funny cats

pretty quiet day - we popped out to Douglas area this a.m. to show a house. Really cute little place - I like funky old (log) houses!

We are getting used to the pettet stove - it warms up the kitchen (and bedroom over the kitchen) almost too much, so today we put a fan in the kitchen to help blow the air through the rest of the house - seems to be working quite well!   We also installed a ceiling fan in the upstairs hallway to help circulate the air.  (haha - that's the "royal we" folks - "we" translates to Rick)

We had a very nice dinner at Gow's in Ottawa last nite with Jamie and Julie.  Not fancy, but good prices and good food.  We sent them home with a dozen eggrolls and we brought home a dozen for us.  They're VERY good eggrolls. 

When we were in Ottawa I noticed ANOTHER brand new storage building near the Kanata Canadian Tire.  At least 3 stories high and bigger than the Canadian Tire building!   That must be one of the biggest growth industries around these days - I can only assume people keep buying new "stuff", don't want to get rid of their old "stuff" when they buy more, and so they have store it.  There's a bunch of those storage units out here - but this one in Ottawa looked like it was a bit more upscale - likely heated - that would be for your really GOOD "stuff" I guess....

This afternoon we put up some Halloween decorations - we don't do nearly as much as when the boys were small, but we do try to put up a few things - the little kids really like my big inflatable pumpkin!  Our house sits kind of off the road and a small pumkin just doesn't show up - so I got this one a few years ago and now I know the kids watch for it.

We also got lots of treats - chips and mini chocolate bars etc.  Tomorrow night I plan to watch my favorite Halloween movie "Hocus Pocus" and hand out treats.

pictures today - our halloween house and Buddy (dark grey) and Nibbles having a catnap on the back of the couch.  Nibbles is Buddy's mom and these are the only ones who would sleep so close to one another - the others are all very concious of their own and each others personal space.

Houston - we have LIFT OFF!!!

Pellet stove is IN! Finally and just in time for the cooler weather! Two fellows from Energy Options came over and had it installed in under 4 hours. It's up and running and keeping the kitchen nice and toasty. The kitchen was always a cold room - and the bedroom over the kitchen was cold too. Kris now reports that his room is quite warm and we have been able to turn off the baseboard heaters. We'll see how it goes..... It's a nice little unit - I'm quite impressed with it so far.

Tomorrow we're putting the Mustang away for the winter. We secured a spot in the Renfrew Armouries for it - only $150 for the season - a very good deal! Only problem is it has to go in this weekend and we can't get it out until May 1st. But, to be honest we don't take it out much in November and only once or twice have we driven it in April. And the fact that the storage is so cheap and that we can free up half our garage makes it worth it. We have to show up at 10:00 - hopefully it won't take too long to get it tucked in.

Then later in the afternoon we're popping into Ottawa to take Jamie and Julie out for Chinese food. We plan to meet at meet at Gow's in Bells Corners. It's not very fancy, but we quite like their food and we LOVE their open-ended eggrolls! We'll bring home an extra dozen eggrolls for Rick and Kris to snack on.

Thats about it - real estate continues to be busy enough for this time of year - bit of a flurry of activity on land at the moment and we have several vacant properties. And Sunday morning we're showing a house near Douglas.

today's picture is our pellet stove - ta-da!!!

where's the rain????

Well, the weatherman (so often unreliable) called for rain today but it was actually quite sunny! On the cold-ish side, but not bad for this time of year. We took a quick jaunt up to Pembroke to get an EGR valve (or something) for the truck which wasn't running quite right.

If we get a somewhat warmer day, Rick will install it. We don't use the truck much, but it is nice to have around. In fact Kris is taking it into Ottawa on Monday or Tuesday to help Jamie and Julie move to a 2 bedroom apartment and also to take in our old queen size mattress to replace their old double-size mattress which has a decided hammock-like shape.

It's huntin' season out this way - at least there seems to be more men wearing camo clothing then there usually is. Camo and plaid are pretty well the norm in the Valley. Of course if you're hunting you have to wear bright orange too (so why bother with the camo, right??? hey, I don't make the rules....)

We had a nice Thanksgiving with Jamie and Julie - we cooked a turkey that turned out very well and lots of leftovers for Jamie to take home for lunches. Jamie's quite excited these days - there is a new Star Wars game coming out that he's quite keen on playing. Apparently, he'll need a faster pc to play this game - in fact, he called the other day to say we're not to spend a red cent on christmas presents for him - it's cash only towards a new pc. makes shopping easy anyway.

We invested in a new wireless fax/scanner/copier a couple of weeks ago. So far it's working out great! We love being able to work from home more - saves a lot of time and will be a real bonus in the winter when the roads are bad. The scanner is even faster than the one at work - I'm really pleased with it.

In case you haven't heard the "big" news, KFC has just added bacon to their mashed potato bowl (or heart attack in a bowl as we call it) For the un-enlightened the KFC mashed potato bowl is mashed potatoes with a layer of corn, popcorn chicken (whatever THAT is) grated cheese and gravey poured over the entire mess. but NOW, they are garnishing it with BACON! my god! can it get any worse??? (or better........maybe) I think there's like 2 weeks worth of sodium and fat (but no trans fat, I'm sure) in this congolmeration. And, one day, before I die, I plan to have one!

Todays picture is a heron Rick and I spotted on the road on our way home from Pembroke.

still here

I'm still here - been a while since I posted. Just lazy, I guess.

We had a wonderful visit with our good friends Pam and Terry a few weeks ago. They were here with their RV for several days and we had lots of good catch-up chats. When Pam is in town, it is traditional for the gals who worked at Timminco to all meet for dinner at a local restaurant - our chance to keep in touch with each other and a very nice evening. We tried the new Santa Fe restaurant in Renfrew - it was okay but nothing special - still the important thing isn't the food - it is seeing everyone again! Rick and Terry did a few things to the RV - all in all a great visit and always look forward to the next one.

Rick and I have been kept quite busy over September - busier than my Septembers generally are in real estate and hopefully that will keep up for a while - although with hunting season coming up, things will pretty well grind to a stand still in Renfrew.

I think Fall is my favorite time of year! I don't miss the constant "wrrrrrrrrr" of our a/c's and fans (although I couldn't live without them in the summer-time). But I like it when we have the fireplace going and candles in the evenings. nice! We got a load of wood, but will probably need a couple more face cords to get us through the winter.

I don't have any pictures to add today - my lap top crashed a couple of days ago and I had to buy a new one. I didn't really lose anything - Rick had backed up family pictures not long ago on a disc and all our emails are on gmail, so they don't "go" anywhere. So, losing the laptop was only moderately inconvenient. And the new one was up and running in a very short period of time. Funny how things change - years ago, a computer crashing was the end of the world unless you were dilligent about back things up -and loading new software took forever, now, it's just a minor annoyance. A quick run to Staples, pick out a new one and back home and poof! you're up and running again.

I do have a new Windows version to adapt to - but that too doesn't seem to take much brain power either. too easy.

Our other new purchase was a long-wanted king-size bed. We've been talking about getting one for ages, and finally just went out bought one. We LOVE it!!! - lots of room for us and the cats who seem to think it is their bed and they just indulge us by letting us sleep on it. It did entail buying new sheets - something I hadn't had to do for a while - since when did they start selling "micro-fibre" sheets and what are they??? I think the micro-fibre ones are the remnants of material lieing on the floor in the big garment factories that get swept up and mushed into "micro-fibre" no thanks....I'll stick with cotton!

well that's it, folks - I'll try to blog better (for those who check) but always remember our lives are rather mundane and sometimes there's nuthin' exciting to report!!!