Holidays

Well, we're off!

We will be spending the end of our summer holidays with good friends at their new cabin.

Jada will experience the pure joy of being a farm dog. Unleashed, playing with the neighbour's dogs ,who like to drop by from time to time and swimming out after sticks in a nearby pond.

Jesse and his friend C will likely continue work on the fort. (real windows and all!)

Henry and R will be fishing, fishing, fishing and J and I, well. . .

I just splurged on a stack of magazines.

More( Canada's magazine celebrating women over 40), Country Gardens, Better Homes and Gardens and, as a special treat, Victoria!

I'm bringing chocolate, homemade brown sugar oatmeal cookies, coffee cake and applesauce squares with browned butter icing. ( applesauce courtesy the tree in my back yard)

There will also be books and chatting. Lots of chatting!

Oh, and hotubbing.(better not forget my bathing suit!)

My mom's moving back next week, so I'll be helping her get settled.

And then of course, school!

School starts Tuesday morning, so I'll be up and out early, picking up kids in my school bus.

Work begins on the downstairs bathroom while we're gone.

Whoo hoo!

So. . .

I'll see you all again late next week.

Til then. . .

Enjoy the last bit of summer!

A boy and his dog

Life is good.But what's up with this hat?!

An old To Do list.

You're probably all getting sick of hearing how busy I've been.

I know I am!

There is one week left before school (and bus driving) begin.

I woke up this morning, my mind in a whirl, wondering how in the world I was going to get it all done.

Then it occurred to me.

What exactly did I need to get done?

How much had I accomplished already?

I took out my trusty notebook and looked up the last To Do list.

As I went through it and crossed many of the items off, it occurred to me that the time had come to leave the list alone for a while.

I can get a little type A sometimes and the more I do, the worse I get!

So. . .

Although most of me is vibrating with the need to keep working on the list, adding to the list and/or making a whole new list, I am making a conscious effort to let it go.

I'm sure I'll slip ( I'm still list making in my head!) but, it's time to rest and recharge.

On that note I'm off to bake ( Jenny, I decided to go back to the source for the cinnamon bread recipe, and thankful, my MIL still had it. Hope to post it soon!!) , I'll do a little laundry and putter with a delicious dinner of roast beef , new potatoes, fresh corn and homemade applesauce.

After dinner?

The hammock, my book and I have an appointment.

The beautiful hanging basket?

Not mine. My poor garden has suffered due my 'busyness'. This one hangs on my sister Tamara's lovely porch. ( Check her out at http://thegreenhousediaries.blogspot.com/)

Inspiration for next year.

Bloggers create

This is my blogging space.

My sweet husband Henry made me an eight foot long table to blog at.

Actually he made me this table to work on garden designing, but hey, we work with what we have right?

I have my books right beside me.

Reading was my first and only hobby for years. It used to drive my socially inclined mother crazy. She could never understand why I would choose to read a really good book over playing with the kids in the neighbour hood!

I still read for pleasure but I also love to read and learn. I have a rather large collection of gardening books.

I'm also finding that I need order to create as I get older. I'm rather messy by nature and when I'm in the midst of a project the house will be in an uproar but when I'm ready to start something new, I have to have a clean and tidy home.

I keep many thing organized in my closet.

Here I store my garden design tools, sewing machine and fabric, scrap booking items, and office supplies.

The nice thing about putting it in a closet is the ability to close the door.

This is my favorite chair. It was shockingly expensive even though it was 75% off!

I have never regretted it. I couldn't bring myself to sit on it for six months, but I never regretted it!

This is a great place to sit and dream, read, and eat the taziki with sesame za'atar purchased at the farmers market. (a great place for inspiration!)

What is behind my chair you ask?

Well . . .

This is where I store things that don't have a space, recharge batteries and/or thaw seed mix in late winter.

This is, after all, a room where things happen.

The shelves, which hold baskets and decorative items most of the year, grow seedlings in spring.

I do share a little of my space with Henry, allowing him this small closet to store his hunting and fishing gear ( his gun, by law is locked up in this old metal school locker.)

But the one closet is all he gets!

Nicest of all (for a gardener) is the fact that my room opens out onto our covered deck and looks into my garden.

What could be more inspiring than that?

Sitting in my garden.

