Chore day

At last, a beautiful clear sunny day, but too cold to play out doors, so I will be spending my day off, catching up on all the house work, which has been let go, while I finished up a project. Yesterday I completed painting the kitchen, and I must say, I am pleased with the results. A post, with pictures will be coming up.

Thanks to my friend Linda, Dirt Roads.

Some of you, may have never experienced Dirt roads, but to us who have, this is pretty neat.

Click HERE: DIRT ROADS (scroll down to read)

Don't want to give up your SUV

but still want to save on the gas bill. You could go back to using the original SUV.

Thanks Linda

I am looking forward to Spring

Somewhere out there,the sun is trying to burn off all that cold clammy fog. The past two days started out very frosty, but with a clear blue sky, with the temperatures in the upper 40'sF. Perhaps, today, the sun will break through and give us another beautiful crisp winter day.

I have spent the last couple of days, working on putting a fresh coat of paint on the kitchen walls. MrC has been patching some of the holes, where I took down some curtain tracks, and patching some damage by one of the windows.

I have finished digging over the raised beds in my vegetable garden, and now wait for spring to arrive, before I can get busy planting the first seeds. According to the calendar, spring is still about eight weeks away. *groan*

Subject: How Government Works

Fixin' To Fix The Fence...

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at The White House. One is from Ohio , another from Tennessee , and the third, from Kentucky .

They all go...(with a White House official also present)... to examine the fence.

The Tennessee contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil...'Well', he says, 'I figure the job will run about $900 total...$400 for materials,...$400 for my crew and $100 profit for me.'

The Kentucky contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, 'I can do this job for $700 total.... $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me.'

The Ohio contractor doesn't measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, '$2,700.'...The official, incredulous, whispers back,...You didn't even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?'....The Ohio contractor whispers back, '$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire that guy from Kentucky to fix the fence.... 'Done!' replies the government official.

And that, my friends, is often how it all works.

TWO WAYS TO LOOK AT EVERYTHING

My wife and I were sitting at a table at my high school reunion, and I kept staring at a drunken woman swigging her drink, as she sat alone at a nearby table.

My wife asks, "Do you know her?"

"Yes," I sighed. "She's my old girlfriend. I understand she started drinking right after we split up those many years ago, and I hear she hasn't been sober since.

"My God!" says my wife. "Who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?"

So you see there really are two ways to look at everything...

Through the garden gate....part one

During my visit to New Zealand a couple of years go, I did quite a lot of walking around different neighborhoods of Palmerston North, the city where I grew up.
It is evident that Kiwis still like to take care of
their properties, and many, or most people have very nice gardens.



As I wandered along the streets I would stop and stand at the entrance of many of the homes, gazing at the gardens, lovingly tended by the hands of someone who lived in the house at the end of the driveway.

Not a leaf out of place on this neatly trimmed boxwood hedge.

This Pohutukawa , gracing the side garden of someone's home,was in full bloom.

The Pohutukawa, is sometimes called the Bottlebrush tree, for obvious reasons.

What a nice shady place to spend a warm summer's afternoon or evening.








I wonder who lives in the home behind this attractive gate.












Another little oasis of green.









Everything is so beautifully taken care of.

It is no surprise that I have a passion for gardening, after being born and raised in a country where gardening is so enjoyed, and it didn't hurt, to have grandparents and a mother who were avid gardeners, and taught me much of what I know about plants and gardening.

Before and after

In a previous post, I mentioned I was painting over the kinda' pumpkin shade of the laundry/mudroom, in preparation to install the new freezer we had on order.

This picture does not show the true sickly shade of pumpkin the walls are.

And now, they are a nice shade of White, Casa Blanca, One of many, there are to choose from.

After a quick run up to Oak Harbor to get our freezer, it has been wrestled out of the cardboard box, pushed into the small alcove, plugged in and cooling enough to receive the colored baskets filled with frozen foods from the fridge in the kitchen. I am using the colored baskets, one color each, for meats, vegetables, fruits, and other miscellaneous foods. This is my method of an easy way to find something in a hurry.

A New Year blessing.

I thought this Maori blessing appropriate for this coming year 2009


Kia hora te manno

Kia whakapapa paumamu te moana

Kia tere te karohirohi


May the calm be widespread

May the sea glisten like the greenstone

And may the glimmer of summer dance across your pathways.