At Long Last.

Let the bells ring and the banners fly!  The wallpaper is gone from the living room never to be seen again.

The book shelves have been moved and the paper is gone.

All the clutter is, well, still there.

Although this alcove is clutter free.  Note:  If there is a nail/screw on the wall Mr LC will hang something/anything on it.

My dining room now looks like an episode of Hoarders.

Thanks everyone for your paint suggestions.  I'm afraid of colour so this will be a daunting task for me.

The Seven Year Itch.

Today dawned bright and sunny.  The temperature was slightly warm even.  Mr LC bounded out of the house bright and early to work outside.  He scampered around the pasture testing the fence and cleaned out the barn for Sassy.


Then he decided to install the outside light next to our front door.  We figured out that light fixture had been sitting in the coat closet for seven years.  Seven years people. 

He carefully placed all his tools in the wheelbarrow next to the front door. What.  Don't you have a wheelbarrow parked at your front door?

After measuring and cutting the hole for the light, he placed the shingles on the ground the same way they would go back on the house.

Isn't he smart!

Then daughter #2 and her hubby showed up.  Son-in-law #2 knows all about this stuff.  Mr LC was very glad to see him.

Look, there's dust on that wall!

He is a wiring wizard.

Grandson helped in a  supervisory capacity.

My poor old rusty star just got tossed to the ground.  She used to hang where the light fixture is now.

And now may I present to you-  THE LIGHT!!!!

Gulp.  How do I tell Mr LC that I don't like it anymore???

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Mr. LC is a bit of a hoarder.  He doesn't like to throw things away.  However, Mr LC is not adverse to the three Rs. We spend most of our winter days in the kitchen because we are reducing our furnace oil consumption.  Not because of environmental issues, Mr LC doesn't like reducing his bank account to pay for the oil.

While moseying around the kitchen this morning I realized Mr LC was really into reusing in a big way.  Do you remember this Broken Item of the Week post.  The poor old moose looked like this:

Mr LC found some glue and put him back together.  Now he has a new job.

Live photo

Then I found this poor guy sitting on the mantel.

Tsk tsk.  Look at the dust on the poor fellow.

Maybe I should just put my earrings away from now on.

The Real Deal.

Since many of you wanted to see the layout of the upstairs hall from yesterday's post, I will oblige.  Just remember it is unstaged and unedited and Mr LC is a major critic of my little video.  Humph!

He's all 'why didn't you show the door latches, they're hand forged.  Or the doors with the wide panels?'  Those are for another day Mr LC.  I need post material my good man.

Anyway, I hope this gives you some idea of the hall.

You've Got Mail.

It's fun getting presents at Christmas time.  Pretty packages all tied up with ribbon.

It's really nice though to get packages from far away.  From people you've never met face to face but you feel like you've known them forever.

Packages with things in them like this:

Unexpected parcels  from other countries.

All the way from Italy!  Thank you Bobbi I haven't tasted them yet.

The greatest gift I have received through blogging though is making so many fantastic friends from all around the world.  My friends are the best gift ever! Thank you all for putting up with me on this blog and allowing me to share my life with you a little bit.  I hope we all have the best New Year ever in 2012.


p.s. Skype is a modern day miracle.

The Weather Report.

Last night I had another interesting email conversation with my buddy Steve from An Urban Cottage .  He usually apprises me of the weather situation in the Boston area because in a day or two we get the same weather up here most of the time.

Last night he wanted to know how cold it was here because it seemed to be cold enough down there for him to wear a hood.  I told him it was about -7C but that I can't translate that into Fahrenheit anymore.  I decided to post a pictorial representation of the chilly weather here:

Cold Much?

Mail Call.

This is what I found in my mailbox yesterday:

And in other breaking news my grandbaby is getting saucy:

seven weeks

Talk to the hand!

p.s. Please ignore all that baby truck in the background.

Who Knew?

I'm just going to post some random DR photos to sweeten the pot.  Everyone likes to look at pictures on a blog, right? 

They love to have their picture taken.

