Happy Hallowe'en y'all. Today is my favourite holiday of the year.
(crickets)
Once again, I've disappointed myself by inadequately observing the glorious night that is halloween. After last year's disappointing participation (I think we had about 12 kids total), we vowed that this year we'd do it up right: have a huge party, totally overhaul/decorate the house, buy all manner of creepy things throughout the year, and make it really memorable. Do it up right. Then life happened (364 days of it) and we got a dog, and our perspective changed. Currently, I can't imagine having the time to clean my house let alone completely overhaul it for a day. Also, I can't imagine getting to a place where Rosie won't insist on chewing on random stuff, eating firewood, and jumping on everyone, thereby destroying/being injured by any intricate costumes worn by potential partygoers.
NEXT YEAR. I will send Rosie to gramma's house and have a real party, I swear. According to my handy 16-month united way calendar, which marks paydays and other important holidays, Halloween is on a Saturday in 2009, so perhaps that will be my motivation to do it up right. They had these awesome black roses at the Giant Tiger that I should have bought. Perhaps they'll be half-price tomorrow (note to self: shop tomorrow). Also, I will need the full year to construct the amazing and terrifying lawn/home décor required. Once my home renos are done perhaps I'll have some time to devote to this (ha.) Do you think that childrens' trick-or-treating will get in the way of my party plans?
For now, I'm going to have to be content with the pumpkin that Rosie and I carved late last night (Rosie carved it WITH HER TEETH), my orange jacket, and the Mars bars and Twizzlers I bought for the inevitable 10 kids who will show up at my door. Shoot maybe I should buy more candy. I had thought I might be able to dress Rosie up and pass her off as a kid so I can scam more candy for myself, but that might be hard. I wanted to tie fake arms to her and pretend she's actually a three-year old, dressed up as a dog, but perhaps that treads too close to the pathetic line. Next year, I am totally renting children.
10/29/08
Knit knacks
Last night I managed to finally complete a sweater that I've been working on since last christmas.
It's Kate Gilbert's Union Square Market Pullover. I made it in a dark eggplant with lime green trim, with Drops Alpaca yarn. It's a gorgeous yarn, but I think I might hate my sleeves. I am not sure. I may have to improvise them a wee bit. I'm not posting any photos because I'm not 100% thrilled with the result, though reviews seem positive so far (I'm wearing it to work). Colour is good, fit is ok, but the sleeves are too long (and wide, actually) and I think I screwed up the cuffs somehow. I'm not sure. Also it could be 2 inches longer on me, for comfort. Sigh.
It's Kate Gilbert's Union Square Market Pullover. I made it in a dark eggplant with lime green trim, with Drops Alpaca yarn. It's a gorgeous yarn, but I think I might hate my sleeves. I am not sure. I may have to improvise them a wee bit. I'm not posting any photos because I'm not 100% thrilled with the result, though reviews seem positive so far (I'm wearing it to work). Colour is good, fit is ok, but the sleeves are too long (and wide, actually) and I think I screwed up the cuffs somehow. I'm not sure. Also it could be 2 inches longer on me, for comfort. Sigh.
10/27/08
Nuts for Winter
Gennyland's status update: it's October 27, work is v. busy, I'm pretty excited about the U.S. election, I'm finishing the sweater I've been working on since last xmas, I've started thinking about gifts for this xmas, the house is nearly all tucked in for winter, the firewood needs to be put away, the winter tires need to be put on the car, I'm getting over my cold and Rosie's just lovely in general.
Fall is in full swing and the leaves have mostly fallen off the trees. I'm really looking forward to this weekend, when the clocks change, because for once I will be able to use the daylight in the morning more than the daylight at the end of the day. Seriously, I can't find my dog in the mornings. That extra hour of daylight will come in handy.
