I think we might be moving on

The weather is warming up and just maybe the builders might get out of their man caves.  Apparently the hugest glitch was our shower stall. It has to come into the  house before anything else is done.  They installed the wrong one and another had to be ordered.  Fuck.  It is here now.  Now let's see if things will progress in a ordially  fashion. 

We are having second thoughts about the windows in front of the house and will be meeting with the window guy tomorrow. Have no fear...we won't be changing anything up until we know the change order price.  I think we are over guessing stuff  because it has taken so long. 

If you want to follow along with building our dream home  it's over here House. 

I just want to live there  ......NOW....but not just yet.  Good things come to those that wait they say..... Yeah. 

Balonie: Making faces at them.  Gord found a button on the back of our Exlorer today we never knew was there.  It opens the window without opening the entire back door.  My ass fit there perfectly.  I mooned.

Just so you know

I transferred the cartoon from She said .. He said over here and am going to delete the blog.  3 times now I have written a blog in the wrong blog spot. I was so frustrated the last time when I had to do it all over in the correct blog.  I tried to copy and paste but it didn't work.  So in order to protect myself from myself I will have keep it simple.

I have our family newsletter blog as well.  Twice I posted in there...yeah I know it was embarrassing heh.  Those would have been the times I dropped the F bomb.  Jeez.........

Now if you never see me again I have deleted the wrong blog.

Now go about your business.

I did a lot of photo shopping

Like I said before I don't like these windows in the front they are too small.

I photo shopped the whole thing and came up with a plan we are taking back to the window people. Now we have a better perspective of how things might look like. Take note I didn't photo shop all the snow off the roof.. and the roof didn't have shingles on it yet at that time. There still isn't any stucco or real brick on the front. It's still a work in process.

Can you see the difference?  All I did was bring  all the windows up because one of them is a bathroom window, and the sink would not let us go down further. Plus I changed out the windows with panes in them. 

I wish I could get a job playing around with pictures. I need to work on perspective a bit ... but I just do it by eyeballing it as you can see.

I'm sure the builder is going to roll his eyes and say....not you again!!!  Heh

Balonie... getting back to her normal ... whatever her normal was. 



Uh ohhhhh

I downloaded Picasa yesterday and could not believe all the pictures in my computer.  And thumbnails are large enough to see.  I am still on windows XP and when I go to get a picture I have to put my slimy little nose up to the screen to see the details.

I have been working on house plans all day.  We have made an error.  An error that will be expensive to correct. But I will give up something else to correct it. 

Let me tell you the story.  When we went window shopping I did not perceive how small the front window of the house were.  With the bedrooms and bathrooms facing the street we thought they should be small...well hell they were facing the street... right? nofuckingway. They are ugly. They look like port holes in a boat yet square.  The front of the house looks wrong.  I couldn't put my finger on it after they were installed...but now I got it.  They gotta go and be built larger.  Because some of them are bathroom windows you can't go down because the sinks etc.  But I am hoping on going higher and wider. 

yikes....

We are only in phase 1. 

So today I took out my old "Picture It" software that I used to use for scrap booking and manipulated the  picture of the house to look like I wanted it to look like. I'm still working on it.  It should look much better.

Give me another day...for the before and after the rethink. 

Saying goodbye a little at a time.

If you are wondering...

I am making a huge post about selling our house with pictures of each room as I get them cleaned up for resale.....and sometimes it makes me sad.  I will just put it on the back burner until I get it all done and get back to the day to day stuff.

Have a good weekend.

Busy day

Our window sills are in pretty bad shape on the inside of the house.  Last year the painter sanded them before painting them, but they still looked old ..  the windows are original to the house so I guess that is normal. 

Today I got the bright idea to put some shears in between the existing curtains. ( so I could confuse the buyer and they would not see what I was up to).  I  have the kind of curtains that sit on a rod with holes punched in them...type of thing. It looks pretty cool now.  Almost cozy. I have been resisting shears because I don't want to be labelled as old just yet...but by damn I love them. It's like fairyland in here.  And now that all the window sills have been photo shopped with my shears...we should sell this house at a premium price. Unless they open them up...duh..

Now I need help with the carpets.  They have stretched over the years...or the underlay has disintegrated.  I have little bubbles all over the place in my high traffic areas.  Any idea's.  I want to get them cleaned but am concerned that will make the problem worse. I will have to call a carpet cleaning company.