Mr LC got back from the Dominican on a Monday and by Tuesday he was teaching again.  I know.  His former boss called him and asked if he would fill in for about twelve weeks while one of the staff did a practicum to complete her masters degree.

Look at those eyelashes!

Mr LC reasoned that it would be great to get the extra income and have little responsibility. As in he doesn't have to write any reports.  That's a big win for him.

Sweet!

You won't believe this but now I don't like it when he works.  How weird is that?  I can't believe myself sometimes.  It's only three days a week but I can feel the stress already.  Getting him out the door in the morning is a job in itself. Besides that, I no longer have the car whenever I want it. Major bummer.

Happy days, Mr LC!

The best part is he's been on the job for a week and he has a storm day already!

Still Waiting.

We are still awaiting the immanent arrival of Grandchild #1.  We're sticking close to the phone these days so there's not too much going on here.  I thought I would bore entertain you with some falling leaves.  Remember, my filming skills are not the best.

You can actually hear the leaves hitting the ground.

Oops.  I guess I don't know how to turn the camera off.  Must remember to oil the hinges on the door.

Another Post in Which I Have Nothing to Say.

Yesterday I took Daughter #2 for a prenatal assessment.  All is well and the baby is due on our Thanksgiving weekend.  I hope to get out of cooking dinner for this one.  Why do all the holiday celebrations fall on the wife/mother?  I digress.

Yesterday the weather was warmer than it had been all summer.  Today we are huddled around the woodburner in the kitchen.

I saw another bear on Saturday.  I sure hope it was the same one we saw before as it was much farther away from our house.

Not funny.

It was Mr LC's turn to cook dinner last night and his sister called and invited us over for dinner at her place.  I hope this means he's cooking tonight.

Can anyone tell from this post that I don't like to cook?

I did make a potato and leek soup the other day for the first time and I must say it was awesome.  Thanks to Jamie Oliver.

He's so cute.

I still don't like to cook though.

Over and out.  Carry on.

Up Close and Personal.

Before Mr LC retired we used to go out every Friday night for a date.  Now that he is home every.single.day we no longer need a date night because we are together all the time. Sigh.  However, Mr LC decided to be sweet and take me out to Tims for a coffee (smoothie for me) and a doughnut.

Now, we live on a dirt road in the ruralist of rural areas.  We are twenty minutes from the nearest small town.  This evening we started down our road (in the car) and before we got very far we saw this crossing our path.

Reenactment

A BEAR!  I have never seen a real bear out in the wild before.  I was scared, very scared.  Mr LC was excited, very excited.  He rolled down the window of the car and called to the bear!  Thankfully, the bear ignored him. This past spring the small town we live near warned about bears moseying around the streets.  A small town is heaven for a bear. They wouldn't have to go pawing through the wilds looking for food.  Everyone is storing it for them in their backyard.  So what, I ask you, is a bear doing all the way out here?  He has to actually forage for food out here.  He has to compete with all the raccoons and deer for food out here.  Go back to town, Mr Bear, I beg you.  I am never going for a walk again. shudder.

Extreme Couponing, Loyalist Cottage Edition.

I've noticed lately that some of my bloggy friends are getting into couponing in a big way.  You know, clipping coupons, watching the store flyers for sales and cashing in on some great deals.  As I've told you before, I'm a follower so I decided to check this out.  It turns out that couponing could be a full time job.  I poured over web sites and downloaded coupons for what seemed like hours.

Coupons in hand I dragged invited Mr LC along for the expedition.  I was so excited as I trolled through the store looking for my bargains.  I told Mr LC he was going to have to build some shelves to hold all of the stash we were going to collect.  This would be great now that we are destitute pensioners.

I can't wait to show you my stash.  Wait for it.......

What, do I hear laughter at my one and only stash item!?  People, behave.

Time Travel.

This is my great grandmother:

She used to hang in our dining room.  It's a very large picture. Mr LC and the girls begged me to remove her because they said she kept staring at them and they couldn't eat dinner.  So I moved her.  I do what I'm told.  She got relegated to the upstairs hall behind an old dresser.  Sad, but true.

