as it was her own daft fault.................

Actually she did me a favour, as I don't like Pot Of Gold Chocolates, and although I love mint and chocolate, I really don't need to eat anymore chocolates at the moment!!

New Years Day - time to get back to normal.........

By that I mean take down all the Christmas decorations and move everything back to it's original place.  I really need to have a clean out of Christmas decorations as I don't use a number of them, but am not sure what to do with them?  Who buys Christmas decorations?

I also cleaned out our medicine cabinet and now have a bag full of medications that are out dated.  I will drop them off at our pharmacy next time I am passing and they will dispose of them safely.

I also put up our new calendar in the kitchen and transferred all the important dates from one calendar to the other.

A couple of weeks ago a friend was cleaning out her china cabinet and gave me a couple of her vases.  Neither are that old but are lovely and will remind me of her forever.

Had hoped to have a no spend day on Sunday as I never left the house all day, but ended up spending $5 on shipping and handling on a magazine subscription I paid for earlier on in December.

I ended up getting a two year subscription for Canadian Living for $24 plus $5 shipping. 

Happy New Year - Welcome to 2012

Although the time this post was posted at 1am today, I wasn't up, I haven't seen a New Year in, in years now.

So on Friday I had to go into the city for an appointment and figured I would do some running around while there.  Dragged dh with me as he took Friday off.

One of the places I wanted to go was Sears.  I hadn't been in there in ages and it looked as though a tornado had blown through it, with empty shelves, things laying all over the place.  There had been a lot of good deals on earlier in the week so a staff member told me.

Anyhow I had a list of things I wanted to buy so off we went around the store.  I ended up with a new pillow and pillow case protector for dh.  Four pair of underwear for dh, 4 pairs of socks for me, a top for me and a three piece baby outfit and a one piece baby outfit (friend had a baby girl, Avery Elizabeth, super cute name I think) and including taxes I paid $115.47 for all of that.  I also had a coupon for $25 worth of Sears points when I spent $100.  The good news was we were given $100 in cash for Christmas, so all in all it technically only cost us just over $15 out of pocket.  I worked out that if I had paid full price for everything it would have cost us $197.21 (taxes included)

I bought a stainless steel kettle so I can heat water on top of the wood stove, should have been $30 I paid $19.99 plus taxes.  We had lunch out and paid for that with what was left on a gift card, plus gave the server $2 cash as part of her tip (the rest came off the gift card).  Filled in a survey online from the receipt from the restaurant and got a code for a free appetizer on our next visit, which happened to be last night.

Went to Shopper's to participate in the 20 x the points event (all recorded in my side bar) and ended up spending $51.98 after coupons and taxes.  Only used $4.00 in coupons, but better than nothing.  Stocked up on facial tissue (Kleenex), shampoo and conditioner for me and just general stuff.  Best deal a tube of toothpaste for 38 cents after the coupon.  By the way I bought a $50 gift card so I could get an extra 500 points.

Then popped into Zehrs and spent $28.34 and used $2.25 in coupons and saved $2.60 in store savings.  Although I haven't officially started my only spending $75 a week, I had hoped to do it this week.  Only I went over when I bought 8 long bread rolls for the price of 4, it wasn't on my list!!!  So all in all this week I spent $80.32 which is $5.32 over my ideal budget.  I used $6.25 in coupons.

I also went through my coupon binder last night and got rid of all the 2011 coupons, so no confusion when I go shopping next!!!