Left-over

What a week!
It is starting to get busy at work. I guess I'm not the only one who hibernates for the winter. The snow birds are back from the south, the cottages are opening up, tourists are starting to show up and outdoor functions are being held. This all adds up to more customers in the store.

Since our cake decorator had to leave early yesterday due to a family emergency I was called on to decorate some cakes today. I'm out of practice so my nerves and creativity was challenged.
I'm not sure if I did very well. The first customer said their cake needed more color which I offered to add but they didn't what to wait. The next customer seemed pleased. One out of two isn't bad but not good.

For the pleased customer I mixed color in the white icing. I mixed too much and so I had plenty left over. Today, we also had out of date Angel food cake, Kirk's favorite. All of a sudden I got creative. Charged myself $2.99 for icing and cake container. Kirk is a Happy Camper.

Gone Fishing

Since the weather is warming up, my time of hibernation is coming to an end. This means less time to post boring information of the happenings in our life.

Kirk is taking this time to catch some fish. Actually, he caught one yesterday. When I came home from work, he was so proud to announce he caught his FIRST bass in Canada. It is not in season so he had to release it. He hopes today he will catch trout. He is on a mission today. Because yesterday was just a half hour stop to throw a line in the water. Today, we have poles, tackle box, thermos of coffee and cooler with ice to store fish. The excitement it too much.

Should he catch something I may take pictures and add to this post. In the mean time I think this picture is what the fish are suppose to look like.

Pizza Paddle

I have been searching for a pizza paddle. This seemed like an easy task. Wrong.

While living in NC I never needed one because I always used a beer box to move the pizza in and out of the oven. We always had empty beer boxes and the boxes are thin, flexible and yet strong. They worked great. Of course now the boxes are used to return the empty beer bottles. As in Canada do as Canadians we recyle.

I tried searching the local stores for one. Hang that up. I tried the internet. I found them but no shipping to Canada. It did find a Canadian site that explained how to build one out of wood. This is good. It seems my days of purchasing items on the internet and having it delivered in a few days are becoming limited. Most sites are USA with no convenient delivery to Canada.

Then eBay had an aluminum pizza paddle for $9.99. Ok, we have aluminum. You can take it from here on what happened. (Kirk built a Pizza Paddle)

I made Pizza. Kirk and his visiting buddy in the shop loved it. It must have been good because his buddy asked for one to go!

We have BIG Rabbits around here!

I don't know if you can see the rabbit on the lawn. It may show up if you click on the picture to make it larger. The reason I took the picture is that the rabbit looks like it is as large as the dogs.

Now, if we could get it to eat more grass we wouldn't have to cut the lawn so often.

My Garage?

Ok, I can't help myself. I have to show you our garage. Or should I say "My garage" (for now).

Years ago when we were building our garage in NC, I was told that I would always have a place to park in it. Wrong. The parking only lasted for a week or two and then Kirk's tools and equipment took over. Then we added an additional carport for the van. I got to use that for a few months. The Jaguar need to be protected from the weather. The saying is true that the old vehicles get to park inside and the new ones outside.

As you can see, at this point in time I still have a place to park. I will try my best to keep it that way. Time will tell. This is blog will be the only official record and anyone who can remember this day.

In a party mood!

Today I got spring fever. You could also call it spring cleaning.

The day started out cloudy, cool and dull with no hopes of being outside without a jacket so I decided to clean up the garage or should I say rearrange the garage.

6 to 11 am I was on a mission. I'm proud to say "Mission accomplished". Now, having a beer, I think I want to hold a party. I feel we have the perfect location. Lots of parking, space to move around outside and inside, camping area, fire pit, deck, barbecue, hot tub, large table for buffet items, and now a spacious clean garage for retreat should the weather turn bad. Sure, we need more tables and chairs but I'm sure that is an easy fix. Some BYOB will be required too. We are in Canada now.

What day should I pick for this party? Fathers Day comes to mind. For Fathers and their family and friends PLUS; for those who want to be Fathers (and their friends). For those who are just practicing and not wanting to be Fathers (and their friends) and for those who will never be a Father but will still practice (and their friends). In short - Everyone (Canada & USA) is Welcome and their friends!

I did talk to Kirk about this brain storm and he agreed, this sounds like great fun. Now, I just need input from anyone and everyone else.

Love the Internet!

The feeling of being included without even being there. (Easter in Toronto)

The following are pictures of relatives (niece and nephews) who I love dearly. (Actually, I love them all, it is just that I have pictures of them right now).

Since Kirk and I are next to hermits and really don't like to travel any distance. It is good that the internet has come into our lives. With the willing participation of other family members we get to share their gathering via the internet. Thank you.

In turn, I get to share this moment with everyone else that is interested in our life.
Life is great!

Fish for dinner

This evening a customer dropped by needing some welding done on his boat. Very small job.

Kirk immediately got onto the topic of fishing. The customer pulled a couple of fresh (as in just caught) fish out of a cooler packed with ice.

This was dinner and a very good one. Is this classed a taxable income?

Taxes

We lived through tax time.

This year we had to file taxes in two countries which made it a little more complicated. However it wasn't as bad as I had imaged at the beginning of the year.

Not knowing anything about taxes, other than, we have to pay them. I was glad we have our friendly tax consultant of 12 years in NC and we found a local consultant who we hope to work with in years to come.

At this point in time everything is good and we don't have to pay any income tax this year. Now we just have to concentrate on making some money so we can pay taxes. What a plan!

Happy Easter!

Hope everyone had a very Happy Easter weekend. We did.