This weekend, we finished off the remaining "must-dos" of the house renovations. We also put away a lot of our big outside stuff, making this coming weekend's to-do list a bit shorter. It's looking nice inside, as I've moved some things around. I have some projects on the go and have a few more lined up for the pre-christmas season, which promises to be jam-packed again this year. Did I ever show you the paintings I did for my brother last year? Here they are:
Fall is in full swing and the leaves have mostly fallen off the trees. I'm really looking forward to this weekend, when the clocks change, because for once I will be able to use the daylight in the morning more than the daylight at the end of the day. Seriously, I can't find my dog in the mornings. That extra hour of daylight will come in handy.
This weekend, we finished off the remaining "must-dos" of the house renovations. We also put away a lot of our big outside stuff, making this coming weekend's to-do list a bit shorter. It's looking nice inside, as I've moved some things around. I have some projects on the go and have a few more lined up for the pre-christmas season, which promises to be jam-packed again this year. Did I ever show you the paintings I did for my brother last year? Here they are:
I get ambitious around this time of year.
The pressing question right now is: what to do for Halloween? What level of participation will I be able to achieve this year? Will I be able to carve a pumpkin? Hand out candy? Make the house look scary? Dress up the dog? I really want to dress up the dog but I don't know if she'll stand for it. A few ideas that I have include: a bat; a skeleton; a ghost; a spider; a witch. Somehow, if I can guage it by the number of stuffed toys she's annihilated in the past months, I don't think it's worth putting a lot of effort into. Especially considering we have nowhere to go and get about 8 trick-or-treaters per year. But fun! I tried to dress up the cat last year with very little success. She glowered at me until I took off her little witch-hat-with-orange-hair. I need to have children and fast.
I also suspect Rosie might try to eat the pumpkin. She promptly chewed the handle off as soon as we brought it home. I wonder if I could dress her up as a steak?
After the Halloween buzz has worn off I'll be knitting, printing, glueing, wrapping and generally crafting myself into an ulcer again this year. I've decided, however, I will not be giving home-made food gifts in 2008, as last year's efforts proved to be either A) extremely unsuccessful, or B) still in my fridge a year later. I'll see what Martha has to say next month. I have some ambitious hand-crafted ideas though, which I won't report on in this blog until after the gifts have been unwrapped. No offense to any readers of course.
All this creative fertility (Alannis Morrisette's words, not mine) runs in the background of my day-to-day keeping it together. A good friend recently had a family tragedy, so I want to try to spend some time with her - I think we're off to the movies tomorrow night. Our family - including Rosie - has been invited to another dinner on Sunday night, which I'm really looking forward to. Also, I'm really considering getting a cleaning lady. I have found someone who's been recommended highly, and am tempted to hire her based on her name alone (Mavis Zeitz! What a great handle!), but haven't worked up the courage to call her. I've decided I have, as my girlfriend in BC once said, "more money than time" these days (which isn't saying much really, except that I have very very little time) and have had to make some decisions as to what's most important in my life - scrubbing my own toilet or making christmas gifts? It's an easy decision for me, but one that hubby's struggling with - not that he scrubs many toilets....
New things in my life: Rosie's "Sporn" halter, which makes walking her much easier; a possibly exciting career movement; new sweaters on deck to be knitted up, with lovely new yarn; dad's recovering from his shoulder surgery; a new diet for the new year, aimed at lowering my insulin resistance or something (don't ask, it's another post); my favourite TV show premieres in three days; hubby's starting a new job; one of my oldest friends has moved back to my neighborhood; my "Green Committee" work is going very well at the office (I am a co-chair), and I have no more airplane trips to make in 2008. All in all it's looking pretty good.
10/7/08
.... and about that waterfront lot
So about that waterfront lot I coyly mentioned earlier.
