My October

October has been busy... working lots, trying to finish the little details in the laundry room, and making time for family.

Here are a few pictures from the latter half of my month:



Mushrooms, the big one was over a foot across



Top view of the mushrooms

Fall photo

Fall photo, trying to get the dog in the picture

Roxy walking in the park, looking for squirrels

Notice how much Roxy wants to be included... Pat having to hold her there!

Roxy leaving us once again... it was a trend!

 Last night I convinced Pat to do some pumpkin carving.  He was very reluctant, but I think his turned out the cutest... I had to draw it for him, but he did the carving.

Pat's pumpkin

My tiny pumpkin

The "McCoy" pumpkin

The pumpkin pictures are a bit grainy... I'll use the tripod tonight and try to get better pictures.
Happy Hallowe'en everyone!

-elisa

Disaster!

I finally realized that we can no longer get by with our current washing machine.  It was leaking, and causing mildew on the floor.  Also, it was like 20 years old.  We ordered a brand new front load from Home Depot last night.... I'm so excited.  
Anyways, we are now renovating the laundry room, to accomodate a wider washing machine than what was there previously.  Unfortunately, the person who used to own the house was "handy", or so he thought.  My dad is actually a contractor, so when we see the work others have done, it is so frustrating, and usually needs to be redone.

Yesterday entailed a major breakdown by *yours truly*! 
Then we (mostly dad though):
-peeled back part of the floor
-emptied the room (into our den, which is now a disaster zone!)
-took the cupboard off the wall
-bought the supplies we needed at the store.

Today we:
-stripped the linoleum off the floor
-cut out the bad drywall
-reframed part of the wall
-re-insulated and added a vapour barrier
-re-drywalled
-began filling holes in the walls.
We have a week until the new washer is here. Thank goodness for my dad!

Hopefully the rest of the minor reno will go smoothly.  We opened a can of worms with this reno... I think all the suprises have been revealled.

I'm leaving you will three parting shots from my walk the other day.

Roxy, the happy dog, enjoying the fall sunshine.



Chester (yes, I named the squirrel) checking me out.



Chester finding an escape route.

Canadian Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving here in Canada.  It's nice to be able to take a day to remember what you love about life, and what you are most thankful for. 

This weekend I spent my free time baking pies.  I made 2 pumpkin pies, 2 apple pies and a lemon meringue pie.  Yummy! (and oops... I didn't take any pictures of them!).

I did take pics of the caramel apples I made.  Here's how it looked.

You take a bunch of apples and wash them:

You mix the sugar, milk and package and boil.

You keep boiling until it reaches 120 degrees (softball stage).  This took a lot longer than I expected.

You burn your fingers a few times while dipping into the HOT caramel.  Quickly you twirl them in your selected  candies.  Place them in the fridge to cool and watch the toppings slide to the bottom. Then, you wonder what went wrong while you hold your burnt finger under cold water! 

They were yummy, even if they didn't look like the ones from the store.  If I was to do this again, I'd cook the caramel a little more, almost to the hard ball stage.  It was just too gooey.

Happy Thanksgiving, Canadian style!

-e

Where you go?

Somewhere in our house we have lost a cordless phone. The battery must have died and we have no way of locating it. It's probably tucked in a box or high on a shelf.


Oh little phone, where are you?
One day I'll find it and go "oh, yeah".

One day.

-Elisa

End Polio Now

Dear People on the highway behind my house,

I too would like to bring an end to polio.  I think it's a brilliant idea.
I do however, fail to see how getting people to honk is going to end polio.  Also, getting people to honk at 7:00 am is not only is crazy but puts your life in jeopardy.  I am a calm person, but my neighbors, they are not so much.  "Lunatic" as we affectionately call him lives on the left side of my house, and "crazy" lives on the right. They may not appreciate your call to action, your fight to end polio now so early in the morning.

My puppy is curled up on the bed, resigning herself to the fact that there will be no napping in the backyard this morning.  I alas gave up the fight to sleep in, and have planted myself infront of the computer... counting the honks per minute.  My favourite honk of all was the semi who layed on the horn for approximately 10 seconds. Usually noise like that is followed by a big "CRASH", but no, just you cheering.

Please polio fighting people... have a good day, but don't come back.

Sincerely,
me

Everyone else,
Have a happy day.  I'll leave you with a pic of my little Roxy trying to figure out how to get a squirrel!

Hi Y'all

At the end of August, my  hubby had surgery to remove a metal plate from his leg.  Well... the leg is healing and he returns to work on Thursday.  I can't wait!  I can't wait to have the house to myself for any length of time.  This time off work makes me realize that we need to make more friends. 

To capture the last little bit of summer, we went to Vancouver for a few days (where the olympics were held).  Here are a few of my favourite pics.

Wonderful sculptures where the horses were tied.

My hubby waiting for the horse drawn tour.  The horses names were "Bud" and "Wiser" (groan!).

Us on the tour.

Totem Poles at Stanley Park.  They used to look so scary to me, but now I think they're neat.

Please excuse the hair... Vancouver is humid, so I can never get my hair to do ANYTHING.  Also, the water at the hotel didn't help.  I felt like I was in the Seinfeld episode with low flow shower heads.

The steam clock in Gastown.

A bright and beautiful day at Granville Island.

So hopefully life gets back to normal soon. My work is slowing down to its regular pace which means I'll have some free time in the next couple of months.  That makes me so excited.  I'll have time for coffee, crafts and nice walks with our little puppy.

-Elisa

A mouse in the house?

What a story to tell this week...

I was baking bread the other day {the best recipe, I must share it some day!}.  Let me just preface this, saying that my oven is gas.  It doesn't have an element on the bottom like an electic one does, instead there is a tray like area with two cutouts that are about 1 inch by 12 inches.

I had my little loaf in the oven, rising in a loaf pan with a tea towel draped over it.  I opened the oven to see the size of the loaf, and check if it was time to preheat the oven.  When I touched the loaf, a MOUSE ran out from under the tea towel and under the tray in my oven.  I yelped!  Yes... yelped.   My husband had never heard anything like that from me before.  IN MY OVEN!  I was in shock and horror.  I quickly phoned my dad because we didn't know what to do.  Again, my hero, raced down to our house to save us!

I stood in the doorway to the kitchen, watching my oven until he arrived.  About a minute before he got there, I saw the terrible little mouse fun from under my stove, to under my cupboard, and into a hole, never to be seen again.  Anyways, dad found the little hole that he escaped into, and sealed it up.  He figures it went into our crawl space. 

I spent the day cleaning the oven, everything in the entire kitchen, and anything that the mouse could have possibly touched.  It just makes me uneasy thinking that there was a mouse in my kitchen. Now when I walk into my kitchen, my eyes play tricks on me, and I think I see a mouse running out of the corner of my eye.  My husband thinks I'm crazy. I was thrilled to find NO mouse poop anywhere, so we believe that this is an isolated incident. I'm working at getting over it, end of story.

I decided that I need to change my outlook on mice, so what better way than to find cute mouse things on etsy!  Here were my three faves:

Crocheted doll pattern by Amy Gaines

Maybe it's love by missmarjorie

Tilly, the needle felted mouse by Janice Cordeiro

I think they are all so cute!
Have a great day... I'll be away celebrating my man's 37th birthday!

Cheers,
Elisa