A tour

Brenda, over at thebrendablog http://thebrendablog.typepad.com/ has organized a virtual tour.

She will be showcasing spaces 'where bloggers create' this Sunday.

I thought it would be fun to participate and I know Tamara will be as well.

That means I have some serious cleaning to do!

Remember this?

No one can create with this kind of chaos!

So. . .

I'm off.

I have finally gotten my basement clean and organized ( the mystery smell in the cold room was caused by a Costco sized bag of onions rotting and dripping on to one of Morgan's old stuffed dinosaurs. Sorry Morgan, I had to throw Steggy out.)

My garden room had been clean but I'm still racing to finish as many projects as I possibly can before school (and bus driving) starts so it's full of pictures and towel hooks for the bathroom, a pantry that needs to be assembled and plants I've brought in from outside that need a little attention.

I just told Henry that going back to work this year is going to feel like a holiday!

So check back on Sunday and enjoy the tour .

p.s.

Brenda, I tried very hard to put up the badge. I spent 20 minutes trying to figure it out. Still can't understand how to get it! Arghhh. . .

Special delivery

Now what do you think the UPS man has in there?

Ooooh! That's a big box!

What could it be?

Stay tuned. . .

Tamara . . . shhhhh. . . it's a secret!

Puppy games

At nearly four years old you'd probably think that Jada was well past puppy hood.


Umm. . .

No.

One of her favorite games as a puppy was trying to get the kibble out of old taped up cereal or pop can boxes.

It was cheap and amusing. (To us at least!)

I'm not sure she'll ever totally grow up.

At least she doesn't get her head stuck in the box anymore.

Silver lining

When I started this blog, it was my intention to post primarily about gardening.

You may have noticed that has not been the case lately.

I've been very focused on renovating, organizing and purging inside the house.

The reason I'm doing this, is so that when I get involved in a project (gardening or otherwise) my house won't fall to pieces, or if it does, it can be quickly put back together again. (At the moment it often takes a week of effort to get back to normal after a big project.)


But . . .


Something big gardenwise( Is that a word?) is on it's way! I'm not going to tell you what it is, that's a secret for now, however, I think gardening is starting to edge out the house again!



What do you think I have in the back of my Suburban!


My dad called yesterday from Jasper.

He'd been having trouble with the semi he drives.

The semi full of Darvonda mums!

Some of them had fallen over, breaking the pots. Would I like to meet him once he got to the city?

Could I bring a little muscle to help move the carts around and take out the broken pots?


Jesse was happy to help out Grandpa.

Off we go.

So what was the silver lining in this unfortunate incident?



Lots of yellow mums!



A whole truck full!

This is their temporary home while I look around and decide where they are going.

I'm back in the garden.

Thanks Tamara!

My baby!

Sixteen.

My baby is sixteen!

Yikes! What does that make ME?!

Check out this blog

No post from me today I'm afraid.
I'm busy scrubbing my top floor until everything (including my kitchen cupboards) shine.
And considering how hot is is already, I think I may by slightly crazy! ( no comments from the peanut gallery please!)
If you're looking for something to read, and have wondered what the life of a glamorous business woman is all about, check out Tamara's blog. She's been posting often this week.
http://thegreenhousediaries.blogspot.com/
Enjoy!

Summer To Do list

I made up a To Do list before my summer 'holiday' (ha!) began.

At the top of the list was sorting and purging the entire house. (I never said my To Do list was realistic.)

Bathroom renovations have made this impossible until now since I was to busy shopping.(ugh)

Earlier this week I finally found time to at least make a start.

I decide to start with 'my' room. I redecorated it over the Christmas break a couple of years ago and called it the garden room.

The kids however just call it the computer room. (For obvious reasons.)
As you can see I was hard at work until a passing tail caught my eye.
Oh look. Jada's friend Diesel has dropped by to visit.

What are the two of you up too?!
No wrestling in the house! Sigh.

So. . .

What's on the agenda for today?

After having been awaking by the doorbell and Jada's frantic barking at 5:30 this morning,( someone sent a cab to the wrong address) I've cleaned my kitchen ( no way am I showing you pictures of the before on that one!) and I had breakfast in the front garden.

As all the commotion woke Henry up early, he took Jada for her morning walk giving me more time to work (not too sure that was a favour.)

