Deer sure eat a lot!

Well, as I suspected once we started putting out deer food, the deer started to invite all their friends!! I can see us having to buy several bags of food a week - oh well what can you do? I do like to get up during the night and watch them in the yard. The cats are totally FASCINATED with the deer. I don't think Nibbles closes her eyes all night - she just sits and stares out the windows waiting and watching for the deer - then when the deer show up, she freaks out racing from one window to another trying to get a better look. silly cat

It's been quite cold this past week - at least at night - we had one night where it was minus 33!!! Today it was much milder - but it snowed. Rick went out to do the laneway and the snowblower chewed up a belt. Fortunately it was a very light fluffy snow and Kris finished the job with a shovel. Tomorrow will see us up to Pembroke to get a belt for it (and probably look at new snow-blowers) I would prefer Rick to hunt down a truck with plow - man-handling a snowblower up and down our long laneway is quite a chore. We agreed that if we hear of a truck and plow going cheap we'll go for it.

I finally down-loaded a book (for me not Rick) on my Kindle. In fact, I bought 3 e-books for under $10 total. It is, perhaps, tooooooo easy - the "one click buy" set up on Amazon, sure lets you spend your $$$$ fast!!! I'm quite pleased with the Kindle, but still have some trouble finding a comfortable way to hold it - one can't hold it quite like a book as it is only one side of a book, if you know what I mean.

I would have designed it differently (had the Amazon people thought to ask me). I would have made it more book like - opening up like a book, which would feel "right" to a reader and also provide a way of closing a cover it to protect the screen. Also, controls should be at the top, not the bottom where you can accidently hit them as you hold the Kindle. I must send off a little note to the Kindle people with my recommendations...

Oh well, I'm sure they'll get it right eventually - actually, I think you can buy accessories for it - and one is a leather cover - I'll have to check it out.

This weekend, we're catching some of the Rolex 24 hours at Daytona- it's not NASCAR, but it IS racing and, hey, watching cars run off the track and bump each other is just plain good fun!

todays picture is Buddy on the front walk - he's waiting for birds to show up to the feeder

brrrrrr

sure is cold - minus 30 already and it's only 10 o'clock at night!!!! The cats have finally accepted the fact that it is just way too cold to go out. For the past day or two they've gone out only to run back in within 2 minutes - today they didn't even go near the front door!

And we're looking after our little outdoor friends too in this cold weather. I ran out of suet for the birds this afternoon - so I made some out of peanut butter and bacon fat (sorry birdies if your cholesterol goes up because of the bacon fat) and bird seed. Anyway they seemed to like it. Also Chris has been putting deer food out for the deer.

Yesterday was a busy day - Rick and I showed a bunch of houses from Braeside to Beachburg, So, today it was kind of nice to stay home and just relax.

So far so good with my Kindle - Rick's already read a book on it. It would have been $17 plus shipping if I had ordered the actual book through Amazon,but only $7 for the Kindle book and I had it in about 30 seconds - most impressive! I think I need some Kindle accessories though - I could use a book light for night time reading and probably a case or something to protect the screen.

Todays picture is an from last winter -Nibbles thinks she's a gopher!

smooshed sofas

As you can see by todays pictures, my cats (all of them) LOVE to sleep on the backs of our sofas. Therefore all our sofa backs are smooshed down. I think they like to look out the window - Rick calls the windows their "TV".

I've been meaning to mention to all and sundry, our "revelation" about laundry soap! (I know, laundry detergent....yawn....) Anyway, we were told last October by a septic installer that since we are on a septic system, we shoud avoid using liquid soap whenever possible. No body wash soap and no liquid laundry detergent! So, after eons of using liquid laundry detergent, we bought a box of powder. (here comes the revelation part....) Powder laundry soap is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay cheaper to use!!!!! I'm sure I was buying a large bottle of the liquid stuff every couple of weeks but I'm only on my second box of powder detergent since October!! I figure it's costing about 1/4 of what I was spending on the liquid stuff. imagine that!!!! But, mainly it's safer to use with a septic (the crap in the liquid soap that keeps it in a liquid state, gums up the weeping bed) So

there you go folks, if you're on a septic, don't use liquid soap!!!

