Productive Weekend

This weekend was a very productive weekend for Ryan and I. I must admit that you get a great feeling of satisfaction from getting "chores" done around the homestead. Even though our homestead is not of large acreage there is always "stuff" that needs to be done.

We started out the weekend with the greatest hopes of getting our Christmas lights down. Yes, I know we are one of those families. You know, the people's house who you drive by in March and say, "Can't they take their lights down!". Well, we have good excuses, believe me! We were away for most of January with our trips to California and Hawaii and then February was very snowy, and I did not think it was safe to venture upon the roof top with snow, especially since my father feel off the ladder this last fall and ended up with a concussion. So, we waited until March, and this was the weekend. So we got the lights down. You know, it is the strangest thing about strangers in your neighbourhood. When Ryan was on the roof, this older gentleman was standing in our lane way just starring at us. Not just a slight stop as he walked by, I am talking about standing in the center of our lane way starring for like 5 minutes. I finally said "hello" to him as I was walking to and from the garage and such, putting stuff away. Then he makes his way to the front of our house and stands at our main sidewalk and again stares for minutes. Finally Ryan comes off the roof and this stranger yells out to Ryan for conversation. Now, don't get me wrong, I am a nice person and I enjoy talking to our neighbours and such, but this was to be our "productive weekend" and here was this stranger talking to my husband for 45 minutes. I went up to hear what the conversation was all about and to tell you the truth I haven't a clue what he was talking about. But this is the thing that blew me away. Here is a complete stranger, standing on MY property, talking to MY husband and using vulgar language. He was saying common swear words to Ryan when I stood there, so I just walked away. It baffled me that people think that talking that way is acceptable and that they are so bold to do so to a complete stranger. Ryan was shocked at that as well. I finally managed to get Ryan back from this man so we could get back to work.

We then put out our summer furniture and then decided it was time to head to the local Lowe's to pick up some needed stuff for the house.
We had decided that we were going to redo the main bathroom's floor this weekend. When we had bought this house there was carpet laid over really dated tile flooring. Now carpet is okay, since we don't use that bathroom that much but I wanted it gone. I am not a carpet fan, especially in a bathroom where sometimes people seem to not get certain things in a certain round bowl. So, we worked on the floor and we got it finished. We were quite happy with the results! Here is a semi before and an after shot. I forgot until half way through that I should have taken a before photo. You can see the old tile in this photo below and then the finished product below.

We also changed the shower head in that bathroom because it was so not water efficient. We tested it and it filled a gallon jug in 7 seconds, when it should take about 20 seconds. We are hoping this will help conserve hot water when we have people over.

We also cleaned out the fireplace, replaced old light bulbs, and put up some Easter decorations outside the house. I guess we went from Christmas to Easter decorations in the same day.

Ryan and I also got to enjoy a nice spring walk yesterday for about an hour. It was so nice and fresh out! Today is supposed to be 70 degrees. My friend Heidi is coming over with her kids and we are going to go for a walk. I am looking forward to this.

Hope everyone is having a great day! Talk to you soon.

Nothing too new

Well, I really haven't much exciting news to share today. I worked all weekend which was pretty busy.
Ryan's Dad and Uncle Paul were here for a college hockey tournament. They went and saw four games this weekend at the Joe Louis. I think this is about the 3rd year that they have been going to this. Usually, Ryan's mom comes and we get to hang out while they go to the arena, but this year I had to work so that didn't happen.
Today I have cleaned the house and am working on laundry.
I am so excited about tonight's premiere of "Dancing with the Stars". I love this show.
Anyways, hope all is well with you all. Talk to you soon.

Winter's protest to my blog

This is what I woke up to this morning. Obviously winter did not like my last post.
Have a great day!

Good Bye Snow, Hello Spring

Check out how our snow has melted over the past weekend. In the previous post, you will see the comparison to how much snow my parent's have.

Both Ryan and I are ready for spring to come. We are eager for fresh air and sunny days!

Good Bye Winter, Hello Spring time!

Emily Turns 9

This weekend, Ryan and I went home for Miss Emily's 9th birthday party. This is our oldest niece and it hard to believe she is already 9!

She had a great weekend. On Saturday, she had a pool party with 15 of her friends. We had pizza and cake after they got to swim for an hour. Then she slept over at Nana's and Papa's with Ryan and I. The next day, after church we took her and her brother Matthew skating. Matthew has a love for hockey, as most young boys do. So Ryan took him for his first skating lesson this weekend. He did pretty good for a 3 year old that has never been on skates before. He says he is going to pay hockey and "I win it".

