Change Of Plans

As you can see, it snowed last night.

Somehow the sight of snow has rekindled my desire to get the big Christmas Clean done.

So. . .no shopping for Operation Christmas Child today.

Today will be all about scrubbing , sorting, organizing and laundry. Lots and lots of laundry!

Now, I'm off to finish my tea and toast.Don't forget. . . today is Remembrance Day, if you can't visit your local cenotaph, observe the two minute silence at 11:00 am.

It's the least we can do.

What A Weekend!

Well I'm thankful it's Monday.
My weekend was non stop action and anxiety and I'm just glad it's over!
Jesse came home from work early on Friday night in serious pain. It seems that he had been kicked in the ribs twice that lunch hour during a floor hockey game. By two different guys! Talk about unsportsmanlike conduct!
However both apologized.
That said, we spent the rest of the evening at the medi center waiting to see a doctor.
The doctor figured it was likely he had cracked his ribs but said an x-ray would not be all that useful because often cracks don't show up well on an x-ray (it's sometime later, when the crack has calcified, that they show up)
He sent us home with Tylenol number 3 and instructions to take it easy. We were told if he had any trouble breathing to go straight to Emergency as that could signal a punctured lung, although he felt everything would be fine.
Sure enough on Saturday evening as Holly and I were shopping he phones me in a panic. He's in serious pain and having trouble breathing.
Now I'm in a panic and we fly home, pick up Jesse and head straight for the hospital.
I won't go into those three hours of waiting, worry, long lines and obnoxious fellow patients.
Thankfully after an x-ray we were told he had just badly bruised the muscles around the ribs.
Whew! BIG sigh of relief!
Yesterday was morning church, getting a huge pot of chili made for the chili supper we had after the afternoon service and staying to clean up.
I got home to Friday's groceries strewn all over the kitchen, living room couch cushions missing their covers as I had washed them the previous day with the intent of beginning my big Christmas clean, and fluff from Jada's nearly decapitated bunny all over the living room floor.
I decided to forget it all and went to bed early.
That turned out to be a very good thing as Jada woke me up twice last night to let her out. All that delicious wet food has given her a really gross case of diarrhea. (As in, I was cleaning a furry behind in the middle of the night!)
The good news?
The vet says Jada should be fine now, and I can stop giving her wet food.
And Jesse , although pretty sore, is going to be just fine too.
I'm going to clean the house today.
Tomorrow is Remembrance day and a holiday.
I intend to sleep in, bake cookies and start off the Christmas season by going shopping for my Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes.
We've been doing them since the kids were small.
Tune in Wednesday for a post on that.

Jada

My dear friend Jada managed to find and consume the entire carcass of a rotisserie chicken sometime last night.

We all know what chicken bones can do the a dog's insides.

The vet tells me that blockage, tearing, and vomiting are the things to watch for over the next four days or so.

Henry is on a two day hunting trip so I'll be quietly freaking out by myself.

The vet told me that dogs eat bones all the time and nothing happens, but, every once in a while. . .

I'm off to pick up canned dog food to add to her regular diet which can help smooth things along. She's going to be thrilled.

She's seems perfectly fine at the moment and I'm praying she stays that way.

Special delivery

Okay, it's time for the big reveal.

Drum roll please. . .

What could those boys be making?

Yes indeed Brenda, you were right when you guessed the first time!

It's my very own greenhouse! A spacious 8'x12'! Whoo Hoo!!

Although it is called the Easy2Build greenhouse, I've got to tell you, it was anything but!

The worst part was the weatherstripping. The directions tell you 'insert weatherstripping in metal channel making sure it is facing the right way. No instruction is given as to how to accomplish this!

This is what Henry came up with to get the roof done.

The greenhouse was creaking in an alarming manner, so he decided to send me up there! Now if the weatherstripping would have just slid into the channel it wouldn't have been so bad but. . . that was not the case at all! To get the weatherstripping into the channel, you had to pry the metal back every inch and a half or so with a large screwdriver and shove it in as hard as you could.

Arghhh!! I was not made for this! I was just not strong enough to work on the roof, so Henry braced the greenhouse from the inside and did it himself. As a souvenir of my time up there however I was left with two rather large, ugly, bruises on the front of my legs where they were pressing against the ladder.

I did do most of the weatherstripping on the rest of the greenhouse though. That is one of the reasons it took so long to finish.

It is finished now. Henry spent a few nights getting it bolted into the concrete blocks (that required some serious fiddling as well. I'm sure glad he has lots of ingenuity!)

So come on in!

There's a nice place to sit.

A corner I will use to pot up plants. (and keep my eye on the temperature.)

Henry got Mr B (our handyman/contractor ) to bring electricity in as well, so I have both a light and an outlet for the heater etc.

Henry also managed to work things so that I still have my outdoor work area.

The big box holds my potting soil.

There you have it. My big garden project.

I will be spending lots and lots of time this winter learning about greenhouse growing and dreaming of the many, many plants that will grow there.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Old Friends

I had promised to let you know what the UPS man delivered to my house back in August.
I had it all planned and was ready to write my post when, from out of the blue an old friend called.
I hadn't heard from her in over a year and that had been a quick call. Before that call I hadn't spoken to her in 10 years ( she and her family moved home to Barbados.)
Well, several hours later (don't worry they've moved back here, so it wasn't long distance. Could you imagine the bill!?) both ears are red and tingling and it's 10 minutes until bedtime!
I'm not too busy tomorrow so as soon as Jada and I have had our walk and I've had my tea and toast I'll be hard at work on the promised post.
See you all in the morning!

Remember This?

Remember this? No? Check out this link (anyone know how to have a word for the link rather than the specific "address"?) http://rose-gardendiary.blogspot.com/2008/08/special-delivery.html

What did you guess this package might hold?

Tune in later tonight for the answer. . .

Pumpkins And A Princess

A few nights ago, with a little arm twisting and a lot of pleading, I convinced the kids to carve the pumpkins for me.

They started out by looking for stencils online. (and as good guests I'm sure none of you will be commenting on the state of my living room!)

Once the stencil has been drawn out they moved on to the next step: (is that the proper use of punctuation Ev?)

Scooping out the insides. It's a messy job but. . . someone has to do it!

Carving takes concentration,

and a steady hand.

Didn't they do a great job?

I think these are the reason I had so many more trick or treater than I normally would.

Although this probably helped as well. More than one child told their mom that they needed to go through the path into the gazebo!

And now for the princess part of the post. . .

Doesn't she look fabulous?!