Monthly Archives: March 2008

The snow came back!

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What the heck? I brag about the tropical climate I’m living in out here in the east, and on Friday night winter came back!

Jeff and I went out to the pub in town with my co-workers after work and by the time we got home, we just BARELY made it up the driveway. We were spinning and spinning and slowly and gradually we made it up through the snow to the house.

Here is the sight I saw when we woke up on Saturday.

The snow came back

The snow came back

But Julie and Mom can rest assured that the snow will be all gone by the time they arrive on Thursday. It is supposed to be a mild week.
The 5 deer were out in the blueberry field across the lake this afternoon. Here they are:

The snow came back

Okay, off to do ANOTHER coat of paint ….

FLIES!!!

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houseflyI’m at my wits end with these damn flies.

Ever since we’ve moved in to this house, we’ve had big dumb buzzing houseflies who must have a horrible sense of self-worth since they are forever killing themselves off by recklessly diving into blazing halogen lights, drowning themselves in toilets, and getting themselves stuck in dish-soap-laden dishes.

I don’t know where they come from.

But I know where they go.

Under every window is a collection of dead flies waiting for the vacuum to pass by.

When we came home after our wedding trip to Ontario, there were dead flies everywhere! Every toilet had a handful of drowned flies.

It seems they multiply every time the sun is out. So maybe they are living in the walls and get heated and push their way into the house. Only our house is less than 20 years old – if they are in the walls or in the attic, how are they making their way into our house?

I’m torturing my husband

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Jeff has a birthday coming up so I shopped at one of his favourite stores a week or so ago.

His birthday present arrived in the mail. A big cardboard box from Cabelas. He already saw the slip that came in the mail that I had a package to pick up, so I really couldn’t lie and make it disappear, could I?

So now Jeff is being tortured by a cardboard box with a beautiful Cabelas label on it and he’s counting down the days until he can open it.

I was thinking I could do a special blog feature – I could take Jeff’s picture with the box every day. Jeff sitting at his laptop with the box beside him. Jeff watching tv with the box beside him. Jeff eating dinner, with the box beside him. He wasn’t game though. He’s actually rather miserable about it.

We have a winner!

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We watched the two movies and one of them clearly stood out as the best of the bunch!

The winner is….

Mr. Brooks – This movie stars Kevin Costner and he’s not playing a hero and he isn’t out in the prairies and it isn’t 3+ hours long! You’ll like this one. It’s got suspense. And your mind will be racing trying to figure out how the storylines are going to mesh together. Definitely worth paying the full price rental fee!
4.5/5

Rendition – I didn’t like this one so much. It’s political with Egyptian, CIS, terrorism, and U.S. government themes. It stars Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal. Neither play a very rememberable character. In fact no one in any of the lead roles creates a very solid character worth remembering.
2/5

Long Weekend = Movie Rentals!

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I rented 4 movies yesterday. So far we haven’t done so well. We watched 2 last night:

I Am Legend
Interesting idea for a movie. The premise – a Dr. discovers she can cure cancer by modifying a virus. Unfortunately that virus wiped out almost everyone on earth – except the man played by Will Smith. I’m not a fan of Will Smith, but he was alright in this role. There was one part of the movie that I had to hide my eyes and after that I lost a bunch of tears. If you’ve seen the movie, you can guess what part. If you haven’t, I can’t tell you, because it’ll wreck it for you.
The pace of the movie takes a 180 in the middle of the movie and then it seemed like they rushed the story to get the movie over with.
Overall, the movie was just ‘ok’. Rentable. Not particularly remember-able.
3/5

No Country for Old Men
Ouch. This movie was like they took clips they had lying around and pieced them together sometimes. I purposely didn’t listen to some of it because it had nothing to do with anything.
Viewers have given it an average of 8.5/10 on imdb.com with reviews that say “it certainly is one of the most moving and thought-provoking movies I have ever watched” and “This is the kind of movie that will make you think, the kind that stays with you even after a long time has passed”. What the heck? What movie was I watching? Or this quote “Anton Chigurh is the most disturbing character (and yet mesmerizing) to grace the screen since Anthony Hopkins introduced us to Hannibal Lecter in ‘Silence of the Lambs.’” Not even close. I wouldn’t even compare the two.
1/5 When was the last time we watched a great movie? All these blockbusters are horrible. Don’t bother even renting this one.