We then picked up some Chinese take out and had another party for Emily at Nana's and Papa's. It was a great weekend all in all, very busy but we got to spend time with the kids which is always fun.

Ryan with Miss Jillian

I love this photo. Emily got these Easter Bunny earrings from one of her friends at her party. Here she is reading her card and Matthew has taken interest in them. Emily didn't even notice Matthew touching them.

Nana and Jillian

Matthew and me

The Best Chocolate Pecan Pie

Okay girls. Here it is. The recipe that I have been asked for by so many and have procrastinated to keep some power over you all. But, in honor of the "Blog Party" I thought I would share with you one of my secret recipes courtesy of my pal Martha.

Chocolate Pecan Pie
All-purpose flour, for work surface
Your own recipe for pie dough
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup dark corn syrup
2 cups of pecan halves
4 ounces bittersweet baking chocolate (Ghirardelli 60 % cacao), chocolate

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out dough to a 15 inch round. With a dry pastry brush, sweep off the excess flour, fit dough into a 9 1/2- inch glass pie plate, pressing it into the edges. Trim to a 1-inch overhang all around. Fold under overhang so it extends slightly beyond the edge of the pie plate. Crimp edge as desired. Cover with plastic wrap; chill pie shell until firm, about 30 minutes.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, butter, vanilla and almond extracts to combine. Add the sugar, mix until incorporated. Ad corn syrups, and mix until thoroughly combined. Using a rubber spatula, stir in pecans and chocolate.
3. Pour filling into prepared pie shell, and bake until filling is set, 50-55 minutes. Cool on a wire rack at least 20 minutes before serving.

I made this for our Thanksgiving party and it was one of the hits. Enjoy!

Blog party

Come join the party!
Happy Partying!

Our New Lamp

Last night after Ryan got home, we went out to check out a floor lamp that I saw in the Linen and Things flyer. We decided to purchase it and it was yet another "put it together yourself" project. As we are checking out, I say to Ryan "Hey another thing to put together." Ryan smirks at me with memories of our not so long ago coffee table issues. The lady at the counter smiles and says to us, "It will only take a couple of minutes". We laugh as we are leaving thinking to ourselves, you haven't seen us work lady.
Well, we made no mistakes on this one and we got it together in a relatively short period of time. Under 1 hour. Ryan commented as we were putting it together that it was going too smoothly. We just giggled and hoped for an alright outcome.
So here it is, our new lamp for the living room. It does add a nice ambiance to the room, we decided it makes the room feel warmer. It has two lights, one facing up and one shining down onto the shelves. Pretty nice eh?

The murder in small town Michigan

Over the past month, we have been following the story about Tara Lynn Grant. Many of you may have heard about this. Tara Lynn was reported to be missing on February 14th by her husband. Her husband had claimed that they had had a fight and had last seen her getting into a dark sedan at the end of their lane way on February 9th. It took him 5 days to report her missing though. This past weekend we learned that her husband Stephen Grant had murdered her in their family home with their two children sleeping, had dismembered her body and placed her body in a local park. On Friday, when they had finally gotten enough evidence to search his home, they found her torso in their garage. During this search of their home, Stephen Grant took the family dog for a walk, and slipped out of sight. Then ensued a search for the missing murderer. He fled to Northern Michigan where he ran through the woods of a State Park for hours and was finally caught by Police. He was hospitalized for a day in which he confessed to the murder of his wife.
Our entire community has been interested by this story. I can't help but feel helpless when thinking about it. I can't understand what leads someone to act this way. My prayers go out to Tara Lynn's family, her parents, sister and her two children.
Psalm 23, verse 6
Surely goodness and love with follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
Please pray for the family of Tara Lynn.

14 pounds and the favorite old jeans

Here he is! I am so proud of him! Ryan has lost 14 pounds, and has 6 more to go to reach his goal of 20. He is so dedicated and does not stray from his goal. I have lost 6 pounds, which is fine with me because I am not really trying to lose any weight.
Anyways, here he is in the old college gap carpenter jeans. I absolutely love these jeans on him and have many fond memories of him bustin a grove at Stages in these fine jeans. They were actually in the donation bin and we pulled them out today and they are back in the rotation of jeans again. Don't you guys love how I added the scale to the photo to make it an action shot. I know we are nerds.
This picture is also for my mother in law to see with her own eyes that I am not malnourishing her young son. He looks pretty good don't you think? Keep up the good work Ry!

