busy weekend!

We had a busy enough weekend - along with watching as much NASCAR as we could fit in, we showed a couple of houses on Saturday in the Mt. St. Patrick area - roads were okay considering the dump of snow we got on Friday - actually they were better than we had expected!  

Then Sunday we were off to Almonte to watch the Daytona 500 with Bill and Andrea - roads were great - weather was great - food was great - race didn't happen.  The Daytona 500 was rained out!!!  We still had a super visit and all in all a very nice afternoon.  At first they were saying it was going to be delayed until 4 or 5 - but then around 5 they annouced it was going to continue to rain and the race was re-scheduled for noon today. 

We came home then to discover that the night before a house just down the road burned the night before (we slept through the whole thing, apparently) and with the threat of some accetalyne tanks bursting, the fire department had evacuated the street the house was on.  Our street wasn't affected - but it was all a bit unsettling.  The young fellow who lived in the house barely escaped by jumping out of a second floor window - he's in the hospital recovering from broken bones and burns.  here's the link if anyone is interested in reading about it 

  http://www.thedailyobserver.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3484337

The house itself is literally gone...its the first fire we've had in the townsite that I can remember although, given that the townsite's been here since the 30's, I can't imagine it is the very first home to burn!  Too bad, the house was just sold a couple of weeks ago.

There sure seems to be a lot of fires this year - I'm sure I read about a fire every week in Ottawa and area and even out in the Valley, it seems there's a house fire on a pretty regular basis - I have no explanation for it either.

Today's picture was taken at Bill and Andrea's bird feeder - very pretty little cardinal having a munch

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!!

Wow - we got LOTS of snow this today!  We went into the office around noon and it was just lightly snowing out.  Then around 3 Rick and I noticed it was REALLY coming down, so we decided to get out of Dodge.....FAST!   Well, nothing was moving very fast - we came home on highway 17 and we didn't get over 60 kms.   Which was okay, because we passed a jeep on its roof in the ditch (police and EMT's aleady there)  and really no one was going any faster than we were.  IF you take your time, you can drive through this bad weather without too much trouble really.  Still, I wish we had left town earlier and I am glad Rick drove not me! 

I understand there were several more cars in the ditch on Highway 17 by this evening - not surprising.  I was also listening to the police radio tramsmissions (Jamie sent me the link - it's kind of cool) and they sounded very busy!! 

We have finally recuperated from our grand shopping expedition yesterday - (did I mention I  bought a  2 litre jar of olives at Cosco???  2 litres of olives!!!  good deal though at $3.99....that's how they getcha!) 

Hopefully the weather will be good tomorrow - we have a showing near Calabogie in the afternoon.  I am sure the roads will be cleared up by then!

todays pictures are snow (views from my front door that you've all seen before but sooooooooo pretty after a fresh snowfall) and then Buddy and Nibbles playing in the snow - if you throw Buddy a small snowball, he will jump up and catch it and then fling it in the air like it was a mouse - very cute - but hard to throw the snowball and take a picture at the same time!

 

IKEA hell

Today we popped in to Ottawa to pick up some Jetta parts.  The original plan was for us to go in tomorrow, but the weatherman is calling for snow and since today was clear, mild and sunny, we figured we'd go ahead and make the run today.  Nice day for a drive.

I also wanted to combine the trip with a quick side trip to Ikea and Cosco.   Well, we went to Ikea first - specifically to look for a kitchen item.  Well, the new (and improved?????) Ikea is gi-normous!!!  Ikea was always a bit of a bitch to try to get from point a to b without meandering all through the store.  Well, let me tell you the new and bigger store is 10 times worse - I swear we walked over a mile following those stupid arrows - of course, if you don't FOLLOW the stupid arrows you want up going in circles, so we walked, and walked and walked (3 floors by the way) only to reach the kitchen area where we discovered they no longer carry the item I was looking for (or maybe I saw it at another store....shhhhhh don't tell Rick)  Anyway, I find the store so big, it's daunting - or maybe we're just getting old.   I know the purpose of the layout is to make one HAVE to view ALL Ikea's products whether one wants to or not - but I sure wish they'd indicate short-cuts to get out quickly!   Rick swears (a lot hahaha)  that he will never darken their doors again unless they get (a) segways (b) moving walk-ways (like the Jetsons had) or (c) a Star Trek "beam me up" machine.  Guess we're not going back to Ikea...

