More busy days

It was a productive weekend on the home front.

We hauled a whole pick-up truck load of yard waste away off the property, cleaned up a flower bed (and replanted it) picked up some free bark mulch from a neighbour and installed it in my cleaned up beds (looking fresh and lovely right now). And I scrubbed the front door so it looks less neglected.

We took out the air conditioners and took the bamboo blinds off the exterior of the house and put it all in their winter storage places (I am pretty sure we won't be heading into the super hot days any more this year).

I also splurged on a new dining room light fixture! One that I actually like was seriously marked down, so why not?!

But the best news.... I think my decluttering has actually made a difference!

My brother in law showed up on our doorstep last night, and it only took a few minutes to convert the laundryroom-of-doom into the guest bedroom! Sure I was still stressed out initially looking at it, but there was room to put everything out of the way for once! PROGRESS!!!!!

Small victories mean everything to resolutions.

BUT my sister's store had their semi annual family shop days this weekend. So I did buy a new comforter cover for Cami, a decorative pillow, a potato ricer and a new can-opener (my 15 year old one has been skipping lately-- I think I have to throw it right in the trash, boohoo). Not a 100% victorious weekend, but not bad either!

A fun day with Granny

My mom lives much closer now. Only 2.5 hours away instead of the 3 days away that she lived before (the Queen Charlotte Islands are NOT easy to get to if you don't want to fly there). AND the added bonus of lots of fun stuff between my house and her house!

Mom called to ask if Sis and I had time this week to bring the kids out for mini golf in Parksville.

We were able to go yesterday...It was a beautiful day for it!

And a cool treat afterwards...

And a spin on the bumpercars for the boys!

It was great to see my mom actually participating in the activity -- really GREAT! It was just a plain old fun outing, a perfect Summer Memory for 2010.

month to month

How do people live paycheck to paycheck?

I look at my bank statement and our debits vs withdrawals fluctuate by hundreds of dollars from month to month! If we didn't have a "float" to absorb the expensive months we would be in trouble! Is that it? Do people just get used to being in trouble on a regular basis?

And what about those folks that don't have overdraft protection as well as living close to the red every month? How do they handle the little things that insist on popping up? A kid's growth spurt (shoes/pants)? A car malfunction? An unexpected necessity to travel (like wedding or funeral)? A utility hike? or Birthdays & Christmas Season? School functions?

I guess these people need to rely on credit, and I also guess it makes it very difficult to get off of the interest payment treadmill.

It's funny, I have been there. Living below the zero balance from month to month, but I seem to have blocked out that very stressful time. It was after the mat leave ran out and my job had been "phased out" and T's job got cut to part time. The mortgage and utility payments still had to be made, and now there was the added expense of diapers and baby stuff. For me to look for a job, I also had to factor in FINDING childcare and finding alot of money for it too. Dark times.

Somehow we did it, pulled out the other side and learned some lessons on frugality, on doing without, waiting for things, making due, and being genuinely grateful for second hand items. Necessity is the mother of invention -- that is a true statement for me.

Now, 13 years later, we are in a better place. Literally and figuratively.

Money is placed very carefully into it's little categories. My income, flucuating as it does, is not factored into the survival budget. Basically I make that budget on T's income only. Anything I bring in covers the non-essentials... things like our cheap cellphone, internet, 2nd car, clothing , gifts and entertainment. So if my income should disapear, then these things would also be dropped or cut waaaay back. T also has a hobby fixing things that he sometimes gets a little dough for... and that money goes to our dirtbiking hobby. If he's doing a lot of it, then we see newer safety gear or maybe even save for a bike upgrade! He is very good about not dipping into the regular cash flow to buy for the hobby, thankfully.

I am the first to admit that I may worry too much about money. I do not want to spend more than I have to most of the time. And when I do "let myself go" and splurge a bit, the remorse can be physically sickening!

