Malm Monday

malm ~ calcareous loam used in making brick

So last week . . . I don’t even have the excuse that it was a holiday, I just didn’t have much to talk about I guess. I don’t have much to talk about this week either, but I’ll give it a shot.

You know fall is well under way when you have to use the snow brush to brush the leaves off your car in the morning. I wish I’d taken a picture of it, it was pretty funny. The neighbour’s maple tree overhangs our driveway and it seems to like dropping its leaves on my car.

Update on my purple passion plant: even after using the soapy water on it, the bugs came back. I’m not sure they’re aphids – what do you think?

I ended up getting a commercial insecticide spray. I took the plant outside, sprayed it, and tied it up in a clear plastic bag before bringing it back inside. I’m cautiously optimistic I’ve got those little buggers licked, but the plant is on a stand by itself for now.

And my wandering jew that was doing so well outside? I waited too long to bring it back inside. We had a heavy frost one night and it did a very thorough job of killing it. Oh, well. I do have a couple others still living, and they’re pretty easy to propagate.

The gardens have been put to bed for the winter. What remains of the vegetable plants have been pulled, the roses are covered, and my bulbs are still sitting in their bag because I forgot I had them.

The new cabinets for the kitchen are supposed to arrive sometime this week. When, exactly, we have no idea, just any time between the 2nd and the 6th. And where are they going to go? No, seriously, I’m asking you. They’re coming directly here and the actual renovation isn’t starting until next week. So meanwhile, we’ll have cabinets stacked up wherever there’s room in the living room/dining room.

I’ve been steadily emptying the old cupboards and it’s quite the job, I tell you what! I’ve got nine bins stacked in the hubby’s office, and that’s just stuff we won’t really need for the next month. I’ve also got two bins of donations so far, and filled one of the super sized garbage bags for the dump. I’ve moved the dining room table and chairs against the wall and the wing chair that was in the dining room is now in my office.

I’m trying to be as organized as possible, but it’s not easy. It’s hard to figure out what we’ll need the most access to. The baking supplies aren’t as necessary as the food from the pantry cupboard, so that’s in a bin in the bottom of the stack in the dining room. I’ve got a protective layer on the dining room table where we’ll have the toaster, coffee maker, and toaster oven – we’re not sure if we’ll have access to the stove.

The old cupboards are getting ripped out starting on the 11th, but we don’t know how soon the new ones can go in. Will the walls need fixing as well as painting? Do we need to put the new floor in before the counters go in? And while the old sink is getting ripped out with the cupboards, the new one won’t be going in until we get the new counters, which is the last thing going in.

Oh, I can see fun times ahead.

Not.

Misfortunate Monday

misfortunate ~ bad luck; an unfortunate condition or event

I don't know about where you live, but here in Ontario, Canada we've been enjoying some awesome fall weather these last couple of days. There's been heavy frost on the ground in the morning, but the sun is still strong enough to burn it away by mid-morning. There aren't a lot of leaves left on the trees, but the days are crisp and cool and make me want to walk in the park so I can shuffle through the leaves.

Does anyone else like to do that? To me that's one of the best parts about the fall - shuffling through the crisp, crunchy leaves that cover the sidewalks and ground. And yes, I will go out of my way to shuffle through the leaves on the grass if there are none on the side walk. There's something about it that brings out the kid in me. :-)

Another thing that says fall to me, as I've already mentioned in previous posts, is apples. I received one more bag of apples last week and yesterday I used them up in half a dozen pot-pie sized apple crisps and two more apple pies. No more apples please, my freezer is full!

I've been thinking a lot about luck lately. Or more precisely, bad luck and its root causes. Why are some people luckier than others? Are they born that way or is luck somehow drawn to them just as bad luck seems to be drawn to other people?

