nice day!

I have not been posting as often as I should - I'm irritated with my sign in for my blog account. We changed our email adress to a new Gmail address and now my blogger account (being somehow affiliated with Google) has changed my password from my blog account password to my Google account.

so, when I go to log in - I try my old password, it doesn't work, I get pissed and don't blog. I don't like it when things (particularly passwords) get changed without my knowledge. oh well, what-are-you-gonna-do?

I may have mentioned my stove in past blogs - a couple of years ago I bought a new smooth top GE stove. I love my new stove - it looks great - it doesn't cook worth a damn! Basically it can't boil water! Yesterday Rick and I decided to make a casserole - I cooked my ground beef in the electric frying pan and Rick actually fired up our 35 year old propane camp stove in the garage to boil the water for the pasta! Tell me there isn't something wrong with this....... That's what happens when you buy something for looks alone!

Rick had a nostalgia day on Saturday - he and a friend went to a remote control boat club regatta in Sprats gravel pit somewhere in Ottawa South. Rick used to be an active member but this was his first time back to the "pond" in about 30 years. He was there most of the day and said he had a great time - I am sure he would like to get back into the hobby if there was a handy place around to run the boats. Maybe we should buy something on the water!

Yesterday was mostly real estate - in to Renfrew to list a fixer upper in town ($79,900 in case anyone is interested) and then home, only to get a call (just before the race started) from a couple wanting to go through a cottage I have listed. So, off we went to Mink Lake - nice drive in the Pony.

When Rick used to race his r/c boats years ago and take pictures, I always thought they just looked like little specks on the water. Guess what? they still look like specks on the water - hahaha - today's pictures r/c boats from Saturday's regatta

heat continues....

As anyone and everyone in the area knows, it continues to be extremely hot. I don't think the humidity was nearly as bad as it was last week, but it is still a bit on the sticky side. We've been making good use of the Pony - sunscreen, hats & sunglasses when going for a drive are a definite MUST!

I've rarely worn sunglasses as I wear prescription glasses and I don't like the clip on sunglasses very much. My latest "find" is a pair of $8 wrap-around sunglasses that I can wear over top of my prescription glasses! At last I'm cool in sunglasses (even if these are probably referred to as "granny glasses" by younger people. They are available at your local Giant Tiger store!

We've been running the roads a fair bit this past week - real estate continues to be slow (for everyone) but it won't stay that way. Probably in a few weeks I'll be whining about being tooooo busy!

Jamie and Julie came up last weekend - a surprise visit - very nice to see them both. Jamie is throughouly enjoying his new job - the pay is good, steady (not "piece" work pay like he got at Canadian tire) and the hours are regular - 8 to 5 & no weekends. He quite likes the people he works with and so close to home he could bike there if he wanted to. Nice!

Nothing much else exciting going on - all I can say is THANK GOD FOR AIR CONDITIONERS!!! I don't know how people manage without them in this weather.

Picture today is Nibbles (who's just so darn cute) - I wish I could get THAT comfortable! By the way, that is HER spot on the back of the couch in front of HER window. She does go out, but never far - NEVER goes into the bush and I think she is pretty content to watch the world go by from her window.

holy heat wave, Batman!!!!

As everyone in the area knows - it's been really freakin' hot lately! Our house is fairly cool - with the use of 3 window a/c's. I would prefer central air, but not having a central heating system in the house means we use window units. And I wouldn't be without them!

Tonight we had to run back into town - I had a showing booked for 7:30 - so we took the Pony, but ran the a/c on our feet cuz it was so hot!

Kris has been complaining about the heat - I told him that, that's what you get for wanting an "outdoorsey" job - WEATHER! freeze your tail off in the winter and roast in the summer!