It's Barrett-Jackson week on SPEEDTV this week. We've been watching that whenever possible - always entertaining to watch cars sell for like a gazillion dollars more than we can afford! it's kinda fun, though - last year they auctioned off Sonny and Cher's matching Mustangs from the 60's. One year (a memorable year for me) they auctioned off the Robosaurus. For those of you who don't know, Robosaurus is that enormous car-eating machine you see at the SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! monster truck rallys. Not that I've ever gone to a monster truck rally, or would particularly want to, I just like the Robosaurus and thought it would make a neat lawn ornament. hahahaha if you go to Youtube, there's a bunch of videos of it in action

Pictures today - smooshed sofas and Robosaurus!

got my kindle!!!

The Amazon Kindle I ordered just before Christmas came in today. Oh boy, another kind of "software" to figure out!!! Rick was a big help (of course) in setting it up and I certainly look forward to using it. As I might have mentioned in previous blogs, it is getting harder to find books in Renfrew. We had a bookstore - it closed. Wal-Mart used to sell paperbacks - bestsellers etc., now they just sell hard-covers. I got tired of reading really well-used books from the library too. So, I'll try my Kindle and see how it goes. At least I won't have to wait until we drive into Ottawa to get to Chapters.

We are still waiting for Rick's real estate licence - he faxed all the documents in last week (as per the instructions from the real estate board) only to get an email this week stating Rick's criminal record check couldn't be faxed, they required the original document, so we're still waiting! Soon, I hope!

Real estate seems to be taking off a bit early this year - I think it must be the lack of snow, as that usually keeps people indoors. I've been quite busy this week though, and the weekend is shaping up to be fairly busy as well - all good in my line of work!

A show that Rick and I have watched for years is called Diners, Drive-ins and Dives and I swear if we ever, EVER actually go down to the States, I'm going to download all the places featured on this show and try to eat at as many as we can! The food looks great! Tonite I'm watching them deep fry dill pickles in beer batter - yum - I'd dry that.

So, with a Diners Drive-ins and Dives trip being our motivation, we have actually had our passport pictures taken and just need to fill out the required passport paperwork and send it in. We've only been talking about doing this for years (and years......and years....) - I figure if we move at our usual pace, we should be good to go by 2012 - hahahaha - the year the world comes to an end according the Mayan's, right? Frankly, I think even the Mayans are sick of this 2012 thing......

Well, it's been a rather sad week this week, we heard that my sister-in-law's mother passed away, the elderly mother of a long-time real estate agent in Renfrew passed away and I guess the saddest was the passing of one of our Timminco "gals" (a bunch of us ladies who worked together at Timminco Metals keep in touch via emails and the occasional get-together) Marie was only 53 years old when she left us on Tuesday morning. She'll be very much missed by the rest of us "gals".

Todays picture is Buddy and Nibbles watching the birds at our bird feeder.

nice weather

We're having real nice weather lately. A bit crispy, but nice and sunny today and just the odd flurry of snow. But, really quite mild for January and not much accumulation of snow either. Another bad year for snow-mobiling, I guess.

I had a quiet day at home today - kind of nice - as I had a busy few days earlier this week. I listed a very nice, completely renovated house near Foresters Falls on Monday. It's been on the market before, so I do hope it sells while I have it. As I said a real nice place - older brick home that's been re-drywalled, re-wired & plumbed, big addition, and new heated garage - all for under $175,000. A real bargain in my books!

Yesterday we bought ourselves a George Foreman grill - it was half price and I've wanted one for a while - great for cooking hamburgers - the grease really does drain away and it makes a nice burger. I'm looking forward to trying some steaks on it soon. It sure is a bitch to clean, though - I think the trick is to clean it it right away, before it cools.

Today's picture is of Missy - she's a big girl, but that pretty, classic tabby face!