Updates...

Two sunny days in a row? Yahoo!

Tuesday afternoon I went out in my paddle boat - beautiful! The day turned out to be spectacular and so we spent a good portion of the day outside, and/or on the deck. I went out fishing with Bern - I don’t actually fish, but I got a great little movie of the Great Blue Heron. Mom even came out and sat on the swing with me for awhile in the evening. Yesterday was sunny but breezy, so we didn’t go out much. Mom and I have been sitting up to all hours watching the Olympics. After tonight (the ladies all around gymnastics gold medal), I think we’ll stop doing that!!! Today, we’re going into Burks Falls to get groceries, do laundry and go to the library to check email and put these little blog-gems onto the net.

Oh, I have to put this in...especially for Bev (she's my inspiration for putting together dessert without a recipe!). We ran out of everything "good" to eat and weren't planning to go shopping for a couple of days, so I thought....hmmmmm, when Bev was here she made a cake and put raspberries on it and she didn't even use a cake mix. Well, I decided to try it. I mixed up some butter and sugar, threw in a couple of eggs, added some flour and milk and baking powder - and what do you know? It came out cake!!!! Everybody was very impressed - including me! I sprinkled brown sugar and cinnamon on it and threw on some raisins, too. Yummy!

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

From water-logged northern Ontario!

In one week of being up here, we’ve seen the sun (briefly) maybe three times! And, when I say it rained, I don’t mean steady, sprinkle-y rain, I mean torrents of the Noah and the Ark kind of rain!! We are soggy up here! During one of the rain-breaks, I got some great footage of the mother duck and her four little ducklings down by the dock - so cute!!!

On the brighter side (because there always is one, you know), I’ve been able to get lots of scrapbooking done. It’s such a pleasure to have all my supplies handy and spread all over the table. I have my laptop and printer at one end and the rest of the table is covered. To the untrained eye, it might look like a big mess, but to a fellow-scrapper, it looks like Heaven! Anyway, last summer at the cottage is fast becoming one of my favourite scrapbooks. We had so much company - it was lovely! Mom has been reading and reading - she's having a great time, too!

We are getting to watch all the Olympics, too. But, beach volleyball? I remember playing a rousing game of volleyball in my backyard a few weeks ago. The only difference was we played on grass - not sand. Oh, and of course, we were all dressed!! Also, the ball touched the grass more often than it touched any of us. Just a few differences, huh? Maybe we’re not quite ready for the Olympics.

Last night was the men’s gymnastics - wasn’t that great? Those American boys came away with a Bronze medal when they weren’t expecting to even make it to the podium. The Chinese guys were awesome, too. And, how about Michael Phelps? He’s a regular swimming machine - how does he go so fast??? The Canadian women’s softball team won their game against Chinese Teipei last night (6-2). Tonight we get to watch the Women’s gymnastics - hurray!

Today it’s sunny (scattered clouds, but we’re ignoring those) and a little breezy. It’s still too cold for Mom to go out in the paddle boat. As I’m typing this, the Loon is calling - how lovely! Bern is fishing and Mom is sleeping on the couch (we were up very late last night).

Thursday, August 07, 2008

I really need to catch up! Mom and I drove up to the cottage on Monday. It was a lovely drive - sunshine most of the way with only a few cloudy periods. We just took our time and counted our blessings as we watched the southbound cottage traffic - bumper to bumper to bumper! Bern followed in the truck. Once we got everything unpacked, we settled in for our month of R & R.

Bern struggled to cut the grass on Tuesday, but our poor old mower has seen better days. It finally gave up the ghost. We’ll need to look for another one. Also, the bottom element in my oven quit working. I had made a peach pie and was waiting and waiting for the oven to pre-heat - nothing was happening! I decided to use the convection oven in my microwave to cook the pie, but without the book that came with the nuker, I was only guessing on how to do it. The top came out lovely.

Herman and Judy came by on Tuesday evening. Judy had baked a peach pie, too and they offered it in exchange for hot showers! More than a fair exchange in my opinion. We were enjoying the pie when the sky absolutely opened and buckets of water poured down for about an hour and a half. We sat out on the deck watching the lightning and rain and cringing from the booming thunder - it was GREAT!

Wednesday, we scooted over to Huntsville to get a new stove element and to look at lawn mowers - just a quick trip! We got the element with no problems - whew! Lawn mowers at Home Depot were quite pricey so we decided to look in WalMart, for the heck of it. Well, wouldn’t you know it, Bern found one he really liked and it was on special, too. The only problem was that they didn’t have any in stock. The good thing was that there was one coming in at 7:00 a.m. today on the transport truck. They wouldn’t let him pay for it yesterday - he had to get up at 6:00 a.m., drive to Huntsville and buy it when the store opened. Anyway, by 8:00 a.m. he was back with his new toy.

Remember the peach pie I cooked in the convection oven? I am so, so glad I didn’t offer it to Herman and Judy when they came over!!! The bottom wasn’t cooked at all. I tossed it into the oven (with the new element) and let it cook another half hour and it turned out pretty good after all.

I got out my scrapbooking stuff and have completed another page - I still have a long way to go, though! Mom is waiting for the PGA Championship to start. I guess I’ll stop scrapping for a while and watch it with her. Oh, this morning a mother duck and her four little ones came by the dock. I threw them some bird seed and watched them for awhile - they were so cute, especially when they turned bottoms-up to get the seeds that sank under the water. Tomorrow morning, I’ll take my camera down there.