soeurs du jour

Re-tired.

In the Province of Quebec there is a new law this year.  It is mandatory for all cars registered in Quebec to have winter/snow tires.   It's probably a good law, it makes sense from a safety point of view.   The only flaw is that it has created a shortage of snow tires in the rest of Canada. 

Some people have all season tires, we do not.  If you've lived in Ottawa you know that it is a good idea to have two sets of tires, summer and winter.  Life is so much happier if you know that you're not going to get stuck on snow and ice at every hill or slip out of control on a turn.  Oh, it will still happen, but I like reducing the odds of something like that.

Our Volkswagen Golf is now six years old and the original winter tires were worn at the end of last season so we didn't keep them.  No problem, we'll buy new ones in the fall.  We had planned so well, that  we had the money saved for them.   But alas, the best laid plans, etc. 

BB started about 3 weeks ago trying to get winter tires for us.   He went through the rigamarole of phoning around to be told that the tires were back ordered with no delivery date in sight, there were none available or the best of all, hope against hope, the tire store would have a set and then we would discover they were priced way out of our range and even if we had the money, $1,000.00 is too much for a set of tires.

Like I've said before we are so lucky to live so close to the border.   We headed over to North Tonawanda, New York to see Carmine at Tread City for a 7:00 a.m. appointment yesterday, bearing a humble gift of Tim Hortons coffee & a dozen donuts to get our tires.   Carmine said that last weekend out of 48 appointments 7 of his customers were from Ontario.  He said he's thinking of hanging a Canadian Flag alongside his American flag!

So thanks to Carmine we are happily re-tired.  Have a great Sunday.  We're off for a hike (I know! I know!  What is happening to us?)

xo

Kath

duck duck

i had a long hospital appointment the other day and i decided to treat myself.  i called A. and we met for lunch downtown at a great new gastropub.  A. suggested that i drive along the river on the way home and take some photos.  it is not a route i generally take but he drives it to and from work and seemed enthusiastic about what i would see.

ducks, unlimited ducks.  they were mad cute.

they were so friendly, busy talking to each other, checking things out.

a quackaphony of discussions. 

and i had forgotten how much fun it is to take a photo on snow.  

that natural white studio background.  

all i have to do is figure out the light and surely the snow will last long enough for me to do that.

next time i work in this studio i will concentrate on having 

the clients remain still for half a second.

margie xo

Surprise!

Last Sunday I was excited for the snowy day.  We went out for lunch and of course, I threw the camera bag in the car.   Everything appeared grey and white so the trees stood out in contrast and I started to look closely at them.

I'm still not sure what this perfectly round ball is.

I don't think these berries will last long.  

I'm sure some hungry bird will snatch them and savour the last taste of summer.

I loved the surprises that were being revealed now that the leaves are gone.  Secret surprises that have been hidden all summer.

I can keep a secret but I'm not very good at keeping surprises a secret.   Our mother took me shopping at Christmas one year and she purchased one of Margie's gifts in front of me, I was little, maybe 5 years old.   I was told it was a surprise and that I must not tell.  I remember that I took this very seriously.   But of course, I was busting with the responsibility of keeping the surprise a secret and I couldn't help but tell Margie that I knew what her gift was.  

 She immediately urged me to tell her and to her credit as a big sister and my weakness as a little tattle tale, it didn't take much urging at all, there was no physical pressure and I'm sure it only took one or two verbal pushes.  

I had it all under control though, I knew I couldn't tell, but the pressure was building!  I had to say something.  I decided the best thing to do would be to give her a hint.   

It was a really good hint.   "It lights up and sits on your desk."   

I couldn't believe she was so smart.   She guessed immediately and I immediately burst into tears.  "I didn't mean to tell her!", I wailed.  It was many years before I was entrusted again with the knowledge of what was in those shopping bags!

I hope you all had a wonderful day yesterday, are there leftovers?   I think a hot turkey sandwich would be just perfect right now.

xo

Kath

love a thursday

a shout out to all our american friends,

to have a happy and healthy thanksgiving.

i was thinking about love thursday, what there is to love, why we love the things, the places, the people that we do.  specifically what is it that attracts each and every one of us to different books, music, movies and even to different people or each other.  well there you go, that's the answer, because we are all different people.  different strokes for different folks.  i love taking pictures of my grandchildren....i love taking pictures.  it has added an entirely new dimension to my life.

this photo is one of my latest favourites.  i love it.

happy love thursday.

margie xo

Getting "Red"dy

Like Margie yesterday, I found myself running short of time because we have been on the go. It's that time of year, isn't it?   It's fun, though, I like the busy feeling and the push to accomplish things and cross a few items off that "to do" list, the one that has been patiently awaiting our attention.

I promised I would show you the tea cozy.  I got it done!   It's not quite complete though, it needs some embellishment and I've bought some beady type things that I  think might work.  It's certainly rustic, the curve is slightly off, I'm no seamstress but I'm pretty happy with it.  

It needs a little something on the top, a little swaggy or nobby thingy, which beads do you like?

BB likes the contrasting, I kind of like the red.

In addition to being my bead advisor, he's been busy too, check out our living room.

No more carpet.   He'll sand and fill the holes over the next couple of weeks.    It may not be completely finished by the time the holidays arrive but  even unfinished, it looks way better than the carpet did.  He pulled the carpet out of the dining room today and I think our bedroom is on the list for tomorrow.