I'm pretty sure I've whined about posted about luck before, but lucky you, you get to hear about it again. ;-)

I don't know if it's just the year or the story of my life, but I seem to have a disproportionate amount of bad luck. A lot of the time it's just little things, but it adds up so it's like having a big bad luck. Last week my little things culminated in coming home from babysitting Friday afternoon and discovering we had no hot water. And of course it couldn't just be a heating element or something going in the hot water tank, there was a steady stream of water coming from the bottom of it and little hissing noises coming from the top.

Now some people might point out that it could have been worse, and yes, it could have been. The hot water tank is situated right beside our sump hole, so the water was mostly draining into it - not that it mattered really because our basement was still pretty wet from all the rain we got last week. And the hissing noise could have been gas from the heating element escaping instead of just water.

And now that I think about it, normally I would have washed the container my lunch was in at my daughter's, but I didn't have time to eat lunch there on Friday so I had it when I came home. I rinsed my container out right away instead of waiting to include it with the supper dishes, and that's when I discovered we had no hot water. And the company we rent the water heater from just happened to have a truck in our area - they'd been just about to start back to the city, but came here instead. And I was fortunate they had a brand new water heater in their truck, which they were quick to install.

So I guess, when all is said and done, my luck can't be all bad. Maybe all the little good luck happenstances add up just like the bad ones do. The little good lucks of timing counterbalanced the bad luck of the messed up water heater.

Checks and balances. Maybe I should keep a list of both the bad luck and the good to see if they balance out at the end of the day. I can start with today, where I remembered to start the car to thaw it out before I went to the gym early this morning, but forgot to take my shoes with me. I'm already starting with a balance. LOL

Maybe the people who don't believe in luck are the real lucky ones. ;-)

Mehari Monday

mehari ~ camel used for racing

You know what the best thing is about the election for Canada's new Prime Minister today? It means an end to the endless phone calls, knocks on the door, and over abundance of commercials of people all trying to me how I should vote. At one point I felt like telling the last earnest young man who interrupted my work day that I'd vote for the first candidate who'd stop sending people to harass me.

And you can't even get away from it by watching the American channels on the television. Our cable company runs the feed off the Canadian channels whenever possible, which means if a program is on both the Canadian and American channels, they fix it so you're watching the Canadian one, which means you're getting the Canadian commercials.

The weather has turned cold and the leaves have started to change their colour, finally. Don't blink or you might miss it. I have the feeling before we know it we're going to be looking at naked trees out there.

And, of course, this is the time of year when you need a jacket with a thermostat so the warmth it provides can be adjusted throughout the day. My jean jacket or heavy hoodie are all right for day time, but this morning I broke out the winter jacket to go to the gym. I also went out and started the car before feeding the cats. It didn't impress them much, but it was nice not to have to scrape the frost off the car.

Yesterday was frosty too, but since I didn't have to go anywhere I didn't have to deal with it, the hubby did. And I must confess, I probably felt a little more smug than I should have at the thought that he had to deal with the frost on the car for a change. ;-)

I was able to cut apple mountain in half yesterday - I've only got two bags and a small basket of apples left to deal with. I started with apple/oatmeal pancakes. I normally make pancakes from scratch and I adapted my recipe to include both oatmeal and apples. Man were they good (if I do say so myself)! With the leftover batter (hubby doesn't eat anything apple) I made a bunch of little ones for the granddaughter and she really liked them too.

On Saturday, one of the ladies at my gym was talking about these caramel apple tarts she made, and they sounded so easy that I got some tart tins and gave it a try. The two I sampled tasted so good that I broke down and made an oatmeal pie crust and made half a dozen pot pie size caramel apple tarts, as well as a pie. That was a lot of peeling and chopping (as my back was telling me), but it was worth it.

I still don't have any apple muffins made yet, nor can I find my meat pie tins I bought to make single serving apple crisps. And I still have raspberries in the fridge that have to be used up. And the hubby mentioned he wouldn't be offended if I made him a cookie or two. ;-)

Good thing this is a great time of year for baking, eh?