Baking cookies

Sam baked cookies today....chocolate chunk cookies.....Mmmmmmmmm!!! Nice and warm and yummy on a cold, cold day!

My Friday ramblings...

Sat in bed waiting for Angus to do his financial report on Global breakfast news. (I kind of wish I had studied economics - I am LOVING watching the economy change around the world. This and the American election are my main interests at present. Is anyone else paying particular attention to them? I find it fascinating and watch Anderson Cooper nightly on CNN and Angus on Global every morning and check the markets regularly on various channels. We still have an interest in living in the US but our business will remain in Canada, and our final decision will depend on the economy.....so we watch things carefully. Or rather I do - and I feed it all back to Lloyd. We also have an account in the UK so we have to watch things there too to know when to bring funds over from there because banks keep closing and collapsing over there too :( But all in all its VERY interesting! My friend in the UK, Lorraine, used to be a stockbroker before she had children, and her stories used to be fascinating. I wish I knew more about it and REALLY understood it well. I grasp some of it and can follow along with most of what they say now but ....and I think Henry Paulson should have been shot months ago.....why was his resignation not called for months ago??????????? But I wish I understood more detailed information. Maybe I need a Dummies guide....

The Presidential Debate I enjoyed - I think the Canadian leaders debates are USELESS - all they do is bicker and try and pick fights with Harper - it's pathetic - they don't debate ISSUES!!! But in the US they DO debate issues...even if they don't answer them in detail all the time, they do answer questions - even if they are a bit too 'nice' about it.....I have no interest in the Canadian election - I don't even think there should be an election here - I think its a really bad time to be considering a change in leadership here- not that I think Harper is a great leader - just that I think with the economy the way it is, we should leave things as they are until at LEAST next Summer. See where we are then. Consider an election NEXT Fall. It makes no sense to me to have an election now in the midst of all this messy economy. What we need is stability - not change. We need the country to stick together and stay balanced and focused.

Sam is curled up beside me watching too. I have the laptop balanced on my knees but the battery is getting low (Lloyd you didn't charge it over night!!!)

I'm supposed to get up early and head in to Costco to pick up pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving. Theirs are my favourite.

I waved Abby off to school a little while ago - watched her walk down the driveway with Susie and Laurie and now we won't see her until tomorrow! She will go home on the bus to her friends house for a Hannah Montana birthday sleepover party!! Lloyd tucked her into bed last night and was sad he wouldn't see his little girl until Saturday! Abby was very excited though!!

Ok can't think of anything else to say apart from the fact that its Friday YAY and its a three day weekend YAY- have a good one everyone!!! And Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Sunday drive.....

Harley Davidson - now Harley!

I keep forgetting to post about Harley! I always think that because I can read about it on Vals blog, that EVERYONE knows about it all! Everyone has seen the news and seen the pictures and is up to date on it all! I forget that you all don't know!

Sorry!

So, here is the update! We had two pigs! We got Harley Davidson as a companion for Charlie, thinking they would be good company through the long lonely winter. WRONG! Charlie's leg started to hurt her again and Davidson started to take advantage and started to bite Charlie - drawing blood and actually scarring Charlie quite badly! Charlie became withdrawn and depressed and refused to move for days. We ended up having to separate them totally. Davidson had to go in with the dogs while Charlie healed. The vet came out to see Charlie and even she had no ideas as to what to do differently than what we had tried.

Charlie really was quite depressed.

Anyway, thankfully, Val and her family were more than happy to have Davidson (who they now call Harley) join their family. So several weeks ago, off Harley went to live at the 7Jays ranch where he is totally spoiled and pampered and is loving it :)

Its great that he is somewhere where we still get to see him often! And its funny to see that he has settled in and is doing things in much the same way as Charlie does here - pigs are quite habitual!

And since Harley left, Charlie is a MUCH happier pig all together! No more depression, she is back to roaming around the place again and being her old bossy self!

So much for trying to help her by getting her a companion for the winter - she will just have to make do with the cats going into the workshop to snuggle by the fire (Lloyd bought her a wood burning fireplace to keep her warm this winter!!)

Ok so now I have updated and Val and James can stop complaining that 'their pig' is still on MY blog hahahahahaha ;)

For Val :)

This was who I was thinking of when I was trying to think of who sang Memory! I guess because I always think of the London stage as opposed to Broadway! Anyway, it was Elaine Paige that I was thinking of!!

Picnik!!

Glenda told me about this site a while back and I really want to rave about it again - its fab for editing pictures and its FREE! Great for kids to pay around with too as its got some fun features for Halloween - like turning yourself into a zombie!!!

Anyway the other day I was showing it to Laurie and then that night I got an Email from him with this picture of him that he took of himself with mac photobooth and he edited it in www.picnik.com and emailed it to me :)

Is he lovely or WHAT????? And I say this with a cup of tea beside me that he made me :)

My Grayson..