Getting ready for the holidays and company has sure kicked us into high gear.   I'm still marinating the spiced beef and dutifully spritzing the fruit cake with brandy (I made the Alton Brown Free Range Fruitcake on the weekend - it looks and smells divine) and trying to do a bit of baking here and there.   Margie and I are planning menus via email.  Things are going to come together beautifully.

Our air bed has a hole in it, as Margie's daughter can attest to.  She woke up feeling deflated after a couple of nights on it.  I didn't want to leave the sleeping arrangements up in the air, or worse out of air, so we squeezed in a little cross-border shopping last night with a quick trip to Target and purchased two more so everyone can be comfy.

What are you up to?

xo 

Kath

 

 

 

p.s. BB just told me on the way to work that the bird photo in my album today

is the tree in our backyard.  Ewww.

blotting, not so much

i usually plan my posts, kath and i call it blotting. plotting the blog.  today, though, not so much. i have a lot going on right now, almost too much for my head to handle and when that happens, some of the balls have to drop.  used to be that when i was juggling a lot of balls in the air, one would drop, and that was eventful. now i quite regularly have to let more than one drop at a time.  unfortunately the blotting was one of today's balls that fell by the wayside.  hello, this post has been derailed.  best of intentions, best laid plans, etc., not so much.  what do you do when this happens?  i have lots to write about, in fact even this evening, during an impromptu monday night dinner with friends, we bounced around a ton of ideas that were all deserving of a post.  i just didn't actually have time.  

so what do you do when this happens?  post a picture of the dog?

or perhaps a nice photo of the smart canadians

you know the ones who are getting the heck out of here cause it's snowing tonight.  

or maybe some nice photos of the kids

or even better, a beach.  yeah, that works, a beach.  

a beach trumps a post every time.

margie xo

Macro Monday

The greenhouse that is across the street from our house, it's just to the left of the vineyard, was having a poinsettia sale on Saturday.  It was hard to walk away from the thousands of poinsettias with only three.  This speckly one is on the kitchen table.

And I have a few more shots to show you.   Two of these books have been on our kitchen table for the last two months.  Every day we've recorded our exercise and food.   I've read it faithfully using recipes and following the exercise plan.

Yesterday was the last day and we went to be weighed in and measured.  I promised I would share the before and after with you.  (No, not the photos, I haven't seen them yet!)   I am pretty darn proud.

I know it's a little blurry, it says 192.6 pounds.

Yesterday 176.4.

 

That's 16.2 pounds.

And overall, I lost 16 inches.

Not bad, eh?

xo

Kath

(Nothing is going to stop me now, this is only the beginning!)

broken down

the expression "broke down", as in my car broke down on the way here.  our friend carmi, over at  written inc.  is looking for pictures of broken this week.  i sifted through my photos and i have a broken vehicle theme going on.

or maybe my theme is rusty and broken. 

margie xo

Snow Day

Growing up in Ottawa, we never had snow days.  Ottawa is one of those cities that is always prepared for a lot of snow and even in the worst blizzards the streets are cleaned pretty quickly. Now that I live in Southern Ontario I don't see as much snow (well with the exception of the two feet of snow that fell in March last year).  I know that I'll be singing a different tune in a few months, but right now, I'm excited about the snow.  Because it is Saturday, I'm going to pretend it is a snow day and that I've got the day off.  We're going to go play in it.  I'm looking forward to my first day of winter photography because this is the view of the vineyard across the street this morning.  Isn't it great?  

I don't understand why these grapes haven't been picked.   I know that sometimes they pick a late harvest but this seems awfully late in my limited experience.   Perhaps they are going to be used for ice wine this year?  I don't know, we'll have to wait and see.

And tomorrow we go for our weigh-in & fitness test to end the challenge. 

I'm nervously excited.

Happy Saturday!

Kath

and it was clean

what a day.  thursday is my favourite day.  the cleaning lady was here and for those of you who don't know me, cleaning lady day is sacred, right after shabbos and yom kippur.  do not screw up cleaning lady thursday.

everything was going so smoothly.  i had planned my post.  i had shopped, prepared, photographed my best ever spaghetti and meatballs for christina.   i hoped she would laugh at my secret sauce, (only available in ottawa).

but my day turned out a little different than i had planned.  it takes almost three hours to make my meatballs, i know they look like ordinary meatballs but trust me they are worth every second of that time.  i had just finished restoring my kitchen to the state that the cleaning lady had left it and was looking forward to a little rest, when this guy showed up.  chaos.

then the daughter of my friend in the bahamas came over for dinner.

we ate the meatballs, which were to die for. this was all the fun part.

then there was water, on the floor. from the dishwasher.  A. decided to take it apart and see what was doing.

i have a picture of what came out of the bottom part of the dishwasher however it would be absolutely too humiliating to show you how much slimy gunk there was.  i don' want to show the whole internet what it looked like but kids, if you haven't taken apart your dishwasher lately, get down there before you get a leak.  A. worked on it for over two hours until he was finally able to push the button and fire it up.

when i left the kitchen, a major repair to the espresso machine was underway just because the replacement part had arrived in the mail today.

i just checked on the progress and the dishwasher was still mad leaking, 

and it looked like the cleaning lady hadn't come in a month.  

see ya, margie, xo