Sunday Song

This song is all over the internet at the moment, thanks to it being featured in the movie Saltburn.  It's a catchy song, and Sophie Ellis-Bextor performed it at the Bafta's in February.

I haven't seen Saltburn and probably won't it's not my kind of movie, but here's the trailer to it.

Reading...........

I have been having a clean out of books and have discovered numerous fiction books laying around.  When I say numerous probably well over 30 that I have purchased but haven't read yet.  So I have decided no more books are coming into the house until I have read the ones I have.  There is one exception though and that is the books that my mother is reading in her book club.  I will borrow those from the library.  I have also decided, if I can't "get into" a book after a few chapters, then I am not going to waste my time trying to read it.

I have three areas/bookcases where I keep books in the house.  In the living room I have this cabinet.  All are fiction novels in this area.

In the basement there is this built in unit.  Now the only fiction area is the third shelf down on the right hand side.  The bottom shelf on the left hand side is all the kids books.  I need to clean out that shelf, but waiting another few months until Evan turns 3 and then I'll get rid of the baby books.

This bookshelf is in the spare bedroom and holds magazine and cooking and crafting books.

I have donated a lot of books and magazines over the past few months.  Still have more to purge.

Do you own a lot of books?

I book I am reading at the moment is "The Last Time I Saw Paris," by Lynn Sheene.  I did post another review here on my book review blog.

Month end..........

I had a very restless night on Tuesday night.  No idea why, but it made for a sluggish Wednesday.  Just couldn't get my butt moving.  However good jobs were jobbed, so all was not at a loss.

Spent a delightful half hour doing the banking and filling in the figures on the Excel worksheet for February's expenditures.  Water bill was up, gas bill was down and hydro bill was up a couple of dollars?  With the weather the way it has been this month, I knew the gas bill would be lower.  Our gas bill also incorporates the water heater rental as well.  We can't get out of it, as we took it on when we bought the house.  I was a little surprised at the water bill though, that doesn't make sense, other than it may have been for a slightly longer period of time, we get billed every other month.

I must say I am liking the fact that I log in this spreadsheet how much we spend, it's giving us an insight into where the money goes etc.

On Wednesday it was lovely and warm in the morning so I headed out for a walk before it rained.

We have 600 houses being built in the adjoining land to our subdivision.  As I hadn't been walking in a while I was interested to see how fast they are getting one.  This photo is taken at the other end of our street.  The barriers will be removed eventually and you will be able to drive/walk through.  There should be no more traffic past our house, as there are faster ways to exit the subdivision.

One house on that street is already up for sale, for around $1.2 million which is crazy.  It's brand new never been lived it, I am guessing someone bought it too flip?

Further up the street, these barriers will also be removed eventually and again it will be a through road.

Ran into Pugsy on my walk.  She is owned by twin teenage girls who love her to bits.

I took a close up of her vest as I was impressed you could get messages like these to put on them.  She has been attacked by larger dogs, and is very nervous now.  I am guessing the girls had given her a dye job as well....LOL

It was nice to get a quick walk in the other day to have a look around the neighbourhood.

I Turned this Abandoned Fairytale Tiny House into an Elegant 2 Bed Home

Now obviously I personally didn't do this, but I discovered a lady who makes YouTube video's showing how she would redesign, abandoned buildings etc.  She is super creative and as I love looking at home designs, this was right up my alley of interest. 

I must say though I really enjoyed this video and this design could be very usable in inner cities:

I hope you enjoy these video's let me know what you think.

Busy day on Tuesday........

 Not sure about you, but I don't leave the house everyday.  I hadn't left the house since Saturday, so on Tuesday I ran some errands.

Headed out to Costco for a few things.  This little lot cost just over $86.  I spent $105 at Walmart on Friday.  I guess you just have to smile and pay up right?  Pointless complaining about it, despite the fact it's ridiculous the price of food nowadays.  

The good news, some of this stuff will last multiple weeks.

Popped into HomeSense and picked up these dryer balls.  I have some wool ones and they are icky, so figured I would try the plastic ones.  I paid $9.99 for these.  I could have got a pack of four for the same price, but they looked a lot cheaper quality.  I only use two normally so figured I would give them a try.

Thought it was interesting that it had this little comic strip on the side of the box.

I also picked up this art kit on clearance for $12 and the little sketch book.  I figured I would give my artistic side a whirl with the help of the tik tok videos, to see if there is an artist lurking inside of me somewhere?