Hoping for higher rankings with the next two!

the WIND!

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Jeff and I both thought we lived in windy areas before, but they were nothing compared to where we live in Nova Scotia.

I’ve never experienced wind gusts like these before. We’ve had high winds for over 24 hours now. I was just walking from my car to the library. It was a little windy and then BAM! I was almost blown into the brick wall. It’s really incredible. I not sure why I bothered to brush my hair this morning, the wind would have blown it out! :) )

Our garbage cans blew around the porch and back yard. Our barbeque blew a few feet along the porch. The interior doors in the house were creaking each time there was a gust.

This storm is dumping on poor Newfoundland again. I heard some cars are totally buried. We only got a few flakes of snow with it. It’s -9 here but it says the windchill is -20 and it is gusting to 67km/hr.

Our Red Squirrel

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We have a love/hate relationship with our red squirrel.

He’s funny to watch. But he drives Monty squirrelly! :) ) Monty goes crazy watching the little bugger. He starts whining and jumps up on the windows and rips across the floors scraping his nails all over.

Yesterday Monty spotted the squirrel on the end of the porch so I let him out and he chased the squirrel across the deck and across the yard. It was fun to watch. :) ) The squirrel retreated to his woodpile beside our shed where he lives.

In no time he was back on the bird feeders eating the suet out of the bird feeder. When we spook him while he’s on the feeder, he takes a big leap, stretches all out, and then flies through the air landing on the bushes like he was doing a big belly flop.

Yesterday Monty was going squirrelly out by the barbeque. Jeff went out to open the barbeque, and the squirrel was staring back at him from inside! They spooked each other and the squirrel ran up into the woods.

He wasn’t gone long though.

Here are some shots of the squirrel as he steals more suet.

This is a photo of a red squirrel stealing from the bird's suet feeder.

This is a photo of a red squirrel stealing from the bird's suet feeder.

This is a photo of a red squirrel stealing from the bird's suet feeder.

This is a photo of a red squirrel stealing from the bird's suet feeder.

This is a photo of a red squirrel stealing from the bird's suet feeder.

This is a photo of a red squirrel stealing from the bird's suet feeder.

Name Change, Splintered Dock, Water Covered Road

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The Province of Ontario finally sent us our Marriage Certificate (which is nothing but a fancy photocopy of our marriage license) so now I can change my name at the bank, my driver’s license, health card, and a few other official things. I am still not used to have a new name. It feels like a bit of an identity crisis. Soon everything will be in the name of Lisa Schuyler and I won’t have to think twice which name to sign :p

Our lake broke up yesterday. It was frozen in the morning. Then it had some water covered spots – from the run off after the pouring rain on Saturday night. Then it got really windy. Soon enough the open water had waves and then it was growing, and now it is completely thawed right across from us to the other side. Not all of the lake is thawed, just sections. Our neighbour has a nice dock across the road. Wait. Our neighbour HAD a nice dock. It had a built in bench and had a couple sections – now it is in several pieces and most of it is splinted. The shifting ice yesterday broke it apart.

We went for a drive yesterday to check out the spring flooding. On Saturday the spring load restrictions started on all the back roads. So many of the bank roads are a MESS. They are paved, but have massive holes and cracks and peaks as the frost is coming out of the ground.

The mighty St. Mary’s river is up and over it’s banks and is covering the flood plain right up to the edge of Highway 7.

We went over one bridge on a side road and found this sight:

This is a photo of the river going over the road.

Here is a typical countryside view – complete with blueberry fields, dairy farm, spruce, and a building falling over.

This is a photo of the countryside.