Jasper!

Our crazy cat!

Sams latest creation!!!

Sam made another lunchbag puppet today - this time a lion!!!! It was a nice way to spend half an hour after a busy morning out! We spent this morning at the Esso having breakfast with Val and Rhonda and their Daughters! Great fun! Thanks guys - we had a lovely morning!

The financial meltdowns' effect on the UK.....

Hahahahahahaha

Val sent this to me this morning :) Too funny!!!

I guess the Queen needs those sausages that she keeps in her hand bag now!!!! :)

Leaving.....

This morning Habitat For Humanity came to pick up a few things. One of the things I love about our contractor is that he devotes a lot of his free time/ business and money to Habitat For Humanity. It's his charity of Choice and he supplies his machinery and tradesmen for free when he can - and when he renovates homes like ours he recycles as much as he can into new homes for Habitat.

Through this we were able to donate some things we had hanging about here - things we thought were no use to anyone as well as some things we knew were in great condition but we of no use to us any more. So this morning the truck came by and took on a refrigerator, oven, washer and dryer that had been stored in the workshop.

That I was fine with.

But we also said goodbye to our big red couches.

Our HUGE, SQUISHY, WONDERFUL, ENORMOUS red couches that we had chosen together as a couple in Scotland when we first got together and set up home. When we built our first home together. We had this big brick built home in Scotland and no furniture to fill it with so we went and chose these two HUGE couches to go in the living room - we wanted sofas so big and wide that we could lie lengthwise together. Lloyd wanted beige or cream (he had no kids lol) but I spotted these dark red sofas from across the store and LOVED them!!! Then we saw these curtains and a rug in Marks and Spencers that matched perfectly and the whole room looked sooooo great :) So warm against the cold grey Scottish skies :)

I have so many memories of those sofa's - of friends in Scotland coming over - of babies being born and being cuddled on them - puppies and kittens being snuggled on them...cuddling Lloyd on there....Christmases by the Christmas tree...babies propped up in the corners...toddlers asleep or curled up not well......family movies....even having them shipped overseas when we emigrated. I thin every friend that visited and ended up sat on them found they couldn't resist curling up their legs and sinking back into them - they were just THAT kind of sofa!!!

So I'm really sad to see them leave this afternoon. Gone. Still in great condition. Only 6 years old. Years left in them. I hope wherever they end up...they are well loved and make someone very happy :)

public for a day or so..

My blog is only open to the public for a day or so as I am posting about something regarding my blog in a forum I belong to. After that it will return to being private with the limited number of readers that were reading before yesterday.

HTH

House move!!!!

The other morning I was about to get into the shower when the power in our house went off. At first I thought it was the workmen outside doing something outside, but when I looked out of the front window, I saw Fortis were in our yard - I knew they were due to come and cut down the trees by our electric wires, so I thought maybe thats what they were up to! Then I noticed a HUGE grey thing in the road and realised they were removing the wires across the road so that a house could be moved along the road!!! How neat!

Sam and I grabbed the camera and sat in the bedroom window to watch the action! They worked really fast to get the wires down and move the truck slowly down the road and then get the wires back up and running! We were only without power for about 8 minutes!!! And totally worth it to see such a HUGE object being moved down such a small quiet rural lane.

Don't forget you can click on the piccies to see them bigger!!! :)

And one I made at home....

.......using the kit Tess sent me home with.....but with my own stamps, ribbon etc.....

Christmas card making on World Card Making Day!!

Last night I was invited to a Stampin Up party at Staceys house - Stacey writes the 'Mollys People' blog (link to right) so I was thrilled to be invited and finally get to meet Stacey!!! Actually (sorry Stacey) I was even more thrilled to meet Molly! hahahaha who is the SWEETEST ever little dog!!! I am not a fan of little dogs at ALL! I like BIG dogs! So I was quite surprised at how much little Molly won my heart last night! But Stacey has a new dog named Cooper (a Basset Hound with those gorgeous Sad Sam eyes and those droopy big ears - who is also gorgeous but poor Molly is feeling very upset! So Molly spent a lot of time with her head on my knee getting her chin stroked!

My (wonderful (AMAZING) sweetheart of a) friend, Tess was running the party and taught a class on making Christmas cards, and we each got to make the above cards - I left at 10:30 and the others were still making cards (which I am going to make in a few minutes) but I am thrilled with the ones I made - which look so much better in real life because the pictures I took of them are terrible - I took them in the window without the flash and I'm too lazy to do retakes!

Stacey, thanks so much for having me over last night! It was so lovely to meet you at last :) But really, you HAVE to stop giving those poor children those special 'vitamins' ;)