Five's a Party

 When winter comes, I am usually mostly housebound. This winter, however, I have been out alot. It's been a gentle winter mostly, with only one real storm so far back  in December. The past few weeks have been hovering around 0 degrees Celcius, so pretty mild!  This past week we had freezing fog, which turned my area into a fairy wonderland. The trees glittered and sparkled, begging to be photographed. Sadly, my camera couldn't capture the lovliness of it. sadly, though, my neighbour has lost quite a few chickens, roosters, and a duck to the cold that preceeded the mild spell.  In Puppy news, the cats are getting along much better with him, and he's really quite clever. He's learning his lessons, not perfectly, but he's getting very good at "come" and "sit". He's also working on sit pretty, shake paw, stay, and off. House training isn't going so well. My fault, as I am reluctant to stand outside in the cold with him.  Can't w...

We added a little one to our family on Jan 16 :) His name is Fergus, and he's tiny, quiet and so far pretty smart :) Meet Fergus, our 11 week old Scottish Terrier (Scottie dog)

 A year ago, I started making my own laundry soap . at first, I was skeptical about if this would really work. I had misgivings~ could this runny gloopy stuff really clean my clothes? would they smell alright? would I REALLY save money?  The answer to all of those questions is YES! My family's clothing is clean, no smells, and I have DEFINATELY saved money. Before HMS (home made soap) I was going through a container of  SBS (store bought soap) Purex 32 load size in a week and a half.(39 bottles a year?) At about 7$ for a bottle, in a year I'd be spending around 273$ a year on laundry soap (if my math is right.. there is a good possibility I'm off, knowing my math skills or lack thereof LOL) The initial cost of HMS is the biggest... about 15$ for the supplies. I've had to buy more soap as I went along, I've used 6 bars, so I spent 4$ after my initial investment. Therefore, SBS= 273$ p/y HMS=19$ p/y  That's a whopping 254$!!!  not bad :)

It went through my town today, so we went out to cheer it on :) Waiting for the torch, which seemed like it took FOREVER! There it is :) and there it goes! It was pretty neat to see it, as the last Olympics in Canada were 20 years ago, and I wasn't really old enough to pay it any mind, and who knows when the next olympics will be held in Canada!

 My husband came home the other night with a bit of a grin on his face. He gave me a big speach about how he knew I wanted this item, and how he had SUCH a hard time finding it, as it was sold out all over, but he kept looking until he found it :)  Then he handed me this: (well, not this exact one. This picture is from eBay) He was completely right! I really DID want this gift! I'd actually bought it for other people on my list, but didn't get one for me. It's on the tree right now, reminding me of my wonderful husband when I see it, and it makes me smile!

My neighbour has lovebirds, and they had babies :) The Momma lovebird was feeding one way more than the other, so she took them out and is handfeeding them. I occasionally get to join in on the fun!  here's a progress collage of them