I never looked at my house through other peoples eyes before and now the little things are becoming very obvious.  Or maybe I just watch too much HGTV.  I know I have said that before.

I redid the bedroom today.  It looks like a picture on TV.  But by the time we actually get to move it will look like a dog's breakfast.  I'm getting really tired of this. 

Hopefully they will schedule the trades this week.  But I just heard it was supposed to get down to record low temps. 

The most frustrating part is ...when can we sell the house and know what our move in date is at with the new one?

Meanwhile I will be glossing over the house  inadequacies ... mit some paint ..shears... a little tears..

I was rather surprised to see all the wood in my background today

I must have been chopping wood in my sleep.  That is what I get for playing around. 

I baked bread today....hey hear me out ... I baked bread today! No shit.  I haven't tasted it yet, but it sure looks good.  I'm waiting for Gord to get home to taste it.

........much later

We had the bread and it was really good.  I wasn't even a door stopper...it was nice and light and good good tasting it only took a short while to make.  I have been so ticked off at the bread I have been buying at the stores lately.  And, yes I agree we should be using whole grains etc.  but give me a break this is my first loaf..or loaves.  I will try to incorporate all that stuff in there once I get a handle on the bread making. 

I will be making some toast tomorrow AM.  yummers...with strawberry jam.

I didn't do much this weekend.  I held up a Dollarama...only because they wouldn't take my credit card.  Did you know they only take cash or a debit card?  Bastards.

This is the pic I took in my get away car as I was speeding off the parking lot.  I didn't have a gun, all I said to the cashier was if my credit card isn't good enough for you guys... I'm taking my business elsewhere...so I did. Then I ran. 

So by this time you can see the weekend was pretty much a bust.  Other than making bread. 

I went to the new house and nothing is happening there either.  I took pictures but they look like the pictures I took the last time.  I guess it's been so cold nobody wants to work. Or cannot because of the cold.  I get that.  But finally the temps have gone up so I could at least walk around inside without freezing my bum off.  I walked around trying to visualize where my furniture would be.  Hard to do when all there is ... is frames. 

I am watching the Grammies as I am typing this.  All I have to say is if they would put more effort into SINGING  a song rather than trying to put on a light show with stupid crap in it...it would be worth watching. And the yelling!   I have no words..it is so stupid.  And to Lady Ga Ga....why do you dress in body armour?  Like somebody would really want to get in.... and Mick Jagger....nice workout.

I guess I have become my parents...when they said Elvis had ants in his pants. 

Now I have seen it all... Bob Dylan singing and doing a Newfie Jig. Has the world gone to hell in a hand basket?  Janis Joplin must be turning over in her grave.

I morn the music of the 70's and the artists.  I try to keep up with whats happening now  ... and there are some really good musicians, but most don't get recognized.

Now they are doing "Country"...I'm not a real country fan...but at least they sing and have real lyrics and I'm a sucker for a "hurting song."

Have to hit the hay....been a long day of bread making, stoking the fires, milking the cows, and sewing quilts. 

I'm on my third piece of bread a butter.  I'm rolling to bed.

Hey

The weather is changing and we might be a melting pot tomorrow.  I can't wait. 

I spent a lot of time shopping today.  I had some smelly people behind me in line at the check out.  They smelled like mothballs. 

I tried not to smell them but they kept on smelling.  I turned my head to the right and then to the left until I got dizzy and they just kept on making me smell them.  It was a long line up.  By the time I was in front I felt like I was going to faint.  It smelled like the stuff my dad used to put in our outhouse in the the summer to kill the smell ...Creosote I think it was called.

I remember my dad used to spray DDT in the outhouse.  Now it's a no no.  Hasn't killed me so far. It was lovely going into the outhouse after he sprayed....no more spiders... and little creatures.  You could just sit for awhile and enjoy last years Sears catalogue before you crunched a few pages up to wipe your ass.

I started a new blog

 Swimming with the fishes

Of course I will keep up this blog.

I thought I might document some of our most ridiculous conversations.  And let me tell you we have lots of them. 

Sometimes he is right and sometimes I am right...but mostly we are assholes trying find our own special way to communicate.

Join me there everyday.

Anyone got a light?

I am making spaghetti tonight. 

It's not going well.