Jamie says his new job "rocks" - it would appear that he made a good move from Crappy Tire to this new place. His girlfriend's parents have a cottage on the Quebec side of the Ottawa river and I'm guessing Jamie and Julie are spending evenings there on the water - not a bad life!

speaking of water - I have a great 2 bedroom house on Calabogie lake for sale if anyone is interested..... Calabogie is generally a busy market, but not this year! I do think that the HST has created a number of serious misconceptions among homebuyers. Many think HST will be charged on resale homes and I had one lady tell me that she thought it meant our commissions were jumping to 13% (I wish.....) so, I wonder if that is keeping people from buying, cause, the bank rates are super low and should be helping things along. I know many of you reading this will remember interest rates in the low - mid teens.

today's the thermometer at my office - this was taken around 6:15 p.m. and it was in the shade!

HOT HOT HOT

WOW! Now THIS is a summer day! Just right for a drive in the Pony with the top down! I had a showing up in Mt. St. Patrick today and what a great drive. We slathered on the sunscreen and away we went. Rick made a point of washing the car first, but we encountered some dirt roads which quickly dusted up the car. Oh well.

This house I have listed on the top of Kennelly Mountain in Mt. St. Patrick (and, YES, I realize the this would not really be considered a "mountain" anywhere but in the rather flat Ottawa Valley...) is a fabulous home with views up to 40 kms or more. So well built it is heated exclusively by a wood stove! No phone service, but perfect cell phone service so one doesn't really need a land land (and many people just don't bother with land lines any longer) Anyway, I really like this place, but the drive up the "mountain" would be a bit tough in the winter time.

In spite of having the top down, it was a hot drive home and we made an impulsive stop at KFC (did you know they changed their name from Kentucky Fried Chicken to KFC to try to tone down the "fried" angle???) We rarely get KFC, in fact, Rick and I don't eat out or get take out very often - but about every 6 months or so, I get a craving for KFC and today was the day! toooo hot to cook anyway.

Tomorrow I have an open house in Calabogie - should be a nice day for that - hopefully I will get some BUYERS!!! It is a great place - perfect doll house on the lake! Last year it would have sold in a month, this year - only a few showings - it is a quiet year!

Picture today is from the top of Kennelly Mountain!

Nice day!

Today is a very nice day - a bit on the cool side (I'm okay with that) but sunny and very pleasant.

I really have no excuse for not posting here for a while - just lazy I guess. Not much new - had a rough weekend in the hospital from Friday a.m. to Sunday. Well, it was only Friday morning that was tough - the rest of the weekend was just sitting around in the hospital under "observation". By Sunday aftrnoon the doctors decided I was fine (just severe and pretty well unexplainable stomach pains) and I was discharged.

Don't know what brings these episodes on and therefore can't really do much to prevent them - might be twisted bowel, might be scar tissue from previous surgeries - don't know - CT scans & X-rays show all is well, so I'll just forget about it and carry on.

All I can say is thank goodness for my Nintendo DS game!! I played it a LOT while being "observed". And Saturday Rick and I pretty well had the Ronald McDonald TV room to ourselves and we settled in for the Barrett-Jackson car auction on SPEED channel. It really wasn't too bad - comfy chairs, TV, my DS game, cell phone - just like at home!!!!! We really have a super hospital out here with good people and services. The food is very good too - but this time, I was on a light diet, so didn't get much in the way of food. But, to show how good this place is - on Sunday morning, I was given my breakfast tray of juice and oatmeal and the nurse (thinking I wouldn't like oatmeal) offered to order me some scrambled eggs and toast instead. But, I LIKE oatmeal, so I kept it! I doubt one would get THAT service in the bigger hospitals.

Jamie has started a new job -for the past several years he's been at the Canadian Tire in Barhaven & it was through them, that he got his apprenticeship card, but it was time to move on. It only took him a week or two to find new employment - he was hired in at a shop around the corner from where he lives - very handy. He started yesterday and so far thinks the job is awesome. I think he will at least get more true mechanical experience here as Canadian Tire was a lot of brakes, tires, oil changes etc. As I said, it was but time to move on.