Those fluctuating monthly bank statements give me highs and lows along with the balances... its who I am.

But I guess I am worrying enough too, because there is money to pay the bills and enough left over to take Stevie to Van for the weekend, buy back to school shoes for the boys and keep my car fueled up with the good stuff... no creditors breathing down our necks, no lying in bed at night wondering which bills can be covered and which will have to wait. As an added bonus, my canned/dry goods pantry is full enough to live for WEEKS (if not months) out of and my garden is busting over the edges.

I am thankful for our current situation, and feel prepared for change if it is forced on me too... there is some peace of mind in my life, and I am thankful for that too!

Preserving Summer

It's hot in my kitchen, but that's because I have been busy!

For the fist time in years I decided to do some canning!

Today was Blackberry Jam day (I usually just freeze the berries for smoothies and treats).

Yesterday was pickled beans day! (last year I blanched and froze the ones we couldn't eat fast enough)

Monday was Papaya & Mango jam day! (I've never even attempted this before, hopefully tasty)

Verdict: Canning is HARD WORK! and very satisfying to hear that "pop" as the lids seal!

----

PS, my chest freezer is not as cold as it used to be. I will be TRYING to eat freezer meals until it is empty enough to defrost it. Hopefully it will resuscitate it. Of course it is over 30 years old, so maybe it really is dying?

Garden Joy

In spite of it's pest-ravaged start, once again my tiny garden has exceeded my expectations in it's sheer lushness!

We happily pecked at raspberries into the early Summer and are still eating the occasional strawberry.

We ate dozens of salads from our 6 lettuces thanks to regular plucking of leaves instead of taking the whole plant.... but this last heat wave has made them go too bitter for my taste.

The spinach is STILL giving us glossy tasty leaves, as is the swiss chard.

The green beans are growing way past the poles (though not many beans have been harvested yet) and after a few really good feasts, the peas are still sharing a pod or 2 from time to time!

The zucchini look great and the cucumbers are happy.

And the nasturtiums ad a splash of colour from their deliciously peppery petals.

In the back, the potted tomatoes went crazy and are collapsing (despite the tomato cages) from the weight of the fruit.... a few cherry tomatoes have been enjoyed already, and I am anxiously anticipating the beefsteak monster ones!

What could possibly be the reason for my sudden green thumb? Is it the way I lovingly encourage each plant with pep-talks and thanks when I'm harvesting? Or is it the wonderful watering system my hubby installed on a timer? Either way, I love eating my own plants love- love -love it!

Time Flies

Wow.

How did a decade fly by so quickly?

Suddenly, this evening is my 20th high school reunion! I really doesn't seem like ten years since the last reunion... really.

BUT if I stop and think about it, I wasn't even yet pregnant with Cami last time, and I can't imagine life before him!

And I think about all the other things that have happened... lots of mundane things like home improvements, but also lots of very exciting things like Italy, England and Disneyland!

I may take some photos this evening, would anybody be interested in some "before and after" photos of some of my highschool peers? Embarassingly I still have my yearbook. Not that I cling onto those years in anyway, I just find them highly entertaining to show the boys! LOL

*******************

On the resolution front: I have unloaded a few more boxes of "things" and taken photos of some toys I will be selling online. I also went through my old VHS collection and thinned out the young Disney movies to pass onto my neighbour for daughter's enjoyment (one of the few people I know that has maintained a working VCR besides me) -- BIG stack of them in fact!

I also have some clothing for my friends to go through and some trinkets that my friend Spider may be able to flog online towards her good deeds in Nepal.

Last weekend I found some other things to donate to charity from the kitchen -- too many nice mixing bowls for one who does so little baking!!!! And covertly got rid of some of my least liked kid's books and toys.... shhhhhhh....

Slowly and piece by piece I am making progress on my mountains of crap!