This is a tea set that belonged to my great grandmother.  She died when my grandmother (her daughter) was just a young girl.  My great grandfather remarried and my grandmother always said she thought her step mother wasn't very careful with this tea set and things got broken.

The cups are so thin you can practically see through them.  My grandmother never used these dishes and I only use them on birthdays.  I think if she knew I used them she would roll over in her grave.

My great grandmother made these quilt blocks.  Grandmother's half sister gave them to me many years ago and my mum made them up into this quilt for me.
So, is it time to put Great Grandmother back up on the wall?  Unfortunately, nothing discourages my appetite.

Star Date September 8th 2011

Beam me up, Scotty.

Retirement 2.1

A few weeks ago Mr LC ordered some new business cards.  Since he retired his old ones weren't much good anymore.  I couldn't understand why he even needed business cards now and when I asked him about it I just got some sort of mumbled reply.




The new cards came the other day.  I've blurred out all the incriminating evidence but just give the rest of it a study.

Yupper.

Old Mother Hubbard.

I don't think Mother Hubbard had a refrigerator but if she did it would have looked like mine after nearly three days without power.

A wonderful opportunity for a good scrubbing.

We won't starve though.  Mr LC brought these in just before supper:

One of the perks of living in the wilds of Canada.  Blackberries.

Whose Blog Is This Anyway?

I'm beginning to think lately that Sassy is taking over my blog.

Look at her laughing at me.

Mr LC decided to go to Halifax this week to visit with friends.  All was well until Thursday morning at about 6:20 am when I was woken up by a phone call.  'Are you missing a horse?' the fellow on the other end of the line asked. Great. Sassy on the lam.  Now this caller is a neighbour of ours who lives about 2km up the road from us.  I immediately called another friend/neighbour who lives down the road in the other direction and asked him for help.  I then jumped in the car to see whether I could getintheway help.  I so wish I had had my camera with me.  Here was our friend driving his car and leading Sassy alongside with a lead rope coming out of the open window!

She is now being held without bail in my neighbour's corral until such time as a court approved lawyer is retained.  Or until Mr LC gets home.

link

Courtroom artist's depiction of the defendant.

Heavy Breathing.

The story I am about to tell you is true.  The names and places have not been changed to protect the innocent. You all know Mr LC:

Since his retirement in June he has been spending an inordinate amount of time in his cozy chair.  Sleeping.  Since it is now thereabouts the middle of August, he has spent some day light hours awake in his cozy chair.  Mostly reading.  Some critiquing. (Of my homemaking skills.)
Last night Mr LC fires up his laptop and decides to read my blog.  All of my blog.  I did not know this as I was watching television practicing my homemaking skills. I could hear him laughing a  lot and didn't think too much of it.  I went to bed at a reasonable hour.  He did not.  This morning when I came downstairs I noticed his asthma inhaler on the kitchen table.

This is rarely used in the summer.  It is required in the winter however.
 When he got up this morning he told me he had read through most of my blog and just cracked up laughing.  He laughed so hard he got asthma and needed his puffer.  Not to take all the credit Gentle Readers, he found all your comments witty and delightful as well.  Mr Urban Cottage and   MMMC just to name a couple.  Not to name names of course or single anyone out it's just because I know where these people live.  I may have to use you as character witnesses if Mr LC happens to expire while reading my ramblings.
Actually, Mr LC first got asthma from laughing.  It's true.  We have a lovely Irish friend and if you've never heard an Irish person tell a story you've missed out on something hilarious.  We always blame her for giving Mr LC asthma because he had to go to the ER that night, he was laughing so hard at her he couldn't breathe.

I repeat: All of the above is completely true and nothing has been changed to protect the guilty innocent.

He's such a card.

Sassy Update.

I just wanted to post a little video of Sassy here to assure everyone that she is indeed home.

Aaaand she sort of flunked training camp.  See how she obeys me?  Smarty pants.

Sassy's Home!

It's been raining cats and dogs here today.  Oh yes, and horses too.

Welcome home Sassy.