I'm so glad you could stop by. This is my personal blog of daily life and my journey through life. You will find a strong emphasis on family and friends as well as finding my ancestors through genealogy. Unlike my other blogs this blog is more of a catch-all so any topic is fair game.
Anyone our age and younger has likely seen one or more episodes of the cartoon, The Flinstones. Who can forget lovely Fred with sidekick Barney, wives Wilma and Betty, and children Pebbles and Bam Bam? That Yaba Daba Doo was the best! It was a great, wholesome cartoon that everyone loved and it's popularity continues today thanks to television stations like Nickelodeon and Retro TV. Today is the 50th Anniversary of the first airing of The Flinstones produced by Hanna-Barbera Production that ran from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966. Here's a video of the original theme song. Enjoy :)
I find it rather fascinating what some ingenious folks use for lawn art. My weakness is garden gnomes but others get so much more creative. I spotted this cute little and obvious quite old carriage sitting beside a house a few days ago. It's cheery red and yellow colour made a lovely contrast against the white siding while adding a touch of whimsy. The carriage was being used to hold a couple of potted plants as well. I really like the unique look!
This past week we have had house guests for the entire week. House guests are different than the visiting for an evening guests. With house guests you get to see them first thing in the morning before the coffee has clicked in and the tongue starts working let alone the brain. It brings a whole new level of tolerance that sometimes is achieved through gritting the teeth and biting the tongue rather than saying something to cause hard feelings. At the same time it gives the opportunity to fine tune our entertaining skills. We are very blessed to be able to share our lives with others this way. It adds an additional element to enrich our lives!
I tend to be an extremely good judge of character. That ability has always served me very well. Yesterday someone I considered a friend said something that seriously knocked the wind out of my sails. I won't go into detail but I will say that at best I was shocked and went into retreat mode. I think what really bothers me is this is someone I trusted and welcomed into our home. To hear that type of comment totally floored me! I honestly cannot believe that someone in this day and age with all we know can be that horribly ignorant. And life goes on, another lesson learned...
I am fascinated by wildlife and always have been which means I like taking pictures and videos of wildlife any chance I can get. I thought this was a rather good video of a smaller video I spotted at our vacation home. He is not as big as the largest ones we saw but still a good size. It's scary to think that one night I actually walked along an alligator infested road [I'm seriously not kidding here and it was after midnight] and lived to tell about it but that is another story!
Yes, this gator is very much real! We spotted him up on land in the side yard of a house bordering the exit road out of the park. There is a large pond just to the lower left hand side of the picture just out of the camera's view. The day before we could see his head just barely above the surface of the water. He is a good size gator but not the largest one in the park. Gators wander from pond to pond so they are a fairly common sight within the park. Isn't he impressive?
Have you ever heard that song about the girls all get prettier at closing time? I'm thinking that applies to comment spammers as well! Honest to Betsy I get this comment on a pickled egg post on my cooking blog that did a one-ninety relating eating eggs to increased sexual activity and if my readers couldn't eat eggs they could click on the handy link provided to by Viagra from a reputable online source .
Ok, let's think this one through. I'm female and most of my readers on my cooking blog are likely female. Unless we are aiming for something else I'm pretty dog-gone-sure that we would get a heck of a lot more jollies out of a brand new KitchenAid stand mixer. Now don't get me wrong but I can mix up a great batter that would do a lot more than Viagra using one of those bad boys! What the heck! Are comment spammers so brain dead that they seriously think any blogger worth their salt is going to let that comment through? Definitely not but any blogger worth their salt is likely going to use that bit of nonsense as blog fodder
The past week despite all of the going ons was rather peaceful. Don't get me wrong as it was an extremely busy week but the overall mood was peaceful and that in itself was a real blessing. It's funny that regardless of how busy you are physically and/or mentally if your mind is at peace all is well. And so it was :)
I grew up around horses and learned to ride at a young age. Horses fascinate me. As a rider you put a lot of trust in the horse but in return the horse puts a lot of trust in you. It is a two way street. A few days ago we received an email from the kids of one of our grandkids now a toddler sitting quite prime and proper in the saddle. For such a little one it was quite impressive to see. The little one is a natural displaying proper form and posture all naturally and that is rather rare for someone so young.