Then as if we haven't punished ourselves enough,  off we go to Cosco (duh!!!!)  which is nearly as freakin' BIG!!!!  Actually EVERYTHING is big at Cosco - it's like a grocery store for giants!   I've never seen such large packages - my God, what does one do with 4 dozen bagels - sure, they're a bargain, but......!    And you can't tell me you keep 1 dozen and freeze the rest, cuz, you'd need a huge freezer to fit in all the stuff you buy - wieners come in 3 packs of 18 (that's 54 wieners!!! - I'm not kidding 54 wieners!!!)  We bought a 2 lb pack of Starbucks coffee for Rick - which was the reason for going and $150 worth of other giant items.  I'm wondering though, when you buy food in such large quantities, does it last longer or do you just eat more???
So, all in all, an exhausting day and if I learned one thing, I learned that I better get me a pair of comfy running shoes for our next shopping spree!
Today's pictures are not any of mine - just a picture of a doggie I'd love to have - a Cardigan Welsh Corgi and something we need for our fat cat, Missy - a pet treadmill - which, incidentally costs almost as much as a people treadmill, leading me to think we should buy one for ourselves and share it with Missy!

I hate colds

well, Rick and I finally started to feel better this weekend.   Rick woke up a week ago, just full of cold.  His has been mostly in his chest while mine was mostly a head cold.  But we  had a couple of days where we felt pretty lousy. On Wednesday we went up to Pembroke to pick up a few things - once we got in the store, we started to fade and left with nothing more than orange juice, a fresh bottle of Robitussin for Rick and some decongestants for me!   I think we're in the home stretch now - graduated to Benelyn for dry coughs!

Still, in spite of not feeling 100 percent, we were been busy over the weekend - I had an appointment in the office yesterday to do an offer and Rick did an Open House in the afternoon.  Today we had an Open House in Calabogie which was very quiet - typical for this time of year!  Glad I bought my Nintendo DS to keep me occupied.

here's a few updates on things I've blogged about over the past year or so:

Pellet stove - still doing a very good job and I estimate we have saved close to 10,000 kilowatts since November last year.  Our average usage in months when we don't generally have either heat or a/c on (like May or September)  is around 1500 -  1700 kilowatts.  And that's about what we used in Nov. and Dec. (so almost no electric heat) and in January which was colder we still only used about 2500 kilowats (last January we used 7600 kilowatts.  So, the stove is keeping about 80 - 90 percent of our electic heat off.  Not bad!   Not only that the kitchen has never been so warm!

Kindle - I still like it for the convenience - as in having a book instantly through Amazon and  also so many free books on Amazon - BUT I found I was missing the feel of a "real" book and I must admit I still buy books.  I don't know if an e-reader will ever take the place of a real book.

Today's picture is Buddy and Nibbles curled together having a nap - they are the only onces who do that.   Last week Buddy literally jumped (quite un-expectedly) from the floor into my arms - something he has NEVER done before and no matter how hard I try, I can't get him to do again!!!!

cold weekend!

Well, we haven't had much snow over the past week or so, but this weekend was quite cold.  Other than popping out Friday night to evaluate a house (very nice one), we've stuck pretty close to home this weekend.  Rick woke up yesterday with a cold - sort of came out of the blue - so not doing much seemed like a pretty good idea.  We had a nice fire today and I make some bread in the bread machine and we just watched TV and surfed.  Rick coughed and sneezed too!  I finally convinced him to  take something - which he did and seems a bit better now.

So, we're chillin' and watching the Grammy's on TV tonight.  Rick and Kris could take a pass, but I like to watch them.  Bruce Springstein opened the show and Paul McCartney is doing a couple of numbers so I'm enjoying it.  I'm glad to see they haven't totally over-shadowed the show with Whitney tributes, but I'm sure they will be one soon - must have been tough trying to whip something together in 24 hours. 

Nuthin' really exciting going on - showing houses and the usual.  I'm looking forward to the Spring when things get really busy!

We've getting lots of deer almost every evening - I really like watching them moving through our bush on the trail up to the spot where Kris puts out their food.  Rick snapped these pics tonite as they munched. And our "old lady" Tigger (we figure she's around 12 years old) peeking out of a box.

nice day

didn't do much special today - we were in the office for a few hours - then off for a quick lunch at an agent open house at aVERY nice bungalow - about 1700 s.f. with a double garage.  I think I could live there.  Road is fast though and our 4 cats are not used to a busy road - we get so little traffic around here.  I honestly think if we ever move, we will probably have to build a cat run for the babies.  They simply have no road sense whatsoever living on 5 acres in such a quiet area.

Weather wise - it hasn't been too bad this week - not much in the way of snow and fairly mild.  Tonite is minus 14 and I think that is the coldest it's been for a while.

Tomorrow we're out to list a piece of land near Dacre - I haven't seen it, but it has access to Constant  Creek - so should be a nice little building lot!  Hopefully we can walk it a bit to get the lay of the land - although I don't do a lot of tramping around in deep snow these days.

We are seeing things picking up in real estate  as to be expected as we head into February!

Todays picture - Kris on his snowmobile - notice the snow banks!