Love Message in the Snow

When I opened the bedroom window curtains this morning, I saw this heart in the neighbour's back yard.  She's a single Mom who lives next door with her adult daughter.  Maybe her boyfriend did this for her...don't know...can't wait to ask her, but in the meantime it looks so sweet!!!  The temperature is climbing...it got up to 9*C already, so glad I took the picture when I did...it'll soon be gone.

 

More Snow

It had snowed really tiny flakes all day yesterday and didn't accumulate very much...just barely covered the ground.  Today was a different story.  It snowed and snowed.

Our church put together a "Guess Who's Coming for Coffee" social slated for tonight.  You either signed up to attend or to be a host.  We signed up to host so a few days ago we got an email giving us the names of two couples who would be coming at 7pm Friday.  I'd phoned them late this afternoon to see if they were comfortable coming out in the snow...they were, so B got out the snow blower and cleared the driveway...the snow covered the driveway.  It didn't take long for the driveway to get covered again but at least it wasn't as deep as it would have been.  Had a great visit and got to know the two couples a lot better than just saying "Hi" on Sundays!

We got up this morning to about 2 feet of snow in the driveway...will winter ever end???  I want to go camping!!!  B was just going out to get the snow blower and shovels going when the fellow across the street came over with his tractor and cleared the driveway for us, then B just did a few touch-ups with the shovel.  The neighbour then proceeded to clear several driveways in the neighbourhood.  He's done this in the past and we're so grateful but he refuses to take anything for his services.

Pests

The snow finally all melted and my tulips and daffodils are coming up nicely....but this morning we noticed that some little varmint got into my planters and pulled the daffodils up and ate the bulbs and left the little stems!  They'd already dug up the daffodils and tulips I'd planted by the shed BUT did they have to crawl up into the pots and eat those ones too...greedy little beggars and even though they're God's creatures, at this point I'm feeling too much love for them!!!!

Valentine's Day 2018

This year Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday are on the same day... Easter Sunday is going to be on April Fool's Day....maybe that's why we woke up to a winter wonderland this morning...might as well mix things up good and proper!!

Even though we don't usually buy each other things for Valentine's Day, this year my husband bought me this lovely plant arrangement.  

A couple of years ago friends bought us an orchid.  It had one bloom on it then another one.  Since then it hasn't had any more blooms but added 4 new leaves.  I'm usually the one who doesn't have a green thumb and have killed so many plants but this little one must be really hardy and it seems to LOVE it's home on the kitchen island....I'm not taking any chances on moving it to another location...I only hope this new plant will allow me to move it and not die on me....it's getting so I won't have any room on the island to do any cooking or baking...and we CAN'T have that, can we???

Hope everyone had a HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

HELP...my brain's getting tired

I hardly ever used my cell flip phone, but just before Christmas I wanted to call someone.  Got a message that I didn't have enough money on the account to make the call.  Over the holidays I pondered whether I should just put more money on the account or if I should splurge and get one of these new phones that does all these wonderful new things.

Started looking into available plans and they start talking "data", "megabytes", "gigabytes", "plan"  and a whole lot of other lingo that I had no clue what they were saying!!!  They may as well have been talking Greek to me!!!  I finally talked to enough people and asked enough questions to understand them a bit and found a plan that I thought would work for me.  Ended up with an IPhone. The salesman's theory was that I'd used an IPad so I would be more familiar with the format...he was soooo patient with me and all my dumb questions!!

Then came the fun of trying to figure out how to use it.  Did pretty good till it came to texting.  No matter what I tried and who I questioned it just didn't work, so back to the store and after an hour or so of changing SIM cards and numerous other settings, it came down to me having to keep my old cell phone number...disappointing because the new number was sooooo much easier to memorize!  Now I've got to keep my phone number written down so I remember it but I've got  a phone that tracks everything I do, walk, sleep, eat...you name it!!!!  But.....I'm beginning to enjoy it!!!

If that wasn't enough brain exercise....we decided to upgrade our internet and TV package, including Netflix...more to learn.

Puzzles

We have an alcove downstairs where we have table and chairs set up to do puzzles.  There's a window for some natural light and there is a recessed light in the ceiling right above the table with an nice bright energy efficient bulb in it, so gives lots of light.  We almost always have a jigsaw puzzle on the go.

I have a Santa puzzle I do every year.  I've done it about 4 or 5 times so I'm getting a bit tired of doing it.  In mid November we'd received a little catalogue from Bits and Pieces in our mailbox and found some interesting puzzles in it.  Phoned and ordered them.  They were mailed out by Canada Post so one day we got a key in the mailbox.  Used the key to open a bigger compartment near the bottom of the tower, took out the box, locked the compartment and put the key in the outgoing letter slot...such a neat system!!!  The best part is that we didn't have to worry about someone stealing our parcel off our front porch.

We got 4 puzzles (750 pieces each) and we've already done 2 of them.  They're free form puzzles and so much fun to do because you can't really tell what is an outside edge...no squares or 4 corners on these ones!

For Christmas our eldest daughter got us a 1000 piece puzzle of Christmas ornaments  so we started it on New Years Eve.  Some of our guests were intrigued so we spent quite awhile working on it.  We got it finished later that week. It was a lot harder than it looked but not so hard to be totally frustrating!

We've got another puzzle on the go now.  It is quite the challenge, on the border of being frustrating, but when we get it finished I'll post a picture of it ...... then, we can start on the other two free-form puzzles!

Power Outages

Our power went out about 3:30pm on Tuesday December 19 and didn't come back on until 12 hours later.  We seem to have a lot of power outages in this area.  We're on the same grid as our church so quite often the Pastor will call and ask if our power is off or on.  He doesn't live very far from us but they and the people behind us have power when we don't.  It's quite disconcerting for us to be in darkness only to look out the back window and see their lights and TV on!!!!

We're blessed that we have 2 gas fireplaces...one upstairs and one down, and we have a gas cooktop.  I light the cooktop burner with a match then turn it down to the very lowest setting and put a big kettle of water on it, then I can cook whenever I want and always have nice not water for tea or for washing dishes.  I was really glad we had power for Christmas Eve!

On Dec. 28 we had an ice storm in the area.  Our lights dimmed and brightened a couple of times then the next day it got worse and worse.  I was about to get up and phone B C Hydro when poof...the power went off, even the houses behind us were out.  This time we were without power for a day and a half.  The night of the 30th we were wondering what we were going to do...we had invited 4 couples over to help us ring in the New Year....we can still do it...we've got heat, lots of candles and flashlights...it could be fun!!!.....BUT...the power came back on about 4:30am....didn't know whether to be disappointed or happy!!!!

Our church had cancelled service but when the power came back on they quickly put it all together and we had service! As we were driving to and from church the scenery was spectacular!  The trees looked like they were clothed in diamonds.  The ice had completely surrounded the branches and the sun was shining on them!  So beautiful, but also there were lots and lots of branches and whole trees down! The pictures really don't capture the beauty of it!

Our friends came tonight, we had a great time and welcomed in 2018.
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!