Remember a long time ago hubby and I got some good news? Well, hubby's brother got the same good news, and piled onboard to join our longstanding pipe-dream plans for a waterfront place. After a bunch of excited emails, we came to the conclusion that it's best if we each have our own individual places, that way he can rent his when he's not using it (he lives in Austria), he can leave it to his son in his will, his friends (who live here) can use it if they want, and nobody has to worry about "well I want to buy that couch but so-and-so will be peeved if I throw out the old one....." you get the point. I have a clear vision of what I want our place to look like, and I suspect they do as well. And this way, we can all stay close to each other without sitting on one another, which sort of happens when they visit our (very small) place.
Then we got to talking to my brother and my neighbor, who are in cahoots, and they convinced us to go take a look at this chunk of land for sale an hour north of us. It's on a lake called Petit Lac Cayamant (not to be confused with Lac Cayamant, which is horrid) near the village of Otter Lake. Up until 10 years ago, it was all crown land, but I guess the municipality needed a larger tax base so they hired a developer to open it up. It's about 6 km long, and has 47 lots along the eastern shore only. That's the maximum number, set by the provincial government, so we expect that the western shore will always remain as undeveloped crown land. There are islands, as well, which are also crown land. The lake is clean and there's no electrical service to the road leading in, which is gated. There's an association, of which we will soon be members, and there's a sort of caretaker guy who lives up near the gate. We went to look, had a boat ride, met some of the neighbors, and promptly put in our little deposit for two pieces of land, 3 acres each, side by side on a sort-of point. Now we have an empire.
The brother-in-law has yet to see these properties, of course, but was willing to trust us to buy it on his behalf, sight unseen.
Now we're wandering around calling ourselves wealthy landowners. The fact of it is, I'm not sure that we are wealthy landowners, as I'm not sure what monetary surprises lurk in the darkness. For sure there will be some costs involved in getting service to the lot - cutting a laneway, bringing in a composting toilet, a water system, solar panels, etc. - but I'm just not sure what it means in terms of investments and taxes. I'm wary.
Someone asked me: "why do you want a cottage when you live in the country?" It's a valid question, and certainly must seem a bit indulgent from an outside perspective. The truth of it is, even though we live a rural setting, we still only have one acre, and it's still a developed neighborhood. We have neighbors who we can hear through the trees. The dog has to be on a leash because there's moderate traffic. There's garbage pick-up and mail delivery. The house needs to be maintained, and clean, and contains all of the modern conveniences which also need maintaining. I like the furniture to seem as new as possible and the floors to stay relatively undamaged. You can't wander into the front yard and jump off a dock, and my hubby can't go fishing at 5 a.m., and be back before breakfast (let's not kid ourselves. That will never happen anyway). We can't sleep 8 in our house. The upstairs isn't a play loft for visiting kids or sleeping babies. I have a garden to maintain and a lawn that needs mowing. I suppose our house could do all of those things, but the fact is I don't want it to. I love having parties, but it sort of stresses me out to clean the entire house only to have it messed up again, and then to have everyone leave at 11 p.m. to go back to the city. I want to have weekend-long parties, let the place get filthy, track sand everywhere, play old board games and do old puzzles when it rains, and not worry about snowplowing or deck shovelling in winter. I want to bring up only the food I'm going to eat that weekend, and spend my days NOT worrying about what needs to be done around the house before Monday. I want to be able to say to friends, "hey, why don't you use the cottage this weekend?"
Another factor is that with the markets the way they are, we really couldn't think of another way to invest our money than in waterfront land, which never goes out of style.
This mythical cottage is a long way away. We're not that rich. We got out of debt, paid a bit down on our mortgage, and bought this piece of land and we will be in debt again once the transaction is done. Once that's paid off, we can start thinking about building something. In the meantime, we have big plans for the brother's place, which will be built next spring. And we are certainly enjoying the idea of being wealthy landowners.
