Friday 31 December 2010

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all the readers who have stuck by me even when I didn't have anything to say.

May you all enjoy a happy, healthy prosperous 2011!

Today's Drive Southwest of Smiths Falls

This guy is walking on the ice-looks dangerous today

Big Rideau Lake at Portland

Country roads

Lines in the snow

At Davis Lock

Ice around the little island

Closeup of the island

Churning water at Davis Lock

Old barn

Monday 27 December 2010

Some photos taken over Christmas

My new jewelry box purchased on Boxing Day for 50% off

Gordon taking photos and walking on Mississippi Lake

An old log barn near Carleton Place

Betty & Margie taken on Christmas Day

Danica

Nick, Becky & Baby Bean

Saturday 25 December 2010

Christmas Reindeer

Our local Christmas Shoppe has real reindeer! Isn't he cute?

Photo compliments of Gordon.

Have a lovely Christmas everyone!

Thursday 23 December 2010

Link to Gordon's blog

Since I'm no longer posting regularly, I'm directing you to Gordon's blog. He doesn't post daily but just enough to keep up with what's happening.

You can go to his blog by clicking here.

Wednesday 22 December 2010

Warning: Contains a video 1:19 long

My photos are taken with a Panasonic Lumix  DMC TZ-5.

If anyone needs a reply from a comment that you leave please be sure I have your email address or it's on your blogger profile so I can respond.

My friend Nancy sent me this, very cute!  Not something I'd want to happen to me though!

Tuesday 21 December 2010

Merry Christmas 2010!


Our Christmas card from us to you!

Merry Christmas 
and
Happy New Year!

Our Virtual Christmas Cards 2004-2009





From San Diego (El Cajone) CA

From Lakeland, FL

Monday 13 December 2010

The End

I've pretty much decided not to do any more blogging but I will use the site for photos. I hate to give it up after so long but it's gotten boring even to me so if you want to know about what's going on, you'll have to go to Facebook or come to Ontario to see us, of course, you can always email!

Saturday 11 December 2010

Tuesday December 7, 2010 to Saturday December 11, 2010

Tuesday

After I got the Christmas cards done, I decided I wanted to send our 20th Anniversary photo to my Aunt so I went out to get a copy printed. The plows were out in force and they were even plowing some sidewalks.

It looks like they clean the sidewalks with a wing of the snowplow other than the downtown areas where cars are parked. I saw a couple of small sidewalk plows downtown this morning. A lot of the sidewalks near where we live were cleaned this afternoon so I went out for a walk. Sure was nice!

After dinner we took another drive to see the Christmas lights. I haven't changed my mind about the prettiest lights in town.

Wednesday

I didn't go out at all today. It was cold but we did have some sun. I think our high was -8C (18F).

Other than making a loaf of bread and wrapping a couple of Christmas presents that about made up the day!

Thursday

You could tell it was cold this morning by the snow crunching under my feet as I headed out for my walk. I decided it was probably not going to get a whole lot warmer so I'd better get over it! So at -13C (9F) with a -18C (-0.4F) windchill, I dressed for it and surprisingly wasn't cold. The sun was shining although sun tends to make it colder at this time of year.

I had ordered some file pockets at a downtown stationery store so I had to pick that up and I had several other errands to run around town. The Downtown Business Association has generously given us free parking for the month of December, not that parking is expensive. For 25 cents you get an hour and five minutes. You get two hours of parking in a spot then if you don't move you get a ticket but two hours is enough for the size of downtown.

Friday

It was very cold this morning -13C (9F) with -21(-6F) wind chill. I decided it would be a good day not to walk. However, after vacuuming the house (Gordon did the stairs and landing), I went out in the car to pick up some things I forgot yesterday.

Saturday

It warmed up today and was actually above freezing most of the day. It was a great morning to walk to the post office to mail my sister's birthday card. I thought they had pickup on the weekend so it won't go out till Monday. I think it will be late!

After breakfast we went for a country drive. Gordon had located Bellamy Lake near Toledo (Ontario) so we drove out to see it. There's another lake a short distance away called Eloida Lake so we went to see it too. Both lakes are visible but Bellamy is a great place for sunrise or sunset so we'll check that out when spring comes. I expect Gordon will go before that. For some reason I didn't take a photo of Lake Eloida.

Bellamy Lake - Bellamy RV park across the lake

Another Bellamy Lake view-note the ice. You can't walk on it yet though.

Drummond Road

Snow on the log fence

Another photo of Drummond Road. It was a pretty drive.
 This afternoon I went out and picked up some prescriptions and some looking around then came back. My sister had called. She's having a lot of the same problems that I've had over the past year but she's in denial that it's related to food! It's not easy to not be able to eat a lot of things and when you still feel terrible and can't figure out what it is you're eating that you shouldn't you just want to jump in a hole and pull the hole in after you but you have to just keep plugging along.

Tuesday 7 December 2010

Saturday to Tuesday December 4-7, 2010

Saturday

It was cloudy and -6C (21F) with -12C (10F) windchill. I dressed for it and didn't find it too bad.