As far as I can remember, this will be our first Easter that we did not go to work or shop. We went to Easter Service and spent the rest of the day relaxed watching TV programs about Jesus. Had a turkey dinner and watched more programs about Easter. (History channel)

The day before (Saturday) was hair cut day! Line them up the dogs, Kirk and the lawn all got cut. Then we had the pleasure of being part of a 60th birthday celebration and invited to an evening family gathering. (both close to home) We enjoyed ourselves and commented to each other that we should try to get out more often if it is not too far. This brings me to; going to Church in Brights Grove which we decided was a bit too far of a drive to go to Church. Plan "B" attending a church in Forest.

(the bunny attended the birthday party under the costume was someone I hadn't seen 30 years. )

Wake up those muscles

I don't remember all the folks who told me that weeds die in the winter. I don't believe them. I ventured out today to kill a few weeds. Actually, Peaty and I scouted the grounds first to see what condition our condition was in. We came across a short row of evergreens in need of saving from grass not planted by anyone. This makes it a weed when it is not suppose to be where you want it.

I was motivated to attack the situation. Boy, am I out of shape. I will have to gradually work into this. Muscles that haven't been used since last summer are telling me this. The squatting was easy because I have been squatting in front of the fireplace all winter. It was the pounding on the ground with the hoe that woke up the shoulder, arm and back muscles.

I only worked one hour. It was a short row. It was a tough row. The challenge was to remove the grass without injury to the very small evergreen. It was a success. I look down that row and see happy little trees. I now go home to soak my muscles in the hot tub.

Mr. Fix It.

Small job here, small job there. Hopefully this will pick up. People just dropping by needing something fixed. This is just a before and after pictures of Kirk's day at work.

Grounds-keeper

Yippie, I have another job. This is in addition to working at IGA and looking after Kirk, keeping him reasonably organized on his welding jobs and attending to the dogs.

I have been accepted as grounds-keeper at Tree-Mendus http://www.tree-mendus.ca/. On my sunny days off from IGA, I will help out with weed control at Tree-Mendus. Not to pat myself on the back, but I do feel this is something, I'm reasonably good at. Maybe it is because I enjoy killing weeds and the satisfaction of seeing a section or row of happy plants free of those choking/invading squatters moving in on their space. I enjoy the outdoors and the free exercise for as long as I can stand it in a day. I guess you could call it flex-time hours. Whatever the time spent. It will be the best I can do while I'm doing it and proud to be part of the campaign "for the freedom of plants".

Phone number be gone!

Kirk got a call from the telephone company. He can not have our phone number on the building unless he has a business account. Ok, easy fix. He took the phone number off the building.

It is probably just as well. People have just been dropping by anyway without calling. In fact, I don't remember anyone calling about welding since we put up the sign.

We never had a sign at our home in North Carolina and people still found us. We did have a display, in Waynesville, the last few years that did create a lot of interest and work. I think we just need to build a gate for a customer in an prominent location. Word of mouth will look after the rest.

Scrap collector

Scrap, That's what I call it. But we all know this is good stuff to get.

The last two days Kirk has been getting the material he needs from a building that is being torn down in town. He needs to insulate the back part of his building. The material he is getting is drop ceiling, insulation, plywood and florecent lights. Some of this stuff is free and some he is paying 1/2 price for.

I just hope that he puts it to good use soon. We have been there before. The acculation and no installation. Anyway, it makes him a happy camper when he gets a deal and works real hard on getting it home. He is using an very old quote on me "penny saved is a penny earned". It will be when he installs it in his building. Here we go again. Got to love him.

Easter

There are times I search for inspirational sites on the WWW. & I'm usually not one to email or forward stuff. Actually, since I started Blogger I don't email much at all.
Anyway, I came across this site that I think is worth posting.

http://www.interviewwithgod.com/

We may not be regular at church attendance but we try our best to stay in touch with God & Jesus.

Kirk wants to go to a Lutheran Church for Easter. He is in charge of finding it and the times of service. We have a good game plan for Easter.

Laundry

Now, here is an real interesting topic. I say, Not! It is just stuff I think about.

It has been a long time since I hung laundry outdoors on a line. I think I was in my teens? Since I have a laundry line, logic has it, I make use of it. The weather has been perfect for this and in the last few days this is where I dry our cloths. Conserving hydro/electric power. Not my energy. The part I don't understand, who said this makes your clothes country fresh? I don't notice any difference. In fact, so far everything I take off the line is has no noticeable "fresh" and is stiff as a board like someone put starch in everything. Am I doing something wrong?

Recycling

This is something we did not do in North Carolina. We are doing it now!

For those of you who knew us well while we lived in North Carolina, you will know that garbage was something we seemed to accumulate well. We even had help from close friends hauling it off. (We didn't have garbage pickup but we lived real close to the so called recycling center).

I could never get over how two people could manage to have so much garbage. We had at least three garbage cans and they were always full. I blame it on beer cans. Since there was no monetary value in returning them and no one was paying anything worthwhile for crushed cans it became garbage. (Here, we receive 10 cents for the return of a beer bottle.) In addition there was milk and orange juice jugs. Kirk drinks a lot of milk and I drink orange juice. These jugs take up a lot of space/garbage. Paper and plastic packaging, glass etc. In short there was no incentive to recycle.

You won't believe this but, in just over two months we only have one garbage can full of trash. It's contributed to composting, burning, and blue box. I will explain blue box. It is a bluebox that you put your waste glass, cans, and plastic in to be pick up by the local service. It is free. They do charge $2.00 for a standard size bag of garbage weighing no more that 45 lbs. You have to buy $2.00 stickers from your local convenience store to stick on the bag of garbage for them to pick it up. I think it is a good system. Mind you, since our garbage has become minimal, my brother to the rescue again, lets us throw it in his dumpster located at the nursery. It saves us at least $2.00 every couple months.

You won't believe this either, Kirk's shop actually looks neat compared to the past.