Our Christmas Tree

The Tree is up. I forget every year just how long it takes to put it up. This year I think I have everything the way I want it. I purchased extra lights on Boxing Day that I wound around the center of the tree and I got an extra beaded garland so the final row of branches aren't bare.

I love that it's so colourful and bright. All the ornaments have a meaning, given and bought throughout the years. The Angel on top is the one from my youth. She's still in great condition (for over 30 years old) and although she not as modern as some of the tree toppers out there, she's the perfect one for this beautiful mismatched tree.

What's your tree like?

Little Ladies

Where are these lady bugs coming from? I've seen more of them in the past two weeks than all summer. I guess the recent warmer temperatures have brought them out. But why into my home? They face certain death from the resident Bug Squisher (RJ) and Bug Sniffer (Bauer).

I don't know what it is about the flyswatter that gets Bauer so excited. I can guess that it's the sudden slap of the swatter hitting a surface. Maybe it the aftermath of the insect falling to the ground that needs a thorough sniffing. Bauer gets his right into the action and luckily his nose hasn't be caught in the cross fire. Yet. I'm also glad that he only sniffs the corpse, he doesn't ingest it. Yuck.

Cheese!

One....

Two....Three.........say Cheese!

My new camera has a custom timer feature that allows you to take multiple shots at pre-set time interval. (The above was 4 shots every 3 seconds) I thought I'd give it a try with our yearly Dansbury photo. We are becoming seasoned pro's at this (or I'm getting less picky) because we got it on the first try.

Sun Worship

In today's SPF 30 world, I think this is probably the only acceptable form of sun worshiping. Yesterday the Hibiscus blossom was face up enjoying the midday sun. Of course I was inside, no mid-day concentrated sun rays for me. Enjoy it while you can little blossom, the rain is coming.

Molting

Is anyone else finding this a terrible year for shedding? I can't believe how much hair Bauer is losing this spring/summer. At this rate he'll be bald by the 2nd week of July!I've already taken 5 to 6 mounds of fur like the one above off of him. We are vacuuming constantly. We are brushing with the Furminator and we've recently starting taking him swimming hoping that it will help somehow. Help him. Help me. Help the vacuum. Poor thing isn't going to last too much longer. All this from a sweep of the main floor. Any ideas? That's okay, just needed to grumble and explain why my floor has dog hair on it when you decide to stop by. Even though I vacuumed yesterday!!

Sneak Tweek

A little sneak peak at the deck/garden.

We are 90% finished and enjoying the solid effort we have put into everything this spring. Sitting on the back deck after work has quickly become my favorite time of the day. I'm going to share before and after pictures soon because if I wait until we get the last 10% done you might never see it!

Meet Tweek

Since our first trip to the Garden Center three weeks ago I have wanted a garden gnome. Why? It could be genetic (one step closer to becoming my Grandma). But I think it has to do with adding a little 'whimsy' to the outside. I'm not big on most garden decorations but a gnome, it's good garden karma.


Last weekend I saw this guy and had to pick him up.He's small enough he'll blend in and he doesn't look evil. Sometimes they can. He's a very Santa/elf like, happy, jolly gnome. With a mushroom.


Now I need to find a place to put him. With out high winds this past weekend he's been camped out inside on the coffee table. I don't want him damaged buy the elements or wildlife (ie: peed on by B). I think he'll stay on the deck with the container garden. If it looks like a torrential storm is on the way, I'll bring him in. Or I could put a small amount of hot glue on the bottom of his foot and secure him to the deck. Just a little glue to fight against the wind but not so much that I can't take him off to put him away for the winter.


Breif Tangent Alert! While writing about securing decorations to decks I remembered the plastic Frosty the Snowman my Aunt and Uncle had. They use to chain poor Frosty to the porch railing. They did it for stability not because there were hoodlums. But we always made fun of the poor Frosty in chains.


Ok, so what I've just learnt is that it's all genetic.

Bionic Animals

Scene: Standing in the kitchen looking at the herbs on the table that need to be planted.
K: I guess I should get those herbs in the planter soon. Where should I put it so the rabbits don’t get at them?
RJ: Huh, I don’t know.
K: I guess we could pull out the patio table and I could put them on that.
RJ: You don’t think the rabbits will get up on the table?
K: No. Do you?
RJ: Yeah.
K: Really? They aren’t Super Bunnies. They don’t fly.
RJ: Well yeah but they jump.
K: They hop. They don’t leap tall tables in a single bound.
RJ: sigh :o)
K: They can’t climb like squirrels.
K and RJ: Squirrels!!!