I decided to make a quick couscous salad.  1 cup of couscous in a pan of boiling salted water (1 cup of water)  Leave for five minutes or until cooled.  Add in veggies : finally chopped red onion, grape tomatoes, baby cucumber, and a handful of crumbled feta cheese.  Add salad dressing of choice, I used the Kraft Balsamic. 

I decided on a different plan of action with this flipping puzzle and sorted the remaining pieces into same shaped piles.  I WILL GET THIS PUZZLE FINISHED THIS WEEK!!!

Decided to get a 45 minutes session in on the treadmill.  I try and do this a few times a week.  As you can see I walked 2.362 miles or 3.8 km.  The 317 is calories and my speed was between 3.0 - 3.2 miles per hour.  Incline only got up to 2, as my ligaments are tight behind my knees.

Wednesday will be a day spent in the house.

Update: by supper time on Tuesday I had finished the puzzle, sorting out the puzzle pieces into shapes helped a lot.

Mini Closet makeover

One of the jobs to do this year was re-jig the coset to make more use of the 45' by 60" space.  We haven't touched it since we moved in other than paint it.  The first thing I needed to do was have a clean out of things we haven't used or worn in an age.

All the empty shelves were ones I wanted to remove, other than the bottom two on the right.

Hubby removed all the shelves I wanted rid of, and then we made a start on filling all the holes in the walls, which I sanded and then painted.  Yes that's a safe in the wall.

This is what I donated to the charity shop from out closet, although one bag was from our linen closet, as I had a clean out there as well.

The biggest expense in this closet mini makeover was the purchase of this chest of drawers.  I got these from Ikea.  I wanted a certain size, it had to be white and I didn't want drawer handles that stuck out.  These are from the Nordli collection.  

Although the reviews weren't hugely positive, we are very happy with them.  They are sturdy, not the easiest to put together but that's typical of Ikea.  Plus you could do different "layouts/combinations."  This one was the best for us and our space.

I spent a delightful hour or so, doing the Marie Kondo folding method of placing our clothes in the dresser.  However although I like the way the clothes are folded, I don't get the:

"Joy Tip: While folding, apply firm, loving pressure and thank your clothes for supporting you."

Just saying!!🙄

Now the following photos are out of order and for some reason I can't move them around????

This is a finished view of the closet.

This too is the completed look, notice how there is nothing on the floor now.

I purchased a couple of lidded baskets to put some odds and ends in.  They were in Shopper's Drug Mart as a seasonal product and around $15 each, I got two.

I got this shoe tower from Amazon and it is perfect.  It technically hold 7 pairs of shoes but as you can see I have more there.  You can see the product in more detail here on the Amazon website.  This unit was flat packed but was simple enough to put together, for hubby.

I also picked up this divider set to store my handbags, again from Amazon and you can see it in more detail here.  The dividers can be used for many other reasons as well.

Now the key to everything fitting and looking tidy was giving the closet a good clean out, as what we had before wouldn't fit like it does now.  The top shelf by my handbags is all hubby's CPAP stuff, and I have yet to have a clean out and organize that, as hubby is getting some updated equipment.  So will sort all that out when he gets the new stuff.

The black handbag is a Coach one, I am going to hopefully sell that one as it is way too big for me now.  Plus the bigger the handbag, the more stuff you lug around I find.

Finally, budget.  I had originally hoped to do this for around $500.  BUT, the original unit I was looking up went off sale and it doubled in price to over $700.  So I went with plan B, and bought the units from Ikea, which in fact worked out better with more storage.  Although I have given you links to the products I got from Amazon I was able to get both the shoe storage and the dividers at a slightly cheaper price.  The baskets from Shopper's were spur of the moment buys, not planned.

All the supplies for fixing the walls we had on hand, so that was free.

So all in all I was probably $160 - $175 over budget.  Coming in at around $660 - $675 for this.  A lot cheaper than having a company come in and it suits our needs exactly.

So that is one job ticked off the list for this year.

Cross Stitch and Puzzle update.........

Another week and nearly another month over with.  Again another mixed bag of weather this past week, and this week won't be much better.

This is how much I have done on the puzzle:

It's as hard as it looks.  However I am not giving up!!!  

I also managed to read a couple of books, one which I reviewed here.

How was your week?