5 Reasons why I Blog

Ok, so I was tagged by my bud Leanne, and after much investigating on what a "meme" is and figuring out what I am supposed to do, yeh I am a little slow today, I realized that I am supposed to give 5 reasons as to why I blog.
So, here they are, drum roll please.

1. To Keep in touch. This is my number one reason that I blog. As most of you know, I live in the far away country of United states from my homeland of Canada, a whole 2 hours from home, so blogging allows me to keep in touch with some friends back home and for them to keep in touch with me.

2. Journaling. I had been wanting to start a journal of my daily life. Ryan's Granny keeps a written journal and I bet it would be quite a read. I wanted a spot where I could write aimlessly and free my brain of my silly daily tasks and thoughts. You know, I even bought a journal a while back in preparation for this event, and started to fill it with recipes. There is something easier about typing a blog and being able to add pics when I felt like it.

3. To read about other's lives and realize that we all have similar daily life struggles and to see their perspective on these daily events. To get advice, new recipes and lots of laughter in one spot is a great deal.

4. It keeps me out of trouble, I am grasping here for another reason.

5. For fun. Need I say more, it is fun.

Now I am going to tag only 2 blogs because I only really read 3 blogs and Leanne has already done this.
Janalynn's website: Today I chose joy: www.babymenter.blogspot.com

Nat's website: Live, Laugh and Love: http://www.rebelofamily.blogspot.com/

"Snapped liked matchsticks"

Today my parents are without hydro as the hydro poles on their road, specifically the poles going up the hill to the south of their house, "snapped like matchsticks". I spoke to my mom this morning and the road is closed as the poles are laying on the road. The power went out about midnight last night. The pole in their yard did not fall down, but the group to the south of them did fall down. Pretty impressive the power of mother nature. I checked the hydro website for them to see when their hydro was to be restored and it said by noon today. However, my mom says no one has even come to work on the poles, so this is unlikely.

Old friends, new friends, and the life friend

The addiction of facebook has hit me. This website is crazy addicting. When I first got the emails that someone wanted me to be a member on this site I didn't really know what it was, but now I have been enjoying finding some of my old friends that I haven't seen or heard of in many years.

There is something comforting about an "old friend". Those friends that you shared 5 years of your day to day life with during your adolescent years. For me, my high school friends are probably the closest group of friends that I have. I keep in touch with some of the girl friends through their blogs (by the way another great invention), we have a yearly Christmas get together at Patti's and we just start off where we have left. Our relationships are true and sincere and I love seeing them. I wish that I could see them more often. You guys wanna come over sometime for a girls retreat??

Then there are the group of friends who you shared your young adulthood with. The people who you lived with in your first home away from homes, your University friends. Now this is a group of friends that I shared many late nights dancing and laughing uncontrollably. Many late night study trips to the library, and just time spent living together in our own rental student house in the ghetto. I must admit that I have lost track of many of these friends but this facebook thingy has allowed me to find some of these old friends. A lot of our friends live in Toronto and they have seem to still socialize together so we do hear about them, but not much from them. This does make me sad. We are getting ready for Ryan's 5 year reunion this fall at University so, hopefully we will rekindle some old friendships during this weekend.

Since moving to a new country, we have found it very hard to make new friends. Michigan is a very family oriented state. Most people don't go far from home when they move out of their childhood homes, so family and high school friends make a large circle of friends for people. We joined a softball league in hopes of making friends which didn't happen. We often go to church, but the congregations are so large that no one realizes that we are newcomers, so we haven't meet people that way. And to top it all off, we do travel home very frequently so we maybe aren't available to meet and spend time with new people. So that is something I want to work at - making more new friends.

Then there is your life friend, your life partner, your husband/wife. For me Ryan was a great friend before we even started to date. We has become close friends where we would hang out and enjoy each others company before we even thought of each other in any significance. Ryan is definitely my best friend. He knows me inside out and without him I would be lost. I am so thankful for my friendship in Ryan in which we will grow together in our life journey.

Here is one of my favorite friendship quotes. I actually used this in my high school graduation blurb in the yearbook, and then it was used in relation to Ryan and I on our wedding day;

"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words."