*******

Bathroom Paint

I did it again.... I saw a house on the Realtor hot-sheets that I HAD to look at. Half acre, generous detached shop, backing onto a green belt, fruit trees, flat driveway, in our neighbourhood and everything! So I dragged hubby out to it before it even hit the mainstream MLS. And it was even better than the pictures. BEAUTIFULLY maintained, all the features I love in a house and a lovely view of the valley from the covered deck.

Well obviously we put in an offer the very next day! It had every box checked on the "must have" list and many more "it would be nice" items, it was clean and in move-in condition too!!!! Unfortunately another person had the same feeling and it went to a multiple-bid situation (it had only been listed 2 days). We went in with a firm offer, and so did the other folks. The owner countered OUR offer (a very good sign) but she countered higher than we wanted to pay.

It was unfortunate that I reacted the way I did, because I really thought our offer was fair and was terribly stressed about the amount we would be on the hook for until our house sold... my darling husband was no help whatsoever... he said he really liked the property and said it fit us terrific, but he didn't want us to over extend ourselves and it would be better if our house was already sold. I got my back up a little and decided to let the owner make the call by agreeing to all of her counter offer conditions EXCEPT the price. I held firm beleiving that within $7G of the asking price was close enough. I was wrong. She ended up going for the higher offer and we lost it- - it was all over.

That was 24 hours of major stress and excitement!!!! It really was the BEST thing we had seen that we could realistically afford.... if only our house was sold, we would have offered full asking price.

But the truth is our home isn't even ready to list!

Dings in the walls, unfinished projects (we still don't have any baseboard molding from reflooring the bedroom at Christmas!), the back deck needs a new coat of stain, the fence isn't done, the front door is faded and chipped, the laundryroom really should be finished, etc, etc. I can't even mention the clutter... at least that would be a cheap and quick fix with a storage unit rental.

So my resolution after this reality-check is not only "a place for everything and everything in it's place", but also to "get this house in list-ready condition" so that no more opportunities will be lost. There is the bonus of living in a very nice house in the meantime too!

I celebrated my decision by going to our local hardware store with T and picking out a new ensuite light fixture and a can of bathroom paint. The ensuite had not seen any paint for 11 years and the spec-grade cheapy light fixture is starting to rust. The colour I picked is called "Palladian Blue" a sophisticated blue/grey with hints of turquoise. I've seen it on walls before and fell in love with it. BUT as usual, the paint on the walls doesn't match the chip! (Maybe because it's a slightly glossy finish being proper bathroom paint?) The result is definitely BLUE, and fresh... But it's also ever so slightly "old person's bathroom" colour. Too powder blue maybe? But I'm living with it for now because it is a clean surface, and it took a lot of work to strip everything out of the bathroom to properly paint in there! The new light fixture does look MUCH better and now T wants to get a better sink and faucet more like what he got me for the main bath last Christmas... it will look snazzy!

So that was "easy".... next things on the list that are easy: the completion of the fence and re-staining the back deck after a few nice days of weather in a row.... for the peace of mind.

I may go ahead and rent a storage unit when we are ready to finish the laundryroom so that all the crap in there (oops, I mean things) have a place to be while the drywalling is being done... we'll see. I really doubt that task is coming up fast.

I'm back! (and so is my computer)

The weather was ideal as we headed out at an early hour to catch the Tswassen ferry... Many hours later up the Fraser canyon, the scenery (and cloud formations) started to look unfamiliar

to me... Later in the afternoon we stopped at my Uncle's on Green Lake (near 100 mile House). The lake was a stunning vision of tropical green, and the temperature was BEAUTIFUL!

Steve and Cam dusted off the old pedal paddle boat and rode it until sunset...

But we had a REALLY early start on the road the next morning (T had us all on the road by 5!) But the lake looked pretty in the mist.

The Highway was ours...

We got to T's brother's by dinnertime. And set up our cabin-on-wheels in his back yard. I LOVE poplars!!!!!