What am I to do? Where should I put them so the rascally rabbits and super squirrels won’t get at them?

The herbs from R to L: basil, italian oregano, garlic and parsley.

And......done

Snow Watch 2009

Because I know you are all on the edge of your seats waiting to see if our Snow Bank made it through the weekend.Yes it did. With the help of below freezing nights and over cast days it lives on.

I think I'm getting attached. I admire its persistence. Its Survivor attitude: Outwit, Outlast, Outplay.

RJ thinks it's mocking him.

Snow Award

We are the only house on our street with a snow bank. It's a little embarrassing.

It's a lasting tribute to RJ's commitment to snow removal.

At the Dansbury Street Christmas Party we heard there was a fun competition over snow bank height between two neighbours a few doors up. We don't know who the winner was but I would proudly give RJ the Dansbury Master Snow Shoveller Award. He may not have had the highest snow banks but as you can see he wins for longevity.

Congratulations Honey. Your trophy snow shovel will be back from the engravers next week.

But lets return to our 'embarrassing' situation. Do I ask RJ to shovel the snow back onto the driveway so it will finally melt away? or would that be going against the Master Snow Shoveller's Code of Ethics?

Christmas Eve

We got another 20 cm last night. I think we are covered in the White Christmas department.

Storm Watch Wrap up Edition

My coverage of Snow-meggadon ended once I arrived home from work. Only taking 1 hour to get home (albeit in the middle of the day) was a success story.

To finish our coverage here are a few wrap-up photos. The boughs on the trees were drooping with snow. Luckily the high winds from the weekend blew all the snow off. By 4:53pm the snow had stopped falling and we were some-what graced with the sun's presence. The weather reports were right and we got about 15cm on Friday. RJ was way too happy to care about what he was drinking after the final shovel of the driveway. On Sunday there was some snow removal necessary because of the high winds. Bauer is loving being out front with RJ while he shovels. However he has destroyed his Chewber in all the fun. It now looks like a ring toss game.

And to finally sum up this morning there was about 5 cm of light snow on the driveway. RJ, the snow trooper he is, was at it before I headed out to work. He did not bring Bauer out with him and boy did I hear about it. Bauer paced between the front door and the Bonus room window the entire time RJ was outside.

Poor fella.

Something wicked this way comes.

Most of Southern and Eastern Ontario have been experiencing interesting weather this spring. Luckily nothing has really come out of it (knock on wood) other than some really cool cloud formations.At first glance I thought of the Dementors descending from the sky in Harry Potter.

To the right there was sunshine and white puffy clouds. But I couldn't get my camera to focus on that through the window.There was no rain and little wind, but the clouds were swirling around in circles. Rolling like waves coming onto the shore.Eventually it passed and it was all 'Sunshine and Smiles'. I really should have thought this through and set up a tripod and taken a frame per minute. Ah, live and learn.

Dansbury Tradition

Every Saturday morning RJ and I eat breakfast while reading the paper. The Home insert is always a well reviewed section. We scour the listings to see if there are any houses for sale in our neighbourhood and then we compare them to our house and calculate what the value of our house would be and how much it's increased since we purchased it. I also love to check the Town and Country listings. The Cape Cod, front veranda, 3 acre lots with a hobby farm and small duck pond are wonderful to dream about. But to be honest, we love our house. I don't want to move. I have a lot of plans and ideas for this house and in 5 years I think everything will be just as we want it. Okay maybe 10.

April 26th was our 2nd house-iversary. The day we moved in my brother took a picture of us on the front porch and every year since we have done the same. Bad weather and busy weekends had prevented us from taking our picture until this past weekend. Normally the front entrance is void of vegetation in late April so this was a nice change. I will have to reconsider moving the picture to late May every year.

Garage Sale

Me: Did you charge your GameBoy in case someone wants to try it?

RJ: No, but there's a power cord, it can be plugged in.

Me: You know most teens today don't want to be tied down by a power cord.

RJ: Yeah. Have you seen the size of that power cord, it's huge by today's standards.

Me: Tying them down like a ball & chain.

RJ: Oh no, it's definitely not THAT bad.

Me: Insert arm punch here.

