Winter Projects





Renovating is so much more work than we had anticipated...probably our age more than anything.  We are discovering that things we did in the past take so much longer to accomplish now that we are "seniors".   Our family room looked like a Home Depot warehouse with kitchen cabinets, boxes of hardwood flooring, a dishwasher and the microwave exhaust hood.

Our handiman drywalled the hall and worked on the mudding.  Oh joy, oh joy, sanding is next...LOL...the house is so dusty there's just no point in cleaning.  I suppose I could look at that as a positive for me.  Our bathrooms are now done and we are so happy with how they turned out.  It was quite the process, especially the main bathroom which was in such bad shape that it was pretty much a complete gut...

 

main bathroom before and after

 

            

 

 

                       

 

 

 





                                          2 piece before and after

Before

After

  

I started to remove wallpaper from one of the bedrooms while Michael put kitchen cabinets together...CRASH, BANG, BOOM...oh dear...his little fingers don't work like they used to.  I had most of one wall stripped in the bedroom and then stopped....ah the joy of retirement...no pressure here to get anything done.

We had some spectacular days this winter.  Moving here in the fall we anticipated a bad winter where we would be snowed in for days on end.  Well, we were wrong.  We are in a little pocket down here that seems to miss most of the snowstorms.  When we do get them it is beautiful but we probably get more rain than anything else.  We bought a huge upright freezer thinking we would be in for the winter but we soon learned to take our windows of opportunity....a storm coming then head to town....storm hits then head to town 2 days later...LOL....we got it figured out pretty fast but we still had a huge freezer packed with food, enough to last a year I think.
 

 

 

       



 

 

The deer don't come around too much, probably because of the dogs, but when they do unexpectedly show up,  it is magical...

            

Just when we thought we were through the worst of winter we got that March 2014 storm of the century.  We've never seen such winds.  The day of the storm the wind blew and the snow came down with such force that you could hardly see anything outside.  We were snuggled in prepared for the worse, at least that is what we thought.  Early evening the wind let up and we thought the storm had ended....WRONG...we were in the centre of the storm, just like a tornado.  After we went to bed the wind picked up again and the direction changed.  The house shook with the wind.  It was very unsettling.  CRASH.....the wind actually blew in the bedroom window.  We were lucky the glass didn't break but parts of the frame were broken and Michael had quite the job to get it back in.  We had to have someone out to repair it...oh joy....
 

Our Shelagh Duffet wall is growing.  We love her art....it is bright and cheerful and always puts a smile on our faces.  I could keep on buying and buying (I love her original works) but alas my retirement income keeps my impulses in check.  We have since bought another original and 4 more prints.  I always said I wanted to fill the walls with Nova Scotia art and it looks like we are.

       

 

                     

The long winter got my creative juices flowing.  I dug out our paints and started painting birdhouses.  I joined a quilting group where I met some great ladies and learned to quilt.  The quilt below is my first large quilt which still is not finished.  I learned pretty quickly that I love making the tops but hate the actual quilting so in future I will do like everyone else and send them out to be quilted by someone who knows what they are doing.  All in all winter actually went pretty fast.

 

 





Lobster Dinners

So we were sitting here a couple of weeks ago deciding what to have for dinner when our neighbour/fisherman knocked on the door and dropped off two fresh out of the ocean lobsters...and I mean dropped them off, right on our front door mat......YIKES...I've never cooked lobster and don't even have a lobster pot (gonna have to get one of those now).  Thank goodness for the newly installed laundry tub and into it go the lobsters.  Now the problem of what to do with them.....add water Michael says so I turn on the tap unsure about the fresh water....the smaller of the two doesn't look too happy and starts to curl up right away.  Michael gets on Google (how did we ever live without that) and yells NO FRESH WATER, so I pull the plug...now neither lobster is looking too happy.  Michael gives me instructions from the  internet on how to cook the lobster and then leaves for town.  The largest pot I have is my large roasting pan.  It holds the 8 quarts of water but it's long not deep but I'd better give it a try .  No way I am trudging down to the ocean to get salt water since it's raining cats and dogs so I use my trusty sea salt out of a bottle, salt the 8 quarts of water and wait for it to boil, and wait and wait.  Finally it is boiling and off to the laundry room I go for lobster number 1.....head first upside down the instructions say, so into the pot he goes and on goes the lid...wait to boil again and cook for 20 minutes.....two lobsters later you should see my stove...covered with salt water and lobster boilover........that was my day..LOL

Greetings from the Maritimes where I've now cooked my first lobster...

 

The second round of lobster was so much easier since I was now a pro.  Friends from Ontario were to be treated to an East Coast dinner of fresh from the ocean lobster and scallops.  I picked up the lobster from our neighbour/lobster fisherman as soon as he returned from sea.  This was our friends' first time cooking lobster and each of them took a turn....Robert wouldn't pick up the lobster with his hands so he used the lobster gloves that Michael bought....aren't men funny.  We laughed until we thought our sides would split.....  Gosh how I wish I'd taken a picture.  The night was one we would not soon forget.

 

So beautiful on my Japanese dishes

the carnage

 

A Day of Rest

After 3 days of trimming trees, picking up brush, cutting grass, planting flowers and bushes, we gave ourselves a break today and went to town.  We're back home now...Michael is having a nap and I am sitting out on the front porch with a glass of wine and Denver at my feet.  It's still warm and the sun is slowing setting in the west.  The birds are chirping and having their last meal of the day.   The smell of sweet grass is wafting in the air and the wind chimes are tinkling in the trees....the pheasant is calling to his mate....yes, this is why we moved to Nova Scotia....all I see are trees and the very top of our neighbour's house in the distance.