Real estate continues to be quiet - listing properties, but not much is selling - a lament I hear from other agents too. One agent who's been around for a long time predicts a busy August - I can handle that!

today's picture is Buddy chasing light reflection the wall. We had a laser pointer last year and he and Nibbles would FREAK OUT chasing it around - good fun! well for us....we finally had to put it away, cuz they were going a little nuts.

rainy day!

Such a rainy, cool day today that Rick started a fire tonite - which we throughly enjoyed while eating supper and then watching a movie - Alice in Wonderland. Strange movie. But, it was a very strange book. Quite obviously the author was taking some sort of mind expanding medication.

Still, the movie is good - the animation is wonderful and the HD is great, but I wonder what actors and actresses think now when they see themselves on the big screen in HD with all their tiniest blemishes exposed. I heard that some are so shocked to see their faces so clearly, they insist on filming with a filter - hahaha - we pay for HD and they're blurring the filming - nice!

We rented Avatar the other night - it was very good - I want to watch it in 3D and wear the funny glasses - but I don't know if you need a 3D TV for that of if the Blue Ray will work - it's all getting much too confusing for me!

Phil and Janet & dog, Tash, are heading to Calafornia in their newly acquired VW Rialta cmper. sounds like they're having a blast! I get regular emails on their progress.

Todays picture is care of Phil & Janet taken at Cadillac Ranch in amarillo Texas - it is 10 vintage Cadillacs buried in the sand in 1974 by Stanley Marsh.

You can't find EVERYTHING on the internet

contrary to popular belief, not EVERYTHING one wants or wants to know about can be found on the internet!!!!!

case in point.......

I would like to re-arrange our bedroom and place our bed angled out from the corner. Now, we do not at present, have any sort of headboard so having the bed kitty-cornered will present a problem such as pillows falling off etc. So, I figured I would look for a corner headboard - must be able to find one on the net. WRONG!!!!! although there were many sneaky links like http://www.cornerheadboards.com/ or find 10,000 corner headboards at http://www.bizrate.com/ that would lead one to believe that one was hot on the trail of what one was looking for!!!

so, then I figured Rick could build me one out of plywood and stain it - sounds simple - I want a simple corner shaped headboard with maybe one level of bookcase. There are a million woodworking plans and, again in spite of misleading links, not one freaking one of them has a plan for a corner-shaped headboard!!!

A colossal waste of time - with many side ventures into things like "viking" headboards - big disappointment, I might add - just because you cut out viking shaped thingy and put in on the bed doesn't make it "viking" headboard.

I finally got the best advise (after an hour or so of surfing) on how to decorate BEHIND a corner placed bed. Seems the best thing to do is to put a straight headboard across the corner and then a corner bookcase behind it. Might just be the way to go........

So, today was a busy enough day with a trip to Calabogie Lake for 10:30 a.m. (I have a lovely house on the lake listed) for a showing and then an open house in Renfrew. The couple who wanted to see the house in Calabogie (second showing btw) called me last night around 9 p.m. and wanted to see it this morning at 10 a.m. They actually got snippy when I mentioned I might not be able to do it in the morning. Apparently, if they couldn't see it this morning, they were "busy for the next week or so..." give me a break! Oh yeah, they showed up 1/2 hour late

Jamie turns 28 today - thanks to all who send him b-day wishes - I've passed them along to him via text messaging (which I love - will need a better texting cell phone soon).

Kris is into paint-balling big time lately. Rick spotted a good deal on KiJiJi for one and Kris couldn't get in to Ottawa fast enough to buy it. (turns out the guy was selling the gun because his son took it and blasted a couple of houses and the cops brought him home - whoops - one paintball gun for sale!!) anyway Kris and his buddies are having a great time running around the bush whacking each other with paintballs. sounds like fun, huh?

Picture today is one of Jamie taken last year