Today I did some running around town, picked up a Sears order, picked up my Avon order etc. Not an exciting day but a tiring one so when I got home I lay down to read and took a nap! This was the first order from my Avon lady. She's really a nice young woman with a couple of young kids and an amazing black Afghan hound. He was so friendly and vocal and HUGE! I love other people's dogs. LOL

After dinner we went out to look at the Christmas lights. There is a lovely one here in town. In fact, I'm going to vote for it! The town has a Light Up Smiths Falls Contest where you can vote for your favourite decorated house or business.


Here's another one that was pretty between Smiths Falls and Merrickville.



Sunday

At -8C (18C) with a -13C (9F) windchill it was pretty cold this morning but at least the sun was shining even though there were some snow flurries. We have barely enough snow to cover the grass but I hear we are to have more today and tomorrow. We're still warmer than a lot of places that I'm hearing about from RVers though and I hear Buffalo, NY had a blizzard last week that caused a 20 car pileup on the freeway, lake effect snow!

I got a lot of cleaning done!

By the end of the day we had quite a bit of snow, looks Christmasy!




Monday
Today was a typical Monday. I went out for my walk but it was a short one as the sidewalks hadn't been plowed. I'm thinking that's not going to happen a lot here.

After breakfast and a shower I headed out for Monday shopping. That accomplished I settled in with my book again.

Tuesday
No walk for me today, blowing and drifting snow, sidewalks not plowed. Bummer!

So, I got my Christmas cards ready. I send very few of them! I sent the ones to the U.K. yesterday.


Friday 3 December 2010

Wednesday to Friday December 1-3, 2010

Wednesday

Rain, rain, rain but warm at 11C (53F) at 11 a.m. Needless to say with the looks of the radar below, no walking this morning!


So I finished up laundry that I started last night, did some repairs on some clothing while I had my sewing machine out, spent time on the computer and read. I found another game on Facebook that I've always liked. It's called Pyramid Solitaire. Since I'm running low on credits with Bejewelled and they've been cheap about giving me points lately I decided to find something other than Pathwords to play.

Speaking of sewing, I was in Walmart on Monday. They've downsized their sewing/crafts section. There's no more bolts of fabric. They have some packaged but not much selection. Anyway I was looking for tailor chalk. I couldn't find any so I asked a young clerk and she told me she'd never heard of it! I guess sewing isn't catching on with the younger crowd. Not that I consider myself a seamstress of any kind but I used to make some clothing years ago before you needed a university degree to read a pattern and I can do some repairs. Anyway, I guess it's becoming a lost art. My mother was a good seamstress. She made all our clothes when we were in school and I remember her making me a suit when I first went to work in Ottawa when I was 18. She was also an amazing quilter! That, I'm not, I'm not a big fan of sewing by hand.

Late this afternoon it started to snow. It was melted on the road but sticking to the grass. Our first winter wonderland for this year! The temperature also went from the 11C (53F) that it was when I got up this morning to 0.3C (33F) before 5 p.m.

Front yard with a little snow. It went away, but tonight it's snowing lightly again.


Thursday

I had planned to go to the Real Deal to work on my lamp this morning. I was out of the house early so stopped at Sears to pick up a parcel and also stopped at the hardware store to get some tile set for the lamp, I was still early so went to the grocery store.

The lady who was supposed to be there wasn't at the Real Deal so I just picked up my lamp.

From there I headed downtown. I needed new sneakers so I stopped at the shoe store. They are so nice there and very helpful. Mind you the shoes cost an arm and a leg. They take an imprint of your foot like they do when you're measured for orthotics and they keep a file on you as well. I wound up getting some nice shoes. My heel doesn't hurt when I walk in them. Unfortunately they're a discontinued style but there are hopes for them to come back in again.

The package I picked up at Sears was a new jogging suit for Gordon. The ones he has are in really bad shape. Now he wants one in every colour! He can always use them as he lives in them!

This afternoon we went out to the local Salvation Army Thrift store and bought an old fashioned end table for the basement to put my lamp on. Guess I'd better get working on it!

Friday

We were having some light snow as I headed out in my new sneakers this morning. They really are comfortable. I've never spent that much money on shoes before but it appears that they are worth it!

Over the past month of so I've been trying to figure out why I suffer from periodic nausea (other than from reflux) and intestinal distress. By process of elimination I thought at first it was applesauce but that didn't seem right so I kept thinking and it seems that when I eat the homemade bread (which has 2 eggs in it), I get symptoms. Last night I went on a mission to find a recipe for bread with no eggs. I did find one so this morning we went out and I picked up the ingredients I was missing at the local health food/bulk store.

It turns out rather pale (maybe I'll use brown rice flour next time instead of white) and it's not great but it is moist and toasts up pretty well. It's an oven made loaf rather than breadmaker but it's quite easy to make thanks to my stand mixer. So we'll see if I continue to have symptoms. While I was baking I made some egg free blueberry muffins. I used 1/2 a banana in place of each egg. They turned out ok, again, not great, but ok. Now I'll have to figure out how to make the peanut butter cookies without egg.


A rather pale loaf of rice bread

Blueberry muffins

While we were out this morning we did a little driving around the back roads just southwest of Smiths Falls. It wasn't a great day since it was mostly cloudy and a little snow was falling but it was nice to get out in the country.

Otter Creek

Part of the Cataraqui Trail
This afternoon I settled in to read and have a snooze.