Busy Wednesday

My day started early with my Doctor's appointment. Although it was scheduled for 10:30, I sat in the waiting room for a good 30 minutes before I was called in. This has never happened before.  We discussed the results of my blood tests 2 weeks ago. My thyroid medication dosage has been increased, but everything else will remain the same for the time being. I need to watch my diet and do some exercise. Seriously. I got my Shingles vaccine at no cost to me.

Afterwards, I stopped by my friend's apartment (abdominal surgery) and hung two drapery panels for her. I had to take down the drapery rods from two windows to hang an extra panel on each of them. It took about an hour. She gifted me with a plate of fresh baked peanut butter cookies, (Yum) and a small photo album.

 

Bulk Barn purchases cost $60.95

Two full containers of oatmeal, more whole wheat flour, more red kidney beans, and brown sugar. In the first row, black beans, walnuts, beef bouillon powder, Thompson raisins, shelf stable Parmesan cheese, more black beans, Romano beans, chili powder, Yeast and Splenda packets. It always looks like more when it is put away in containers.

Giant Tiger Specials of the week cost me $14.26

Canned mushrooms (77 cents each), Old cheddar and Mozzarella block cheese ($3.87 each) a black Forest ham for $4.98

Watercolouring

 

 

 

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I started my day in the Craft room getting rid of those piles of paper I showed you the other day. The card stock was already sorted by colour, so I just slipped each pile into a clear 12 x 12 envelope. The printed papers were a mix of card stock and paper, so I sorted those down further and placed each into a clear envelope. Once my table was again cleared off, I proceeded to stamp and do some water colouring. I painted three mason jars with flowers (one is already mailed out as a "thank you" card), and I also painted these little squirrels to make two more Thanksgiving cards for the weekend. I mailed out four cards today.

This was a no-spend day. It was also a no project day. I only did the dishes this morning and made a stir fry for dinner tonight. The rest of the time was crafting.

Daybook: Monday, October 3/16

Outside my window.....it is overcast and wet. It rained last night, but we have mild temperatures around 20 degrees Celsius. If the sun comes out and dries this all up, it will be perfect weather for working outside.

I am thinking......that I may have been too ambitious in expecting I can get all of my goals accomplished for October, but it will give my direction some focus.

I am thankful.....for my Sweeties scratch ticket winnings yesterday offsetting the cost somewhat of the new printer we "needed" to buy.

From the kitchen.....I made a large pot of homemade turkey soup yesterday that should last all week. I also made crock pot lasagna (or lazy lasagna) from the Company's Coming cookbook, for supper last night. There are leftovers to enjoy. I used tomatoes from the garden.

I am wearing.....jeans, a tan coloured T-shirt with deer on the front, and gray fuzzy socks. I am such a fashionista.

I am creating.....Thanksgiving cards.

I am going.....with my husband at noon to the Kingston hospital for his prostate biopsy.

I am hoping.....that the biopsy goes well. An appointment has already been scheduled for the 25th of this month to discuss the results. I am also hoping for some relief for his leg pain that has been particularly bad this past couple of weeks.

I am hearing....only the filters working on the aquarium. The dishwasher has just finished the dry cycle on a load of dishes I have done already this morning. The dog and cats are sleeping, as is my Sweetie, He did not sleep well last night.

Around the house.....there is lots of work to be done, both inside and outside. Good thing I have some goals in mind. I have to clear off my work table so I can begin wrapping the little gifts I have so far for the Advent Calendars.

One of my favourite things.....evidentally, is my printer. I never realized how often I use it or how much I depend on it, until I no longer had one.

A few plans for the rest of the week......include  an appointment on Wednesday with my own doctor to get my Shingles vaccine and discuss the results of my blood work from a couple of weeks ago. Oh-oh. Having already checked my results on-line, I know that my thyroid, sugar and lipids are high. She has already increased my thyroid medication in the interim, but now I am sure she will want to run another glucose test. My sugar has always run high. Or maybe she wants to discuss my diet, since I must be eating too much fatty or starchy foods for those results. Before or after the appointment, I will stop at my friend's apartment (abdominal surgery) to hang another drapery panel in her living room where the air conditioner was up until now.
 This weekend is our Canadian Thanksgiving, so we will be going to Smith Falls on Sunday to celebrate with my brother, SIL and two nieces. Then on Monday, we have a standing invitation every year to celebrate with our good friends in Charleston Lake. Their son and his new bride will be there, having just returned from their honeymoon in France and Corsica.