My goodness when I look back on our computer experience it is astounding just how far we've come in a short period of time. When I was in secondary school we were introduced to computer punch cards using Fortran. I proudly brought my spent cards home so they could be turned into a Christmas wreath for the front door. Years ago we bought an Atari 64 that one of our kids was just mesmerized by. Said kid would sit for hours and I do mean hours punching in line after line of code for the simple reward of seeing a small white ball bounce across the screen. When I went back to university I was still working on an old electric typewriter which was a step up from my even older manual typewriter. Back in secondary school I learned touch typing and a Pitman shorthand both of which I still use today. Think of the shorthand as an earlier version of today's internet lingo like LOL. The electric typewriter was upgraded to a self correcting electric typewriter the same year. Then I discovered computers! I learned a whole new language called Linex and learned how to search using Gopher and get email through Pine. If that wasn't bad enough I was introduced to Mac. All of a sudden a whole new world opened up.
My husband declared that the self correcting typewriter was not good enough for academics so he brought home a brand new Amstrad PC that ran on MS Dos®. It even had Gem Paint™ and Wordperfect. I think we had that computer for a couple of years before we upgraded to Windows 3.1. Fast forward to now and having gone through a lot of operating systems I am still comfortable working in Linux, Windows, dropping to Dos and Mac. For daily computing I prefer Mac while my husband uses Windows. My computer is dual OS both Mac and Windows XP.
Just look at the size of those discs though and they were only write protected with a small piece of foil tape! Over the years the discs got smaller and smaller but always increasing in storage space. Next on the scene for us were the 3¼ floppies with the hard case then came CDs and now memory sticks that likely could hold more memory than our old Amstrad could!
It's rather fun reminiscing about computing and how much it has changed in a very short period of time. It's also amazing to think of how much we've learned over the years about computing and everything that goes along with it. I wonder what the next 20 or so years of computing will bring?
It's now been over 2 months since the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) came into effect into Ontario. Despite election promises of no new taxes, Dalton McGuinty effectively increased taxes on 17% of consumer goods in Ontario. The HST has had a bit of an unexpected effect though in both BC and ON as well as the rest of Canada. BC has announced it will scrap the HST if voters demand it. No such announcement has been made by the ON government and it is doubtful if there will be given McGuinty's greedy tax grab policies.
We have been finding ways to avoid paying the HST as well as voicing our displeasure over the HST. In essence we have decreased our support of ON businesses for most consumer goods but we continue to support local farmers, growers and producers. This isn't about the actual monetary costs of the HST either. It is a matter of principle that we don't agree with the HST and the less of our money going to support McGruinty's greedy tax grab the better! Overall the HST has had little impact on us other than purposely avoiding paying it if we don't have to. Here's a few ways we've of avoiding HST or minimizing the HST we must pay:
stopped buying any plastic shopping bags - We use mainly cloth shopping bags but occasionally end up having to buy a plastic bag at the grocery store. The store charges 5¢ but did you know that HST on that is 1¢? That's ridiculous! So we have made it a point not to buy any bags at all there.
reduced our internet service - We were paying $70 for horrible satellite internet service which is the only high speed service available to us in our rural location. Now that HST is added to the service we reduced it to the lowest available package of $50 per month plus HST. The next option is to go back to dial-up or cancel the internet service all together.
took our house off the market - We listed the house in March so planned to have it sold before the HST kicked in July 1. The HST now applies to land transfer fees, real estate fees and lawyers fees so on the sale of a house that can really add up. Once the HST kicked in it was obvious that those extra charges were hindering the sale of our house so it became one of the deciding factors in taking the house off the market. If we ever put the house on the market again it will be privately which will at least save us the cost of HST on the real estate commission.
general shopping - Since the HST kicked in we have dramatically cut shopping in ON for any item that has HST on it. If it is something we really need then we look for the item used. Kijiji and eBay are great places to shop for used items from the comforts of you home without using the gas of yard sales since gasoline now has HST tacked on. If it can wait it goes onto our shopping list for buying in the US when we can bring them back duty/tax free under our personal exemption allowed based on the length of time out of the country.
gasoline - We buy gasoline as much as possible in the US. For day to day driving of the vehicles and when traveling any distance in ON then we still end up buying gas in ON so pay that HST but for the most part we can avoid a good chunk of the HST on gasoline. We always fuel the boat in the US so that eliminates that HST.
haircutsetc. - The HST now applies to services like barbers, hairstylists, nail salons and those types of things. I trim my own hair and gave up on nail salons in favour of the all natural nail so pay no HST on these services. A friend cuts my husband's hair for free so again no HST.