Dave has over 40 acres about 1/2 hour South of Fort St John, just beautiful land with a couple ponds, some forest, some meadows, trails cut all the way around, a big shop, and enough room to play at whatever he wants without disturbing the neighbours. The boys wasted no time driving the lawn mower everywhere.... it was a game that didn't wear thin even after almost 2 weeks.

Dave and his girlfriend's hospitality was excellent. Their small log house (700 sq feet) is very well appointed. Even though it's small, it has everything you might hope for in a home for 2. And a nice big deck off the back with a generous hot tub (fantastic for watching the lightening at 11 pm). I had free run of the tiny kitchen and happily cooked a few of the dinners. There was no TV and no internet, so I had lots of time to go outside or just cuddle into a chair and read!

We didn't stick around the house the whole time, we ended up putting almost 1000 more kilometers on the truck while we were there running around to see what we could see (and getting supplies).

There is no mistaking that it's big sky country. It felt a little bit upside down to me. The horizon is so flat, but the terrain is still very interesting, dropping down into coolies, river valleys, gorges, etc. Not boring at all! I am used to the terrain rising from the sea, not dropping from the horizon.... it felt weird and wonderful.

One of our road trips took us to the new Bear Mountain Wind Farm, the first major wind farm in the province. 34 giant windmills perched facing the prevailing winds contributing 102 Mw of power to the grid. They are AWE inspiring in their enormousness! The photo doesn't do the scale justice! They are a good 20 feet across at the base, the blades whirring well above the tree heights. I was a bit disappointed in how much noise those blades generate. I really though they'd be quieter... after all noise means they aren't being perfectly efficient doesn't it?

Another field trip was to the massive W.A.C. Bennett hydro electric dam.

The weather was yucky that day. Very soggy, so perfect for going 600 feet underground, right?

We paid the small fee to take the tour. We watched a cool 60's educational video to give us some background and loaded onto a small bus to head into the very workings of the facility way underground. It was quite impressive! They sure knew how to impress visitors back in the 60's. The proportions of the tunnels, the big displays, the amount of knowledge from the young guide were all very good. We all had to wear high-vis vests and hard hats, and it was thunderously loud where the 7.4 billion cubic meters of water is expelled after falling 600 feet into the giant turbines to send over 13000 mega watts/hour of power out of the faciltiy all over BC (maybe even my house!). Even so, I really didn't quite understand the scale of the dam until we went to the far side and looked back at it.

(those are full sized trucks -- the white dots, and full sized excavators -- the red dots!!!!)

But it wasn't just playing on Dave's property and road trips. We also enjoyed swimming in the Kitscatenaw River (about 5 minutes from Dave's on the old Alaska HWY) and lots of dirtbiking in what can only be described as a dirtbiking paradise! The funny thing about being that far North in the Summer.... the days are long -- I mean L-O-N-G, we were out playing at 10 pm some nights. There was no regular rhythm to the days. Eat when hungry, sleep when tired, play when the opportunity comes and relax when you want. It was a fantastic vacation in every way. Even the dog had fun with no fences, no neighbours, Dave's dog to play with, long runs behind the bikes, and endless swims in the pond!

Up and down, round and round. See how far you can climb, see how fast you can go.... or putt contentedly looking at the scenery, taking pictures and eating fists full of Saskatoon berries. (that's for me)
Oh yeah! The berry picking was glorious!!! Wild raspberries everywhere, big, juicy and plentiful! Wild strawberries so tiny, so good they are worth the effort! And I found enough gooseberries in Dave's woods to make some Gooseberry syrup for our pancakes --- mmmmmm!

(Back to riding...) Cam was a riding machine, he went up and went down and jumped and turned, and rode and rode and rode. So on the short times he stopped to get hydrated, I had to get a picture.... (see the pump jack in the background? They were all over the place).