I bought a jar of sauce.  I never do that, I always make my own.  This sauce promised that it was made of only the finest ingredients. It was a mushroom/tomato sauce. It had 4 different kinds of mushrooms in it, tomatoes from the finest vines ever invented, plus wine from the finest wineries ever invented. Before I forget it had olive oil from the finest olive oil factory ever invented.  From the smell of it ... and the teeny taste I took of it so far I would give it 1 out of 10. 

Unless you like the taste of the mould growing behind your bathroom walls. Or if you would cut a piece of the silicone off your tub and pop that into your mouth like fungus candy. 

The olive oil they used tasted much like WD40.  Are you asking if I tasted WD40?...hell yes!  Not really I just smell it a lot because we are old and everything needs a grease job around here.

Let's just call it their version of "earthy." 

What I call earthy is the smell of someone smoking a joint.  Which reminds me...Cheech and Chong are coming to Winnipeg soon.  I will make sure to get tickets.  I have to outlive them. But after we eat the fungus spaghetti... I am not so sure. I threw some ketchup in it.  Let's see if we can peel away some of that earthy flavour.

I hurt my back today at Safeway.  I am too lazy to get a cart and always take the basket at the door.  And of course I put a shit load of groceries in it.  By the time I hit the checkout I had put it down and I  shuffle it along the dirty floor with my feet. I felt the twinge in my hip a few times, but I just carried on.  Because I AM INVINCIBLE.  I am the old woman who used to "roar."  Trust me, I can still roar....but now it's becoming more of  a meow.  I roar in my head.  I don't want anyone to put me away. 

They might find out about balonie.  Then I will be goner.

My attention span needs an overhaul

Put a load of laundry in the dryer on Tuesday.

Forgot about it.

Wednesday I turned on the dryer to get all the wrinkles out.

Forgot about it.

Thursday, I turned the dryer on again to get the wrinkles out.

Forgot about it.

Friday, I forgot I even had anything in the dryer.

Saturday, I'm just leaving to go downstairs and turn on the dryer.

Sunday  ???

On my laptop

My template looked terrific. It was blue.  On my desktop it looks purple and ugly.  Oh my, I guess I will have to spend another winter's day fixing that.

My truck must be in menopause ... because it worked fine today.  She must have a few loose screws just like her mama. Nothing is more disconcerting when your truck keeps on trucking after you turn it off. 

Nothing new in the "New House" to tell.  It's too cold to do anything in there.  It's almost impossible to get to it after the snowfall last weekend.  It's all getting a little overwhelming. I feel like we are in limbo.  I have almost lost all my enthusiasm. But I have to remember we are in the dead of winter.... and that ain't pretty in these parts. 

balonie....makin do.

Something funny happened at Safeway

I didn't foresee anything happening because my life has been so un-happening.  I parked the truck with the big freaking plow in front of it in a handicapped spot.  I consider myself  handicapped with that big mother effer sticking out of the front of it. So there! 

I turned off the ignition and the truck kept on running! Nothing much surprises me anymore ...unless you count the day Elvis died.  This was bigger.  HOW IN THE HELL DOES YOUR TRUCK KEEP ON RUNNING WHEN YOU TURN OFF THE IGNITION?  Sorry for the yelling.  I sat in the truck for a few minutes trying to figure it out. I could not figure it out.  I have a remote starter for it, but it will kick out if  I apply the brakes.  Nothing helped....she just kept on running.  So I looked around the truck and tried to figure out what to do.  Do I lock the doors and just let it keep running while I am in the store?...

Then like the sleuth that I am...I got out of the truck and checked the tires.  I pounded on the hood....while yelling TURN THIS FUCKING TRUCK OFF!  Truck did not hear me.  Apparently it does not have ears.  Bastard.  So I went into Safeway...really fast because I thought it might catch fire or something, and when I came out it had stopped.  That SOB...was getting on my last nerve. 

You don't have any idea how helpless you feel when your truck (car) doesn't stop running. I wanted to take a brick and kill it.  STOP.   Yes I could have lifted the hood and disconnected the battery and killed myself with jolt of electricity that would have made my under pants  wrinkle. I however chose to go into Safeway and let nature take it's course.  And it shut off.  That is why I never tell the people on Face Book to quit putting the God messages on my site.  I need all the help I can get.

Friday's dump

The plows came in on Saturday and piled it all on the sides of the street.  Some of the piles are at least 10 feet high. 

