Ocean to Prairie

I know, I know, I'm getting lazy at blogging. Its been a busy week at work and we were away last weekend. Anywho, amongst my adventures out here I have realized a few more things: RR #8: Turn signals are optional. I don't even want to get started on this one. It's a long rant! RR #9: Being the only car at a 4-Way stop is quite intimidating. RR #10: Being the only car on the highway is intimidating! RR #11: One will pass a RTM house at least once a week on the highway. I get quite the thrill passing a massive house on my way to work.  A small post today. I'm tired...

As you know I've been tackling the job of restaining our dining set. Since I'm off for the next few days VACAAATTTIOOOONNN!  and there isn't a chance of poor weather for the next while, I thought I'd get to staining these suckers. The stain we chose has the stain and polyurethane in one:  Mixwax Polyshades  in Bombay Mahogany. Now, we should've realized with the keyword 'Mahogany' that the stain would have a hint of red. Hint of red is an understatement. The swatch we based our decision on was much much  darker. When I opened the can I laughed cause it looked like I stole a pint of O negative from  Canadian Blood Services .   Please donate blood! I thought maybe the stain was like hair dye-- the colour is scary and misleading at first, but you still get the desired outcome. Well, after a few coats, the stain is still pretty red. Since we were shooting for something more along the lines of espresso (with a hint of red), we're going to do a final coat ...

Tis the Civic Holiday long weekend (BC Day back in Victoria!) here in Saskabush. I thought I'd take the weekend to finish up a few projects and get some things done around the house since Bear and I weren't going 'to the lake' like everyone else in Saskatchewan seems to do. In November Bear and I purchased a dining set from the  ReStore  in Lloyd. The chairs were marked up, as was the table. We decided it would be great to refinish the set and stain the wood to match the rest of our living area wood furniture.  Again, that was in November. I was gung-ho at the start and sanded one chair. The day I decided to sand was windy and I was not a happy camper. We didn't have access to the garage at our old rental and I didn't want to sand inside the house, so I held off for better weather.  Better weather came, as did a new house! I put off this project for so long that I had actually forgotten we were refinishing the set. That is, until I purchased another item for r...

Last night Bear and I made deliiiiiiiiiiiish floats. Now, these weren't your ordinary float. These were floats made with Kraken rum, and home made vanilla ice cream. YUM. To make such a delicious treat you will need: 1 awesome glass 1 355ml can of Coke (we used Coke Zero, watching our figures, you know)  1-2 oz of Kraken Rum As much vanilla ice cream you desire Pour the rum in the glass first, then add the ice cream, and lastly the Coke. Give the drink a bit of a stir before you chug down-- all the rum is still at the bottom! Enjoy! xo

I am happy to announce that not only am I growing viable weeds and rogue grass in my garden, but also yummy vegetables! woohoo! Currently we have rows of crisp lettuce, radishes (very potent!), carrots, and green onion (grunion). The radishes have been ready for a while now, and boy is the flavour strong! Well, some radishes are strong flavoured, others not so much. So, when make a salad its like tastebud Russian Roulette when taking a bite. Will it be tart, or will it be sweet?! Ack! Its a tart one! The carrots smell so good. I happened to pull a few this evening to see how they were coming along. I good sacrifice I'd say. I don't expect the carrots to be grocery store sized, but what we have now is looking great! As I said before, the smell is amaaaaazing. Who doesn't love the smell of fresh carrot? Who?! Spending all this time in the garden has been a little taxing on my knees. Did I mention I was 80?  Knowing this, Bear gifted me this evening with a set of foamy kne...

I love mowing the lawn. Crap, I shouldn't say that out loud or Bear will definitely expect it from me all the time. Oh well . We have a sweet 'Zero Turn' lawnmower. It goes like stink (read: fast), and it makes mowing 2 acres of grass quite easy... which is why I like it so much. eaaasy . I was mowing two nights ago,  so proud because Bear is off galavanting on his motorcycle in Montana,  and I let my mind wander when I'm out cutting the multitude of grass (and weeds). I was going around the perimeter of the 'front' lawn when I realized I was making all left turns. I then realized mowing my lawn is like... slower, grassier, solo-driver Nascar. Lefffft... lefffft... lefffffft...  I was quite entertained with myself and thought of a hilarious blog post that I would soon post after mowing the lawn. Sorry, the hilarious blog post was soon forgotten because I started to mow down alongside the driveway. Typically, mowing along one's driveway does not allow som...

Those who know me personally know I talk about Shutterfly -- a lot. I love it! Shutterfly is a website that you load your pictures onto, and do pretty much whatever with them! Their printing costs are low, they make great photobooks and they have a lot of other photo gift products too. Now, the secret with Shutterfly is that they send you coupons every couple of days. Some coupons are for 20% off, some 50% off, and my favourite... the FREE coupons. I've been using Shutterfly for a few years now and I don't think I've paid full price for anything. Even when you sign up you get 50 free prints! (You'd think they're paying me to endorse their company. They're not!) A few weeks ago I received a coupon for a free photobook.  Sweeet!  Just what I was waiting for! I wanted to put our Ireland trip in a book to send to my Gramma in Victoria. There are two options for photobooks, you can create your own from templates and place the photos and embellishments as you like...