hydro - There is now HST on our hydro bills based on the kWh used. We are already well under the average household use of 1,000 kWh per month which makes us very good candidates for going solar. We are moving in the direction of solar while using less electricity every chance we get. I will guarantee you we won't fall into the ON solar plan where you sell back hydro for 84¢ per kW generated because McGuinty has already cut that price to infuriating farmers who bought into the scam. We have a 5 year plan to be completely off the grid.
natural gas - There is now HST on the natural gas we use to heat our home. In our little corner of ON home heating in the winter is a must, something McGuinty fails to realize. Aside from using good energy conservation methods we are also moving towards solar for subsidizing our home heating and we may convert our fireplace from gas back to wood that we will buy using cash through the underground economy.
using the underground economy - The very fact that an underground economy exists means the above ground economy isn't working. The HST has strengthened the underground economy. Cash talks! If we need something done around the house that we can't do ourselves it is as simple as putting the word out to find someone who will do the job for cash, cheaper and without HST.
vacations - Our vacation home is in the US as is our other favourite vaction destination. If we fly, we fly out of a US airport since there is now HST on flights out of ON. Most of our two or three day mini-getaways are in the US as well. This avoids having to pay HST on motel rooms.
I've had a cell phone for years dating back to when I was on the road all the time. My first cell phone weighed about five pounds or at least it felt like that some times. It looked like a huge, long walkie talkie. It took up a good amount of room in by briefcase! Despite it's large, cumbersome size it kept me in touch with my family and provided an instant support system when away from home. That cellphone was changed out for the cutest little Nokia that I eventually customized with a denim case. It was just adorable and while it survived a dunking in the toilet [don't ask] it did not survive swimming from the boat. I was not pleased at that turn of events but my husband replaced it with a cute little Samsung flip phone. My kids were quite helpful customizing my phone by adding the Adam's Family theme song for the ring tone and adding other sounds like beeping when I closed it along with a couple "I love you Mom" messages not quite spelled out in those terms. At any rate, I really liked my flip phone. I wasn't using it a lot with not being on the road as much but it was nice knowing if the power went out I still had a phone and I always carry it with me just in case my husband's cell phone dies. The flip phone is not all that old at only about 5 years but I guess as technology goes it's old. The problem has been the battery or the fact the battery hasn't been holding a charge. It was down to needing to be charge every other day without even using it but it would die rather quickly if I did use it.
This past week was all about enjoying tomatoes. I've been picking tomatoes in the garden and cutting vines to root for my indoor continuous garden. I been working on canning hampers of tomatoes into various tomato products. So far I've put up fire roasted tomato sauce, fire roasted tomato basil sauce, fire roasted Italian pasta sauce with mushrooms, and marinara sauce over the last two weeks. This week I canned seafood cocktail sauce, pizza sauce and salsas. And just in case the focus hasn't been on tomatoes we have been eating tomatoes every chance we get. Toasted tomato sandwiches and BLTs make for quick easy meals during the tomato canning season while not adding heat to the kitchen. All those little bits of great sauces that aren't enough to fit into a mason jar are used for meals as well. So this thime of year it is all about the tomato!
We don't use a lot of commercially canned foods because I do a lot of home canning. By a lot I mean if I can put the food up myself I won't by commercially canned foods so that means I'm well over the 1,000 jar per year mark. The end result is unlike our neighbours we don't put our recyclables out on a regular basis because they really don't add up enough to do so on the regular biweekly schedule for pick-up. We put out a large clear blue bag of recyclables as we need usually a couple of times a year. The other day my husband put the recyclables out the night before collection. There were two bags. On the way out the driveway he noticed one bag was missing and the other had been ripped open to remove the metal cans leaving the plastic behind. The metal cans was missing from all of our neighbours bins as well. Now this is just a sign of the times. Someone is coming by collecting the cans that they will in turn take to the metal recyclers. I wouldn't mind except we pay for recycling through our taxes. If the recyclers don't collect enough there is a good chance the municipality will cancel the program entirely. So we have a couple of choices. Either we put the recyclables out the morning of collection and wait for them to be collected or we take them to the recylers ourselves. At any rate one person is working towards destroying a program for their own personal gain.
I'm working on the fourth hamper of tomatoes for the season today. On today's processing plans are seafood cocktail sauce, pizza sauce and salsa. Any tomatoes left after making those three products will canned whole. By day's end I will have several jars of wonderful tomato products to add to the pantry. As with most canning sessions this year the day has got off to a late start with canning going into the late night, early morning hours.