Needless to say me and my brown hair (or is it my brown hair and I) have been staying close to home.  I haven't done anything constructive with my time.  My desk is piled high with paperwork, wool, candies, candles, pens, markers, rulers, and post it notes sitting here waiting for me to take some action. 

I have become so easily distracted.  I have a least 5 different web pages minimized, plus face book, blogger and twitter at one given moment.  I bet I have asked google at least 100 inane questions in one day.  "How do I"... do this or that.   Someone take pity on me before I get another bright idea that ends up in the toilet.

However, I did bake a banana loaf.  This time I did not forget the oil.  The last one I baked would have not even been worthy of a homeless shelter.  Instead of eating it they would have stuffed in their jackets and tried to keep warm with it. Tsk ... what a loser I have become.

I'm starting to twitch and my minimized pages are calling me .... balonieeeeeee come waste some of your time with us.

I am going to the store today so perhaps I will have some amazing adventures to tell you about when I get back.  I hope I don't see that guy who hogs the roadway in front of the store again ... because I have the "snow blade" on the truck this time.  If he is there I will spank him hard!

I dyed my hair today

A nice soft brown colour.  I really love it.  I was so sick of the grey and blond crap.  Most times when I go darker it gets red and I look like an old hooker in red hair.  I have been blond forever, my natural colour was always brownish but as time went on it turned grey so...time for a change.  I took some really dumb pictures and put them on flip book.  Let's see if blogger will will make them flip. I have a funny chin.  It looks like a little piece of fat hanging down from my lips.  I checked out all my mom, dad and my brothers pictures any nobody has this chin.  I am sure I was adopted. I'm not sure what you will have to do with this thing to make it work....but get creative.

Have you ever tried to take a picture of yourself in the bathroom mirror?  It's a nightmare.  You should see the stuff I didn't put on flipbook it looks like I had just got out of prison.  I have a prison face.

The dog keeps looking at my head today.  Does she realize my head looks darker or does she think I have just escaped from a wino rehab facility?  Not sure.

I did this after I had my picture taken for my drivers licence yesterday. OMG. They make you take off your glasses and you can't smile.  You just sit there like a turkey getting ready for plucking.  You know you look like a 65 year old piece of shit .... but could you a least make my jowls go away if I smiled......NO.  Your jowls will go into history. 

What I should have done when I went in for the photo opp is worn a wig and weird glasses.  If I ever get stopped by the cops or asked for photo ID I would show them the card ... oops no that doesn't seem like such a good idea because my jowls will still be showing.  I think I will make jowls next year for Thanksgiving dinner.  Someone get them off my face!   Jello Jowls. Gravity is my enemy. 

Ahhh, so it is with getting older.  I dyed my hair and now I am not looking at my jowls so much.  I have redirected my energy to my hair.  That is something I can control.  I really like control.  But that asshat in the Safeway parking lot today almost  made me loose it.  What is it with you people who want to sit in front of the store with engine running while waiting for your spouse...you piss me off.  I can hardly get around you..you dumb piece of shit....Get a parking spot just like everyone else.  And if you see an elderly lady getting out her Explorer with shiny brown hair and a stick.....I suggest you move on. Because she just is going to loose it. 

Balonie....on a good day!

I have been screwing around with my template again

I can't leave well enough alone.

I have to get out of the house and do something constructive.  I'm letting the weather get me down.  I need to kick it's ass.  Shovelling snow is not an option. 

Actually I have been doing a lot of catch up work with our business and the bookwork that I never had time to do before.  I have everything organized.  Once I get caught up from last year ... this year should be a cake walk.  It feels good to know where everything is and I can put my finger on anything that is needed.  Before I knew where everything was "sort of" .... after coming home from work, making supper then trying to sort out paper work, writing cheques, making bank deposits,  taking out the garbage, mowing the lawn and trying to annoy my neighbours was time consuming. So this is a bonus.  Now I can do all the above at my convenience and much faster than I did it before.

THE DOG is giving me the puppy eyes.  Time to go to bed.  Well she isn't the boss of me so I will go to bed when I damn well want to.

She did it again...okay I guess she is. 

Let's get together again when I don't have my boss looking over my shoulder...or my feet in her case. 

Balonie .... my fate has been decided.