Here is a picture I am sharing......of  some of our new purchases from yesterday. A new printer and some art supplies. I bought glitter paper in Christmas colours, 20 foil sheets, burlap sheets, more adhesive rhinestones, and two rolls of adhesive tape.

Goals Update

What happened to my nice clear worktable??

My goals for September were:

I would like to finish organizing and cleaning my Craft Room.

I did this more or less to my satisfaction. And then yesterday, I proceeded to work through several boxes of scrap paper and sorted by colour. I want to be able to use up these scraps before I use any more full sheets of card stock. I also want to make up some cards using scraps of design paper. Waste not, want not.  I did manage to empty a lot of boxes.

I want to wash all the windows both inside and outside. 

I successfully washed all the windows on the main level, inside and outside including frames and tracks. I will tackle the rest of the windows upstairs when I deep clean each room. 

 

I want to remove all weeds from the veggie bed and move more strawberry plants out of the garden into the bins.

This is the goal that sort of fell by the wayside. I am still harvesting veggies from the garden, but I have spent two afternoons this past month pulling weeds. I did not move any strawberry plants into planters, but hope to do more this week, as temperatures will be in the low 20's. 

 

 Each week I would like to report on these areas: cleaning, organization and purging,  my spending, crafting, maintenance and preparedness. 

Although I was doing this more than once a week at the beginning of September, I began doing less of it by the second half of the month as the deadline loomed for getting my other goals done on time. I should probably pick one day...perhaps a Friday, to report on those areas.

My goals for October:

• spend time outdoors every week pruning shrubs, mowing the lawn and/or pulling weeds
• deep clean the dining room
• deep clean the living room
• deep clean the master bedroom and bath
•  spend time every week doing crafts, paying special attention to Christmas gifts 

There you have it. I hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew. The most important goal is to have most of the Advent Calendars done, so the last one is the one I will concentrate on. 

October's Shopping Trips

Yesterday, late in the afternoon, my Sweetie and I went for the first shop of October. We went to one grocery store (Freshco) where I thought they had the most specials on my list.

Sundries (non-food items) cost me $31.70

 The parchment paper and medium freezer bags were not on sale, so I bought the store brand. Notice also that I have bought another laundry detergent. That is because I still haven't picked up any washing soda. The last two stores I have looked for it but cannot find it. I also need it to make my Miracle Spray all-purpose cleaner, which I am running low on. I will try No-Frills later this week. 

Meat cost $22.20. 

 The eye of round was on for $2.77/lb. and the Italian sausage was $3.00/lb. The roast was cut into 3 chunks before I put it in the freezer.

Dairy totaled $12.89

 I was happy to find Becel Vegan margarine here at Freshco. I have always had to make a special trip to get this for my daughter before her visits, or to take her any baking. Now I will be able to buy it all the time.  I also bought plain yoghurt with active culture, so I can try to make my own yoghurt with my new machine I got last weekend. 

Pantry items (and that bag of Tostitos, haha) cost $17.94

Produce and juice cost me $9.48

This is where I got my biggest savings. The 10 lb. bag of carrots, potatoes, and onions each cost $1.97
The tins of DelMonte Veggies were .79 cents each, so I bought a case of peas. I may go back for niblets corn. The rutabaga was 59 cents a pound. The bananas were regular price of 56 cents a pound. But the orange juice (ahem Nathalie and Bless) believe it or not, was on sale for $4.49, a savings of $1.20. OJ is very expensive. I bought 2 loaves of Villagio bread for $4.58 (not pictured) for a total grocery receipt of $115.97  My savings due to sale items amounted to $46.30  I have not picked up my Shopper's gift card yet for this month.

Today, my Sweetie and I went out again to spend lots of money. Drat! Our printer is definitely finito. Staples had a sale on printers this weekend, so we went to check it out. We ended up buying a Canon (the ink cartridges appear to be slightly cheaper than other printers), two new cartridges, a $10  2 yr. warranty,  and some more printer paper for a total of $170......an unplanned expense this month.  We also stopped at the Dollar Tree for me to pick up some more 2-way tape for my crafting; but of course, I found a few more crafting items that appealed to me (though totally unnecessary), for under $10

While my son and his GF were setting up the printer for us, I went out to the garden to harvest more vegetables and my Sweetie went to the  Pop-In store to cash in a $5 winning lottery ticket. He bought 2 more tickets with his winnings, and won $100  instantly on a scratch ticket. He  gave me $60, so the price of the printer was only $110, and he kept $40 for his mad money to buy more lottery tickets. It should last him a couple of months. *laugh* 

From the Craft Room

I made four Thanksgiving cards today for my grandchildren

 

 

I maybe should have wrapped Advent calendar gifts this morning; but going into my Craft Room to do some crafting, I chose to make cards. Since Thanksgiving is coming up very soon, I decided to start making some cards for my grandchildren. It has been a while. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. No housework got done today. I vacuumed through the downstairs yesterday and got all the laundry folded and put away, so I didn't feel very much guilt. However, all that crafting wore me out. After a late lunch, I crashed and burned, sleeping for two hours this afternoon. So there is nothing to blog about today. Maybe I will have more tomorrow. Have a great weekend everyone.