I'm working in the basement today, which considering how hot it's going to get, is probably a good thing.

I had started putting together these new storage shelves and then realized that if I put them up, my contractor wouldn't be able to get stuff downstairs once he started working on that bathroom (early next week?)This makes organizing all the 'stuff' in the hallway much more difficult and means I have no choice but to do the one job I've be avoiding.

Cleaning out the cold room under the stairs.

There is no picture of this room as I'm convinced that the smell of whatever has died and/or is rotting under there would come at you through the computer (it's that bad!)

I just couldn't do that to you. It's bad enough that I have to do it! (shudder!)

See that bit of purple at the end of this hall? It's the doorway to what used to be Crystal's room.

Looks like Jesse has a To Do list of his own!

Someone's happy to take the wall down.

Finally. His room will be larger than a small closet.

Have a great weekend everyone!

* Update

I'm a coward! I still haven't opened the door to the cold room. I'm cleaning everything but!

SIGH.

I'll let you know when I've conquered my fear.

Have you ever wondered. . .

Have you ever wondered how they grow the potted garden mums?

You know, the ones you buy to give yourself a little colour through the fall, now that your hanging baskets and flowers pots are no longer looking their best?

Well. . .

Check out one of Tamara and Byron's Belgian mum fields.

It kind of boggles the mind doesn't it?

Tam! I can hardly see you over there!

That's better.

Hmmm. . . come to think of it, my pots are looking a little tired.

I do believe I need to run over to Costco to pick up a couple of Darvonda mums. (Small shameless plug!)

I hope they have some red ones. That deep colour looked amazing on my steps last fall.

I love gardening!

Happy Birthday!

Well, well, well!

Look who just turned 40!

I had a cute picture of my sister Tamara when she was a little girl that I had intended to borrow from my sister Lisa while I was visiting last week, but. . .

I left it behind!

We went through difficult times, my sisters and I, when we were young, but through it all we had each other.

We still do.

Wish I could be there.

Love you Tam.

God bless you richly in the year ahead.

The bathroom's done! For the most part. . .

Well, it's done.

We switched some things and now. . .

I love it.

I still have to spend a day scraping little grout clumps off my tile (you get what you pay for, which in our case was a nearly free tiler) and then sealing all the tiles, but otherwise, all that's left is accessorising!

Tips to pass on. . .

All white bathrooms show dirt.

And hair.

And bits of paper.

And hair. Every hair that lands in a white bathroom is immediately noticeable.

But I still love it.

Although I will be doing a lot more tidying and wiping as I go.

But I love it.

However. . .

If you have small kids . . .

Pass on the white floor.

P.S. Can anyone tell me why this very, very white bathroom looks somewhat dark when I take pictures of it?

A wedding

Sabrina, her mom Linda and our dad. Don't they look amazing?!

I was in British Columbia for a week attending my youngest sister Sabrina's wedding.

Tamara, me and Lisa with her grandaughter

It was a great opportunity for sisters to catch up.

And how cute is Lisa's granddaughter?!

Two more grandchildren are due to be born any day now. Lucky girl!

Drumroll please. . .

Well, as promised, I am posting pictures of my bathroom so far.




The shower curtain is not staying. I have a great white one, along with some interesting shower curtain hooks that will go up once the bathroom is 'fixed'.

I don't like the huge difference in height between the medicine cabinet and the over the toilet space saver, so we'll have to do something about that.



As you can see I have another problem. The mirror is too high for me, but the cabinet itself comes down quite low and sticks out just a little too far, making it difficult for Henry (and the kids) to lean over the sink to wash their face.

Here is some thing I do like though (aside from my tile ,which I love!)

My bath fixtures look awesome and. . . the shower now has great water pressure! Whoohoo!


My contractor is back at work on a previous job and probably won't get back to us until late next week so I won't be doing anything more with it right now.

You'll be the first to know when it's finally finished though!


Now, it's time to get back to my next project.

I'm sorting, purging, and cleaning up my basement. Thankfully that only means the hallways, (my storage area at the moment!) hall closet and the cold room that's under the stairs. I've already been out and purchased some storage cupboards to help me in this task.


Time to haul them out of the truck and put them together.

*upate
My contractor just called. He's got time to come by tommorow and may even be able to change things!
Whoo hoo hoo hoo!!!