That bad ole Red River

I have been freaking out lately with the flood predictions for this coming spring. It's pretty grim.  We had the biggest flood in 1997 and our flood way just barely kept it in check in the city.  All the farms from the North Dakota border to Winnipeg were under siege. All our neighbours to the South in Grand Forks USA got flooded big time. It was a disaster. They are saying that might happen again this year. 

This is the year we are building our dream home barely a mile from the river.  Since then they have made it mandatory to build up your properties to the 97 flood levels ... and ours is...but...as it was in 97 they did not get flooded on the river side...but could not get access to their homes because it was to dangerous. Ours would be in that area.

I remember that time well, because my BIL lived with us for almost 3 weeks ... and he only lives about half a mile from our new house. The Army was patrolling the whole area and wouldn't let him in his house. He never had to sandbag either because his property was well above the limit....but the river ..she is the devil... even though it didn't come up to his property level  it could come back to it from a lower lying area and flood him. 

I will never forget that time.  We live about three miles from the river and I never thought about it at that time until we got a newletter in the mail saying we would have to be prepared.  Because we have two rivers surrounding our city and now the other "little" river was now going to be a problem.  I clenched my butt alot that month.  What I remember was that everything was going to back up.  Then they started to build dikes all over the farm lands to the West.  Every day we had updates on the news on how that was going.  I remember they had old school buses and junk all around the dikes.  I don't know why.  Or I can't remember.  A buffer?  I am not sure. 

I'm just hoping that won't happen to us. 

THAT  my friends would be a "bummer." of all bums.

All is well.. they should have called it not bullshit accounting.

Thanks for the advise...but I finally found a program that suits my needs.  No bells, no whistles, just enter in your sales and your expenses.  You can categorize them and it pulls out the taxes with having to enter them.  All you have to do is tell it which one you need. Some of our taxes apply to somethings and not to others... Perfect.  I can pull it all up and see where I am at anytime.  Great Profit and Loss statements...etc.  Absolutely great for a home type business. 

I am so glad I have finally had time to find what I need.  Normally at this time of the year I would be pulling out my hair (while working full time) trying to catch up in a year's worth of bookwork.  This will be very help full.  I will try to do it on a monthly basis now that I am retired. Let's hear a OH YEAH... but I will try, because it is so easy and interesting.  Did I tell you how much I hate Quicken?  (not Quick Books) I just know that it is too sophisticated for out little business .  I call our business little but this has been our bread winner all our lives. 

Update:  Yesterday Gord was putting caulking around our bathtub.  I knew it wasn't going to come to a good conclusion...and it.did.not.  It looks like a guy was playing with silly putty.  I told him 100 times to only smooth it out "one way"....he insisted on going back and forth on it with his finger until it almost dried up. Then when that didn't look good he put more caulking on it.  I suggested using water to smooth it out...he tried but by that time it was too late....we have a large mound of silicone on our tub. You could could use it as a waterslide. WTF.  So when he got home tonight and saw his handy work he suggested that I might need to fix it ...(because I'm so smart) smirk on his face ...ummm well I was smart yesterday buster...and you are stupid today..you might want to go for a time out. The couch is only 10 feet away.

Balonie....don't be fucking around with me.

Tax day is coming ...dirty word

I've been searching for new software for a small business for two days.  I hate Quicken....don't even get me started.  I just need something very very straight forward.  Yes, I know Quicken can be straight forward but it annoys the crap out of me.  I need a program...or spreadsheet if you will.. that I can just enter my invoices and categorize them by Material, Labour and Rent, plus break out the taxes without me entering them in.  Same with expenses.  We have such a small business and I don't need all the bells and whistles.  Last year I got mad and just made a spread sheet and did it on there, but I didn't know how to make a formula on Excel to break out the taxes without entering them. I tried a few, but they were a little iffy. I still need a little more smarts with formula's. 

I know this is boring. 

So go to bed.  I just needed to write this after downloading so many programs today that were useless.  I liked one, but it just sucked the resources out of my computer.

Google needs to get bigger.  I will go on Microsoft tomorrow and try to figure out a spreadsheet that fits our needs in Excel.

Balonie....no crockpotting going on here tonight...chicken fried steak..seasoned rice and creamed corn.

PS...Gord's in the bathroom trying to fix a leak in the tub surround with the caulking gun.  Nothing good can come of this.....mark my words.