We had tables set up in our garage preparing for the impending rain. Instead it turned out to be a nice but muggy day. The shade of the garage was very inviting.We made just over $100 and will put it towards a railing for our back deck. We had a lot of stuff left over that I'll put up on Kijiji and the rest will go to Goodwill and the Dump (conveniently located right beside each other). While preparing our treasures for sale I came across a needlepoint that my Aunt had donated to sell. I thought the sewing was very nicely done and who knows, in a few years this might be 'in' again. While dusting it I noticed the writing on the back. Helen is my Aunt's Mother In Law. I've know Helen for a long time, her granddaughter Katy is one of my closest friends. When the picture didn't sell (*gasp*) I decided to keep it and have since hung it in the stairwell going to the basement. Believe it or not we go up and down those stairs a lot and now I'm glad to have something interesting to look at.

Home Inventory

One of my favorite sites is The Simple Dollar. Last month they had a post about creating a Household Inventory. We've been in Dansbury for almost two years and considering our house has already been hit by lightning, it's probably a good idea that we take some time to do this. TSD explains the whys and hows of approaching a Home Inventory. Their rule of thumb is anything over $10 should be photographed/recorded. Not everything needs a detailed description, a couple photographs of a room can provide your insurance company something to work with. The items over $50 should be recorded and anything over $100 should have a separate picture taken.

RJ and I will try to complete a section of the house (basement and garage, 1st floor, 2nd floor and bonus room) over the next month. Taking photos and recording models/makes/serial # in a Word document. Any receipts that we have for furniture, appliances etc.. will also be scanned and everything will be copied onto CDs. We will keep the hard copies and give CDs to family members to hold in case something happens to our copies. I'll post an example as soon as we finish our first level.

It's Murphy's Law right? If you're proactive and take the appropriate actions nothing will happen.

Note to RJ: Try to control your excitement!!

Basement

We spent some time in our basement trying to organize The Mess Under the Stairs. Not as creepy as the movie The People Under the Stairs, but if we gave it another year, it might be. That movie was so creepy. B-movie creepy. Watching it at the cottage where the stairs down to the dock are open at the back and knowing that a hand could possibly come out and grab you by the ankle. !!Shivers!! (And even though I link to the movie, I really don't recommend it.)
So here is our before picture:As you can see, almost everything is in the lower half of the room. My standard answer to that is (all together now) Shelves!

It's hard to see the new shelf on the right side against the 'wall' (it's really just the frame of a wall) but that's where I put the most commonly used items. I utilized the little space under the stairs for items we rarely use and piled my massive amount of Christmas decorations against the far wall. A quick sweep (yes that's the dirt pile in the bottom left) and we're done.

p.s. Oh no they aren't?!? A little look-up on IMDB shows that there is going to be a People Under the Stairs 2. I guess original film ideas are REALLY hard to come by.

Cellar Beauty

Me: Shelving is on sale at CTire. So are the foam tiles that I want to put down in the cold cellar. We should pick them up, and I think that should do it.
RJ: So what you’re saying is the first room in the house that is going to be totally finished is the cold cellar?
Me: Yup. And it’ll feel good.
So here is the before pic

A good sweeping, addition of tiles and shelves and Ta Da.....I know what you’re thinking "Why two shelves when there isn’t enough food to fill up one?" Well, I hadn’t gone grocery shopping yet and two shelves give me a sense of balance. I need that. I also need right angles. I’m very spatially aware. It’s a gift and a curse.

Hidden Paint Colours

There was a brief appearance by The Sun last weekend so I siezed the opportunity to look at paint chips in the natural light. About a month ago I took almost every colour chip HDepot had of thier Behr paint. I cautiously collected them and hid them in the folds of a large Speciality Exterior paint booklet (one of the largest booklets there). Once I had what I wanted I found RJ in the power tool aisel and started to make a dash for the car. Like in the IKEA commercial I found myself speed walking and yelling 'Start the Car! Start the Car!'. To my amazement not one HDepot employee turned their head. But RJ sure did shake his.
Acutally I just took the chips I liked, maybe 2/3 of what they offer. I made my own colour wheel by punching a hole in the top left corner and put a single binder ring through it to hold it all together. I was pretty happy with myself when I did it. But now, I want them all. It just dosen't feel complete. Not knowing what the 200-300C series looks like is bothering me. Maybe my hallway paint colour is there. So I head back this weekend with my Exterior Paint booklet to complete the set. Wish me Luck!