I have to say though.... the VERY LONG climbs and drops were way steeper than these photos let on, I was terrified that I would lose it and go tumbling downhill for miles. I had to concentrate will every fibre of my being, and then do a "happy happy victory" dance at the bottom (or the top) I stretched my comfort zone and came out unharmed!!!

Here we are! Happy family resting in the sun after a long and fun ride. It was so beautiful.

But, it couldn't last forever.... we had to go home eventually. (Oh man we all had so much fun there!)

Eventually we had to go (so sad) so we packed up Tuesday night and left early Wednesday morning (another 6 am thing). We were making excellent time... done the pine pass portion and starting to enter some deserty looking terrain, then suddenly a big clanking and a bump. It sounded like T had run over something metal. Then T said he didn't have any power to the steering! We pulled over with difficulty because the brakes had gotten hard too.

T looked under the truck. Nothing looked unusual. So he opened the hood.... the gigantic serpentine belt that runs the water pump (cooling engine) and the power assist to the brakes and steering was dangling uselessly nest to the engine. BUGGER. One of the idler pullies (there are 3 on that engine) had seized and ripped right off the front of the engine (that's what we ran over). A stupid little part that is vital to the running of the vehicle. We were not quite in the middle of nowhere, but there was no cell service.

I walked to a nearby off road and found a nice lady that was home. She kindly gave us the use of her home phone, the phone book and the blissful shade of her garden for all of us (and the dog). T used the book and phone to great effect! And within 2 hours of getting stuck, T had tracked down the necessary part (and tools for installation) and paid over the phone, got a cab to bring the parts out from William's Lake (about 40 minutes way) and had them on the truck ready to roll!!! It set us back over $200, but that's a fraction of the time and money it would have taken if we had to have the truck (and trailer) towed to William's Lake and a shop working on it!!! Oh how I love my handy husband!!!!

While we were in this lady's garden, we watched water bombers and helicopters with buckets flying by... she found out there were five fires in the hills behind her house. We couldn't see or smell anything, so we weren't too worried. But, as we got back on the highway, we saw more of what was happening. This is just one of the several blazes we saw being fought for the next few hours of driving. The thunderstorms were crazy the night before.

Though we may have been able to push through to the last ferry before our breakdown, the delay had us looking for a spot to camp. We pulled into Marble Canyon at about 7:00pm (13 hours on the road). We set up, I made a nice Butter Chicken dinner and we slept in the small noisy site. It has unique with the groundfed lakes and protected lake bottoms of unique freshwater stromatolite formations (microbial structures that look like coral) though we couldn't see those from the surface. Our visit there was short, but sweet.

We hit the road again by 8:00 am Thursday morning and drove the VERY windy and treacherous highway 99 down through a crazy mountain region. Stunningly beautiful and steep and white knuckle switchbacks with the full truck and trailer. Things smoothed out as we got closer to Pemberton, and we stopped to stretch our legs and take in the views...

Look! It's the ocean!!!! We are practically at the Horeshoe Bay ferry terminal!!!

We arrived in Horeshoe Bay around 2:00. BUT we had to wait for over a sailing to even get to the ticket booth!!! Oh man, it was a parking lot out there. We got into the lot and had 2 more sailings to wait. Full sun, 2 kids and a dog.... not exactly fun. But at least we had our cooler with some beverages and snacks to tide us over. I felt most sorry for the dog he was cooped up a LONG TIME.

(this is the "highway" outside the ferry terminal....)

But we were home by 9:00 pm.... Home! The automatic sprinkler system that T put in my garden worked GRAET, the cat was happy to see us and nothing broke while we were gone. I slept good that night, I can tell you that for sure.

The whole trip was fun, and was relaxing.... I had time to read, play, explore, all my favourite things.

(and I got my revived computer back Tuesday... I haven't got the bill yet, I am scared. I spent yessterday afternoon reloading all my software ug, what a chore. And now my preferences are all gone of course, so it will be a long and labourous process getting it back up to speed -- I still hate computers)