Remember a long time ago hubby and I got some good news? Well, hubby's brother got the same good news, and piled onboard to join our longstanding pipe-dream plans for a waterfront place. After a bunch of excited emails, we came to the conclusion that it's best if we each have our own individual places, that way he can rent his when he's not using it (he lives in Austria), he can leave it to his son in his will, his friends (who live here) can use it if they want, and nobody has to worry about "well I want to buy that couch but so-and-so will be peeved if I throw out the old one....." you get the point. I have a clear vision of what I want our place to look like, and I suspect they do as well. And this way, we can all stay close to each other without sitting on one another, which sort of happens when they visit our (very small) place.
Then we got to talking to my brother and my neighbor, who are in cahoots, and they convinced us to go take a look at this chunk of land for sale an hour north of us. It's on a lake called Petit Lac Cayamant (not to be confused with Lac Cayamant, which is horrid) near the village of Otter Lake. Up until 10 years ago, it was all crown land, but I guess the municipality needed a larger tax base so they hired a developer to open it up. It's about 6 km long, and has 47 lots along the eastern shore only. That's the maximum number, set by the provincial government, so we expect that the western shore will always remain as undeveloped crown land. There are islands, as well, which are also crown land. The lake is clean and there's no electrical service to the road leading in, which is gated. There's an association, of which we will soon be members, and there's a sort of caretaker guy who lives up near the gate. We went to look, had a boat ride, met some of the neighbors, and promptly put in our little deposit for two pieces of land, 3 acres each, side by side on a sort-of point. Now we have an empire.
The brother-in-law has yet to see these properties, of course, but was willing to trust us to buy it on his behalf, sight unseen.
Now we're wandering around calling ourselves wealthy landowners. The fact of it is, I'm not sure that we are wealthy landowners, as I'm not sure what monetary surprises lurk in the darkness. For sure there will be some costs involved in getting service to the lot - cutting a laneway, bringing in a composting toilet, a water system, solar panels, etc. - but I'm just not sure what it means in terms of investments and taxes. I'm wary.
Someone asked me: "why do you want a cottage when you live in the country?" It's a valid question, and certainly must seem a bit indulgent from an outside perspective. The truth of it is, even though we live a rural setting, we still only have one acre, and it's still a developed neighborhood. We have neighbors who we can hear through the trees. The dog has to be on a leash because there's moderate traffic. There's garbage pick-up and mail delivery. The house needs to be maintained, and clean, and contains all of the modern conveniences which also need maintaining. I like the furniture to seem as new as possible and the floors to stay relatively undamaged. You can't wander into the front yard and jump off a dock, and my hubby can't go fishing at 5 a.m., and be back before breakfast (let's not kid ourselves. That will never happen anyway). We can't sleep 8 in our house. The upstairs isn't a play loft for visiting kids or sleeping babies. I have a garden to maintain and a lawn that needs mowing. I suppose our house could do all of those things, but the fact is I don't want it to. I love having parties, but it sort of stresses me out to clean the entire house only to have it messed up again, and then to have everyone leave at 11 p.m. to go back to the city. I want to have weekend-long parties, let the place get filthy, track sand everywhere, play old board games and do old puzzles when it rains, and not worry about snowplowing or deck shovelling in winter. I want to bring up only the food I'm going to eat that weekend, and spend my days NOT worrying about what needs to be done around the house before Monday. I want to be able to say to friends, "hey, why don't you use the cottage this weekend?"
Another factor is that with the markets the way they are, we really couldn't think of another way to invest our money than in waterfront land, which never goes out of style.
This mythical cottage is a long way away. We're not that rich. We got out of debt, paid a bit down on our mortgage, and bought this piece of land and we will be in debt again once the transaction is done. Once that's paid off, we can start thinking about building something. In the meantime, we have big plans for the brother's place, which will be built next spring. And we are certainly enjoying the idea of being wealthy landowners.
Readjusting my sensors
Wow, it's fall. Just like that. I got busy at work, went to Winnipeg for almost a week, and now I'm back and it's full-on crazy-time fall. The leaves are glorious, the weather is chilly, and I had to scrape the car this morning.
