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!

house is back to normal

For some reason both Rick and I both got antsy about taking down our Christmas decorations early this year. We generally leave them up until after New Years, but maybe we put them up so early this year, that we were just plain sick and tired of them. I love lots of decorations, but I must admit, it can be a bit much sometimes!

It was a BIG job - took Rick the better part of the day and I very much appreciate him tackling it on his own. Anyway, all is back to normal now!

The week has been fairly quiet for us - Monday we popped into Ottawa to visit with Ginny-Lynn in the afternoon and then with Phil and Janet for the evening. Great visits!! If I am going to make a resolution at all this year - it will be to get out of the house more often to see people - we do tend to become a house bound. Oh yeah, and exercise more too......

We were up to Matawatchan on Tuesday afternoon to take down one of my signs on a property that was sold. On the way down Matawatchan Road (which was VERY icy) we were flagged down by a family of 5 from Toronto who had just put their van in the ditch. The ditch was very deep and the van was pretty well perpendicular - sitting on it's back end with the nose pointing skyward. No one was hurt and the day was very mild, but not a lot of traffic on that road and not a lot of year-round homes to call a tow truck from(it goes without saying that cell phones do NOT work in that part of the country)

They opted to stay with the van while Rick and I drove on down the road intending to stop at one of the small local stores to place the call- which we found were closed for the season! We finally stopped at a house, where luckily the owner was a member of the local volunteer fire department. Soon we had a couple of the volunteer guys on site helping out and then the biggest helper came along - a farmer heading off to go ice fishing. He & the "boys" quickly sized up the situation and it was decided no tow truck was required. Instead the farmer went back to get his John Deere tractor. He had the van out in about 2 minutes - it was quite something to see! So, all ended well, no damage to the van and the van owner was quick to offer a huge thank you and a "contribution" to the old farmer with the tractor, which would see him with a case of beer for his troubles. Again, I must say I was most impressed with the power of the John Deere - I should mention that Rick wants one now!

The mild weather seems to be helping real estate - several calls today to show houses and a new listing for Monday - always nice to start the year off busy!

Todays pictures are from Christmas - Kris and Buddy openeing a present and Nibbles enjoying some wrapping paper.

Christmas eve

Well, here we are - Christmas Eve! The weather's been lovely - cold-ish but not freezing and just enough snow down that the kiddies can use there sleds and skiis etc. Kind of nice - no one likes a white Christmas.

Morning saw us into town for me to finish up some paperwork. Then picked up a few last minute items. The stores were busy, but not crazy - the trick is to not take a cart - then you can move through the crowds pretty easily. At Wal-mart all the cashes were open and things moved along well.

This afternoon we finished up some baking - tarts and shortbread. Tomorrow Jamie and Julie will be up for the afternoon. We got a fairly large bird, so Rick is bound to be up early to get it stuffed and into the oven.

Tonite we had a quiet evening with Kris - eating treats & watching a couple of movies. Toy Story 3 - not bad, but a bit dark for kids - animation is incredible! Then we watched Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio - weird movie about dreams and getting inside people's sub-conciousness - very strange.

Just as the movie was over, the cats started freaking out looking out the front windows, so we investigated (translation - "investigate" = sending Kris out to check it out) and were lucky enough to catch 3 or 4 deer across the road feeding on an apple tree. First time in the 23 years we have lived here that I have actually seen deer! Wow!

So, now that we have established that Santa and his reindeer are in the area, it's time for bed! Merry Christms everyone!