Hello 2018!

So I've had my New Year breakfast (egg, hash brown and bacon).

I made the traditional New Year lunch...Hoppin' John (black eyed peas and rice)...I know it is not a Quebec thing but I enjoy and endorse most traditions that involve prosperity and food....

Like eating pancakes on Friday the 13th which is suppose to ensure that you get enough money to pay your bills...Who doesn't like that? Really?

I was lying in bed and wondering what word would give my year direction. The last 2 years have been taking care of business (TCB).

This year my word is OWNERSHIP. Taking ownership of my house. Taking care of this great old lady, drafty old lady. I have already purchased new front doors and the difference is unbelievable!

And just in time before Winter too. So far winter is whooping our asses...It is unbelievably cold for December.....This night the mercury will dip to -15 F (-26C) brrrrrrr

The house had settled and the old doors did not fit quite right and putting draft stoppers would not cut it anymore.....

 The rain and the snow actually would go under this door.

 One of the new doors

 Some yahoo at the workshop cut to mail holes!

I am still waiting for after sales to bring me the new one!

this particular door was so crooked that you could see outside

and not from the windows.

Most of the things I plan to fix are more labour intensive than 

expensive.

repaint the kitchen, fix a couple of cracked window panes,

grind and repaint the iron staircase outside....

Fix some plaster.

In an ideal world where money grows on trees...

gutting the kitchen and redoing everything would've been my fantasy

but realisticly it is not worth it. I can't make it bigger and the cub bards

are mostly ok, so paint it will be

 I went to The Nutcracker with friends and I really enjoyed it.

It is always a strange feeling to see my Dad's work.

 Some Xmas peeps, you know I love my blow molds!

 The mantle all dressed up.

my tree a little lopsided....
I felt the same way.

I am right side up now.

and I will be extra careful with money.

no cray-cray spending!

Be well faithful readers!

Last working Day of 2016

Praise the LORD, SWEET JESUS alleluia !!!

All I did today at work was write letters....Sorry you can't surrender your policy right now....Sorry you can't have a loan, you have reportable gain....etc....

I wished it would've been a super slow day....but they were still plenty of cases to take care of before year end.

and I found myself thinking about what I told my doctor yesterday

When Dad died, I inherited a crown of some sort and every now and then , I will need to go out with my crown and mingle.

I know human nature and I am positive people will say these things...

oh that's his daughter? I thought she would be slimmer! She's fat,she's chunky....

Who's her mother again? She looks like her father, how come she didn't go in the trade...

Her Dad had money, how come she's dressed that way?

To this I answer:

I am who I am. I am middled aged, proudly tacky and I don't care if you think I am not up to your
artsy standards.

I am artsy,vintage, tacky, fun, crafty, thirfty, genuine,loving and one hell of a good cook and I don't have anything to prove to you!

So talk to the hand!

I'm all that and a bag of chips, in fact I'm the whole party mix!!!

Here I am visiting the new company building...

I sure hope I will move there in 2017!!!

 

Catching up!

Wow! Already September 18th!


Back in late August, I celebrated my 51st birthday. That is such a strange number, I feel 35 years old at most!

I got beautiful and surprising gifts!

such as....

Yes faithful readers the Le Creuset gods gifted me a beautiful turquoise braiser .

in its original box no less!

 This had been on my bucket list ever since I saw Jamie Oliver cook with one.

Dan said: I hope you won't get mad because it costs a lot of money...

Why would I get mad it is not my money after all!

Love it!

I also got lots of goodies from Vero, which I use and love!

This is so cute! it is a portable desk grill with all the accessories....

When life at the office is super dry and boring, I re-arrange it.

 I've hated my Dad's fridge from the get go.

even if it was fairly recent, my Dad had it fixed twice and

all the veggies in the crispers would freeze anyways.

It was cracked inside and super noisy...

so it was not a big surprise when it went dead on

Labor Day!

 It just made a lot of noise and stopped cooling on top.

The freezer kept freezing, thank god!

We managed to keep our food cool with the help of our back up fridge

(downstairs) and a cooler.