A few years ago we had the great pleasure of meeting one of our kid's soon to be spouse. As a way of breaking the ice the kids gifted us with these extremely cute cow mugs. I think they are just adorable! Now that the grandkids are toddlers Grandma is always looking for something just a little special to surprise them with. I spotted the cow mugs in the cabinet so thought they would be an excellent way to connect the kids who couldn't be here for the brunch with the grandkids.
Oh my gosh! The grandkids loved these mugs! The two oldest grandkids were just a hoot as they discovered the cows hiding on the bottom of the mugs. They petted the cows and had quite the conversation about the cows. Their faces were shining with animation as they excited talked about the cows. I'm still chuckling over it. And these are the things memories are made of!
This certainly has been the year of battling nasties on more than one level! On the home front, spiders have become a huge problem. Four venomous (toxic to humans) spiders have been identified on our property including the brown recluse spider with the funnel spiders reaching huge numbers. While funnel spiders are non-aggressive so the chances of being bit is low their sheer numbers greatly increase a chance encounter. They are everywhere! I finally decided we had no option but to take drastic measures by hauling out chemical insecticides something I try to avoid at all costs.
Yesterday I loaded up the pressure pump spray with the first insecticide that would take care of the funnel spiders in the cedar and boxwood hedges. They were my first target. Then I reloaded with a residual spray to treat the outside of the house, sunporch and garage. Tomorrow I will do a bit of back tracking to check for any active webs left on the hedges then spray targeted areas of the house indoors.
We last treated for spiders in 2007 so hopefully won't have to treat again until their numbers get to the point it causes a potential risk. At any rate we should see a significant decrease in the venomous spiders and spiders in general while driving all spiders back from the house lessening the chance of a chance spider bite. It was a productive, preventative action day.
All three of our grandbabies were here for brunch on Saturday. They are now very active toddlers so I guess I'm going to have to start referring to them as our grandkids. Grandma has a large plastic tote filled with Lego building blocks that they like to play with. In fact every kid that visits us knows about the Lego bin and it is quite common to see the entire bin dumped out onto the floor so they can look for their favourite pieces. It's also common for the adults to join in the fun of building something with the kids.
Lego has always been one of my favourite toys! This bin of Lego has quite a long history starting with the first pieces of Duplo (large Lego blocks) we bought for our first kid's first Christmas. Each Christmas more Lego would find it's way into the house. One Christmas small packages of Lego from McDonald's even hung on our tree. There's the little girl's Lego in pretty pastel colours, camoflauge Lego, glow in the dark Lego and moving Lego. There's even a few rather old instruction sheets for how to build certain things. I really should laminate those!
This past week started out to be so very hot and humid but full of blessings. Lack of rainfall this summer has been a real issue for local farmers and home gardeners. Wednesday, the day we were hosting a large dinner party, the forecaste was hot, humid and thunderstorms. It rained during the wee hours of Wednesday morning and a bit during the day but cleared enough to enjoy eating outdoors for the dinner party then it rained overnight. Thursday and Friday we woke to more rain with clearing in the afternoon. The rain was very much welcomed!
The dinner party was a huge success! The event was not without a bit of sadness though as we found out one of our friends who did not attend had recently been very,very sick resulting in the partial amputation of her leg. Our support, thoughts and prayers are with her and her family as she goes through the healing process!
On Friday a couple of our kids arrived with our second grandbaby, now a very energetic toddler, to spend a couple of days. This little one is just a real hoot! Those great big, brown winkers remind me so much of one of parents at that age and you know Grandmas and Papas are very prone to falling under the spell of the huge puppy dog looks grandbabies can give. The following morning a couple more of our kids arrived for brunch with oldest and youngest grandbabies. We try to get together this way as often as possible. Not only do we get to enjoy our kids and grandbabies, the grandbabies get to enjoy a strong family support system. I think it is wonderful that our grandbabies do play dates together and get lots of interaction so not only are the cousins they are friends, just as their parents are friends with their sibs. All in all there were many blessings all around!
My comments: This email has been circulating throughout Ontario and each time Dalton McGuinty adds another tax or does something else behind closed doors it is added to. What isn't mentioned in this email is how Dalton McGuinty evoked an ancient law to give police extra powers during the G20 Summit in Toroto which results in a huge abuse of police power stripping Canadian citizens of their constitutional rights and freedoms, turning Toronto into a police state. This has resulted in several lawsuits against the Toronto Police that will ultimately end up costing Ontarians millions of dollars. Dalton McGuinty's actions with respect to the G20 brought both shame and shock from Ontarians as well as the rest of the world. It is very important to remind Ontarians of the negative effect Dalton McGuinty has had on this province since becoming Premier of Ontario. Thanks to Dalton McGuinty's leadership Ontario has gone to hell in a handbasket! Re-electing him would be a horrible crime against Ontario.