The biggest downside of fall is that I notice that the older I get, the more sensitive I am to environmental change. When I was young I never noticed it, but now that I'm at the ripe old age of 33, I notice when the seasons change, I feel it physically. Everyone around me is sick, and it's unusual that I'm not sick as well, though I feel like I am staving something off. My bones hurt. I am exhausted. I can't wake up in the morning, because it's so dark. I have zero energy at night. All I want to eat is heavy pasta casseroles with lots of cheese and red wine and bread, so I am not exactly losing weight. My skin's all dry and itchy. I have no desire to be outside. When I'm at home, I'm usually outfitted in head-to-toe polar fleece.
In good news, the house is done for the year. We have one more day's work on it, which will be tomorrow, as it's going up to +17. It looks fan-freaking-tastic. I actually find that it looks TOO clean, my eyes have to readjust, as I'm used to the front of the house looking like a tarpaper shack. I have all new brushed-metal light fixtures, which finally illuminate the path approaching my house, so no more injured trick-or-treaters. What's left to do are the upper parts of the house - three small angled walls for which I'll have to stand on the roof, and which will require a coordinated effort so as not to prolong the roof-standing. I have to paint the frames of 4 long windows red, but that can no longer be done this year. Then I have to hire someone to put in new soft and eavestroughing, and we have to re-do the deck including railings. I had hoped that part of the deck would be done for this year, but it's realistically not going to happen, considering that we have yet to deal with the firewood, make cider, finish off the inside of the bathroom window, have two waves of company visit, and potentially start clearing our waterfront lot.
Oh did I not mention the waterfront lot?
This coming winter I think I will focus on the interior. I want to fix up the basement so it's more usable and not as scary/filthy. I want a new tile backsplash in the kitchen, which I've been dithering on for 3 years. I potentially want a new, deeper bathtub. I want usable storage in the basement to remedy the fact that we currently have had to cut a path through the junk to the workshop/laundry area.
I will post pictures soon. In the meantime, let's think about that waterfront lot.....
The biggest downside of fall is that I notice that the older I get, the more sensitive I am to environmental change. When I was young I never noticed it, but now that I'm at the ripe old age of 33, I notice when the seasons change, I feel it physically. Everyone around me is sick, and it's unusual that I'm not sick as well, though I feel like I am staving something off. My bones hurt. I am exhausted. I can't wake up in the morning, because it's so dark. I have zero energy at night. All I want to eat is heavy pasta casseroles with lots of cheese and red wine and bread, so I am not exactly losing weight. My skin's all dry and itchy. I have no desire to be outside. When I'm at home, I'm usually outfitted in head-to-toe polar fleece.
In good news, the house is done for the year. We have one more day's work on it, which will be tomorrow, as it's going up to +17. It looks fan-freaking-tastic. I actually find that it looks TOO clean, my eyes have to readjust, as I'm used to the front of the house looking like a tarpaper shack. I have all new brushed-metal light fixtures, which finally illuminate the path approaching my house, so no more injured trick-or-treaters. What's left to do are the upper parts of the house - three small angled walls for which I'll have to stand on the roof, and which will require a coordinated effort so as not to prolong the roof-standing. I have to paint the frames of 4 long windows red, but that can no longer be done this year. Then I have to hire someone to put in new soft and eavestroughing, and we have to re-do the deck including railings. I had hoped that part of the deck would be done for this year, but it's realistically not going to happen, considering that we have yet to deal with the firewood, make cider, finish off the inside of the bathroom window, have two waves of company visit, and potentially start clearing our waterfront lot.
Oh did I not mention the waterfront lot?
This coming winter I think I will focus on the interior. I want to fix up the basement so it's more usable and not as scary/filthy. I want a new tile backsplash in the kitchen, which I've been dithering on for 3 years. I potentially want a new, deeper bathtub. I want usable storage in the basement to remedy the fact that we currently have had to cut a path through the junk to the workshop/laundry area.
I will post pictures soon. In the meantime, let's think about that waterfront lot.....
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