The Big Reveal

No this is not the before photo. This is indeed my finished project. I can almost hear some of you gasping and thinking to yourselves, "This is what she ended up with after working on it for over a month?  I can't imagine what it was like before she started."  And you would be right to think that. You wouldn't have wanted to see it before. I hated to be in there. I could barely find anything. Also keep in mind that I brought more stuff into this room from an upstairs bedroom where I kept all my wrappings and gift boxes. 

 

 

Walking into this room and turning right, this is what you see. It is a long narrow room with a window straight ahead, a sliding patio door behind me, and four windows overlooking the back yard to the left of me. There is a long work table to the left overlooking the back yard. My paper shelves are above one end of the table. To the right in this photo is a kitchen cabinet with two drawers and two cupboards and a deep counter space. My Cricut die cutting machine sits on top. Beyond that is a tall glass cabinet.

This is where I keep my Cricut cartridges on the top shelf.  The bottom shelf holds beads and jewellery findings and jewellery making tools. etc.  The two cardboard drawers on top hold sewing notions,   floral wires and tape and other non-paper supplies.

There is a desk top that pulls down to give me some space for making my jewellery. The two shelves below this pull down desk top, houses all my scrapbooks.

To the left of that tall cabinet is one of my freezers with a shelf above that to hold my craft and fabric paints, spray adhesive, Modge Podge, finishing sprays, etc. It is also where we store our extension cords. Beside the freezer, my son and my hubby keep various lengths of trim, lumber (for making guitars) and sections of board, because this just isn't my Craft room, it is the all-purpose junk room.  Between the freezer and the tall glass cabinet is a rolling cart with narrow shelves that holds a lot of specialty items. The blue shelves on top hold blades, confetti, glitter and sequins (tiny things).

I cannot make this pretty. On the floor in front of this window are lots and lots of frames that I have to deal with someday...just not now. Beside that is an area that is covered in a white tablecloth. I have placed a section of arborite on top of 3 covered bins. The bins contain photos and scrapbooks from family members that are not with us any longer. I have become the "family" historian and I want to scan these to discs or memory sticks to share with other family members. Those are long term projects. On top of the counter is a place to hold other projects in the works.

Between these last two windows are the beautiful shelves my Sweetie built me to hold my card stock and printed loose 12 x 12 inch scrapbook paper. They are sorted by colour. Yellow card stock is on the same shelf as the predominantly  yellow 12 x 12  papers.

My worktable is six feet long...plenty of room to spread out. Underneath the table are all sorts of bins and containers that contain stickers, tools, embellishments, punches, etc. I have so much stuff I just can't get rid of. I did donate a lot, including a full bin of silk flowers. The back of the table holds containers of ribbons, diecuts, adhesives, artist's brushes and daubers.

Looking back at the entrance to this room and on the right hand side is an electric fireplace. This room needs a little extra heat in the winter, because of all the windows and because it faces North. We painted the walls a pale and cheery yellow. In a few days I will need to bring in some houseplants that have spent the summer on the veranda. I will re-pot my lovely red shamrocks and keep them on top of the fireplace mantle. Above the mantle beside the patio door is a hanging bookcase. Right now it holds my hubby's Stephen King collection, but I would like to move those out of here and put my own craft books on those shelves. 

 

On the other side of the sliding glass doors, in the last corner of the room, is the stuff that does not belong to me. All of this belongs to my son and his GF, who have to deal with it by purging, storing in the basement or placing it upstairs in one of the other two rooms they have taken over. They wanted their own crafting space and I have given it to them. There is a square table under that lot. If they want the overhead shelf, which I suspect they do, I will place the 3 red photo boxes on a shelf at the opposite end of the room. They can also keep bins in the corner under the table. 

 

 

 

So I am really happy with how this arrangement is working out for me. Everything is in one room and I know where all my supplies are. There are a couple of sitting work areas and one standing work area. There is room to spread out and I can close the door and hide it all until I want to come back to it. Was it worth all the time and energy I put into it? Absolutely. I hope you are duly impressed. *laugh*