-----
PLEASE READ, PASS ON AND REMEMBER NEXT ELECTION. THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT:
Here is what our Premier has done for Ontario in the past seven years. Remember...he had a no tax increase election message/campaign:
He has increased all the licensing fees from your car to your boat including fishing and hunting.
He introduced the health care premium (not called a tax) and some couples pay as much as $1,500.00 a year.
He has put an ECO tax on many containers such as paint cans and window washer fluid most and people still don’t realize it until they see the bill - he kept that one real quiet.
He put a disposal tax on all electronics.
He put the disposal tax back on tires.
And now he has passed the HST tax - the largest tax on the province ever and the only other tax in Ontario that ever came close to this in the past was the health care premium. He passed this bill even though 76% of the people in Ontario were against it.
This HST will provide the Province with an additional THREE BILLION dollars a year.
Soon, July 15th, we will all have our S.M.A.R.T. Meters on which we will have to pay perpetual rent and will end up doing our laundry in the middle of the night. We are also going to pay big time for air conditioning from now on because when we need it the most it will be in the prime time of usage.
Let us not forget the E-health scandal with 1.2 billion dollars wasted and paid out to friends and relatives. What was Mr. McGuinty's answer to this? “ Well, if the people of Ontario don't like it, they can show it in the next election.” Nice attitude. This after he fired the CEO and then gave her a severance package of $300,000 - not bad for only being on the job for seven months.
And what about the SEVEN BILLION DOLLARS windmill power plant contract that he awarded to KOREA ? One would think there was some place in Canada or North America that could have built these.
He also closed the emergency rooms in Port Colburne and Fort Erie because there is not enough money. There have been two deaths since then because by the time they got to St. Catharine's it was too late.
But he then awards a hospital in Toronto three million dollars - of course, that was in the riding where there just happens to be a by-election to replace George Smitherman!
He has taken the richest most prosperous province in Canada down to one of the 'Have-Nots' and, over the past six & one half years, has increased the budget deficit from $5.6 Billion dollars to TWENTY SEVEN BILLION DOLLARS and he still has a year and a half to go.
And don’t forget his nice little salaryincrease of $40,000.00 a year - millions of people in the province don’t earn even half of that.
Have we forgotten all the MPP’S who also got a 14% increase? And now that they've had their increases he comes out with a new budget to freeze all provincial employees wages for two years - a bit late don't you think.
He increased the hydro tax by 10% in April of 2010.
He has increased the tax on liquor and wine by 10% in May of 2010.
He continues to permantently 'Blight' landscapes across the province with unsightly wind turbines.
But, Mr. McGuinty will retire with his nice comfortable pension and all his benefits paid.
I hope this gets passed around the province of Ontario and everybody remembers the way we got screwed by Mr. McGuinty and the Liberal party and - remember - not one Liberal MPP had enough guts to vote against any of the above.
Wake up Ontario ....!!
And all pensioners got no raise at all over the past 18 months!!!!!!!!!
Some mornings I'm exactly as pictured - LOL. Honestly those are the days I'm behind before even getting up and it takes me until noon to wake up enough to function. Today is one of those days! I can't even think enough to tweet on Twitter. It's the tell tale signs of the busiest time for canning. The night before I was up late canning the third hamper of tomatoes this season. In return I have 7 L, 5 - 500 ml and 1 - 250 ml jar of gorgeous fire roasted Italian pasta sauce with mushrooms. Then I was up early yesterday to get things ready for a dinner party we were hosting. I've managed to get a good part of the cleanup done this morning from last night's party just by puttering here and there for a few minutes at a time. The dishwasher just finished running so will be ready to empty shortly. I still have to label the jars of sauce that are still on the counter then they can be moved to the pantry. Home canned foods should sit undisturbed for 24 hours once out of the canner to avoid and detect any sealing problems. I have a small amount of hand washing to do then once that is all put away I can do a final wipe down through the kitchen and it will be ready for the kids and grandbaby when they get here for dinner. They are staying with us for a couple of days so that should be quite enjoyable.
I am a wife, mother and grandma who enjoys the many aspects of homemaking. A variety of interests and hobbies combined with travel keep me active. They reflect the importance of family, friends, home and good food.
"I have called this principle, by which
each slight variation, if useful, is preserved,
by the term Natural Selection." —Charles Darwin from "The Origin of Species"