I have to tell you that going down the stairs

15 times to prepare dinner was a real bummer!

Here is the new fridge

I love it but it is not the one I wanted...

It just didn't fit!

new fridge smell, even better than new car smell!

Sleep tight!

New Friend

A week after my Dad's passing, we are still hurting. It is better not much but better.

I am a happy person, I sing , I dance, I laugh....everyday. I find it so hard to be sad and unhappy.

Out of the sadness came a little bundle of fur!

World this is Meghan, Meghan this is the world.

She's really sweet and playful and Boubou played with her.

Tonight she will be meeting Bandito.

Yoda is spending the night at the Vet. She's been feeling blah since my Dad's passing....

It might be urinary.

Dad Loved Meghan very much. We had a health/poop updated every day

Well Dad you will be happy to know that Meaghan is pooping fine everyday.

Sorry about that, LOL

Sleep tight :)

Finished ....for now

Well faithful readers....

This is it. The time we've all been waiting for.

The balcony is finished! I can't believe it. This certainly gave me some grey hairs....That I proceeded to remove immediatly.

We just could not believe it. It is so much better than we thought, so much.

I gave a couple of instructions to Dan who gave them to the foreman.

                                I still can't figure out why they put those ciment blocks in front..
                                we used them for one of the planks while we didn't  have steps....

                                            Our very own steps!

Here's the view from our balcony,

thre will be many a coffee drunk there....and many a Xmas light!

I smell a blowmold fest!

 

Tonight Dan took the broken shower door and took it to the curb.

YAY BABY! 

 

I then proceeded to install the curtain pole and shower curtain!

SWEET

 

Stuff is totally happening at Vonlipi's place!

 

See you soon and stay warm and toasty! 

New Toaster

Well not really new....But never been used! Not vintage either....

My Dad gave it to me one Xmas maybe 4 years ago...And it so did not go with my kitchen then...But now with the kitchen all spruced up...It was the perfect time to take it out of storage!

Isn't it delicious???? You need to have a BIG personality to pull off that toaster...Yesssss siree bob!


It is really cute with the white cupboards and dark grey counter tops and the pale green walls....YUM! I'll have another slice!

So I cleaned the older one (I actually removed a cup of crumbs from the other one...Which is a testament to how I'm no suzie homemaker!) and I'll put it in storage...with the other 2 toasters...I Just realized I have 4 toasters in the house!

I have a chrome vintage one from my mother in law (kinda roundish) it works but I need to find someone who would give it a tune up....I have the one my mother gave me when I took my first appartement ( a chrome one with 2 doors, that you have to uplug after every toast) the crumbmeister ( a TFal one, not vintage at all) and the pink one (that came from Montreal's Museum of Fine Arts).

A note on my first toaster, this is truly a confession....I was very OCD-ish in my childhood and into my 20's (was never treated, I kept my rituals to myself) and after toasting my bread I unplugged the toaster. I got ready for work, left for work and would start FREAKING OUT, that the toaster was still plugged in and would catch fire and would burn everything to the ground!!!

So I would run back home (a block or more) run into the apartement to find that the toaster was in fact unplugged. Leave again, check 10 times if the door was locked and arrive to work late.


Come to think of it I should have put the toaster cord in my hadbag..so I would know for sure that it was unplugged!!!

I had a ritual for the alarm clock, the kleenex under my pillow, the front door, the toaster. They all went away eventually all by themselves (Thank God) as I got older and more confident. I guess I channeled my craziness somewhere else!




On to other subjects! I took a pic of my new flag, which goes perfectly with my seaside love.

I got it near Portsmouth NH. We installed the pole last Sunday (the pole I've had quite a while but I only have a winter flag..)

Everytime I look at it, it makes me smile and think : This is my home, this is where I belong.

I went to the church basement this morning and the pickings were slim! I found one pair of vintage pillowcases and a really cute hanky!
They have new volonteers at the church basement and I'm not too crazy about her, she looks at me suspiciously...and she charges too much! LOL

Until next time....Keep thrifting! :)