Cheers!

Wishing you all a very Happy and Properous New Year!

May 2009 bring nothing but Joy and Happiness to all!

Merry Christmas!

Cookies Galore!

This past Tuesday, I hosted my 2nd Annual Cookie Exchange. We were a total of 10 bakers, everyone bringing with them a dozen cookies for every baker. So in just a couple of hours, we all got ourselves 10 dz. cookies to enjoy throughout the holidays. And all while sipping on festive martinis and nibbling on appies and of course, the actual cookies themselves! New friendships were made and old ones rekindled. Fun was had by all!

Here we all are with the packaged cookies (and drinks in hand!)

Here is the layout of our samplers (yum-yum!)

My cookie this year was the Walnut Shortbread.

Et voila! The finished, packaged product!

I must thank Gord for being the best waiter, bartender and photographer all the while taking care of the two girls!

Coming up for air!

I haven't really had the time nor the energy nor the desire to make any posts of late but today, due to the snowstorm followed by ice rain that we've had, it is REALLY quiet at work.

So here's a summary in bullets of what we've been up since my last post.

• A few weekends ago we headed up to the cottage to prepare it for the winter. Bringing in firewood, winterizing the windows, turning on the heated water line etc. I was in charge of feeding everyone and playing with the girls, of course!
  

• A few weekends ago, we went to see the Santa Claus Parade downtown which I have never done even as a child. We also took the girls to see the Ogilvy window. It was, however, really, really cold!







• On Friday the 28th, I had a doctor's appointment so I decided to take the entire day off and take the girls to see Santa Claus at Complexe Desjardins. This has been a yearly tradition since Cara-Li's arrival in 2003 with our dear friends C. & J. Needless to say, the girls played hooky from school :) We had lunch at Baton Rouge, saw Santa Claus, played and shopped in the mall. A great time was had by all!








• On the Sunday, we were invited to G's Christening. It was a beautiful ceremony followed by a lovely lunch. The whole Church thing was cool because Cara-Li is doing Religious Studies at home with moi and so much stuff that we've covered was being talked about during the ceremony. Cara-Li kept looking over at me with the look of 'I know what he's talking about!'. She's much better that I was at her age where I'd just sit there and daydream.

• Last weekend was a real busy one! We fell out of bed on Saturday morning and rushed out to get a tree as we were going to trim it that evening. We walked over to Alex's around the corner and picked up the nicest one he had and wheeled it home in our wagon. The girls were not impressed as they had to walk home.






• Next, Cara-Li had a Gingerbread workshop to attend with her friend C. at the library. Their houses turned out to be works of art!

• Upon her return it was off to the hairdresser's for their Christmas haircuts.



• Alexia then went for nap while Gord took Cara-Li for their annual Skate with Buzz the Bee event at Concordia University. It is a fundraiser where they collect canned food for the less fortunate.





• And finally, after dinner, we decorated our tree. I must say that by this point, I was spent and just wanted to get the whole thing over with. But a couple of glasses of wine did take the edge off :)




• On Sunday, we attended the Adoptive Families of Quebec Holiday Party. It was held at a Dim Sum restaurant. Yummy! And of course, Santa came around and brought gifts to all the kids.






• Once home, Cara-Li changed and was off to a birthday party at Loblaws where they had a Gingerbread House Workshop. Anyone need help with their houses? Cara-Li has become an expert!

• And finally, I have taken pictures of my finished master bathroom. So here are the before and after!

BEFORE

AFTER

I've been had!

Twice, as a matter of fact!

Late last week, the maintenance guy that comes once a week at our store, came to ask me for a cash advance. I don't usually do this but he gave me some sob story about his hungry children and so I prepaid him the following week's pay. Would you believe that he didn't show up this AM???

On the same day, one of our tenants shows up handing me the keys to her apartment trying to explain to me in her broken English (she is Vietnamese) that her husband left and she cannot pay the rent. Now, normally, you cannot just pack and go. You are still responsible for the lease. But when she started sobbing, I began to really feel sorry for her. So today, we went to check out the apartment and put it on the market for rent and what do we find?!? She didn't even pack her stuff. She just literally went! It cost us over $600.oo for the 1-800-GOT-JUNK guys to come clear it all out!

So now we are out $650.00 and we still have a dirty store and a messy apartment!

Oh so close!

But yet, oh, so far! We have been living the bathroom renovation from hell. It was to be a minor overhaul of our en-suite bathroom as we were keeping the tub sink, toilet and wall tiles. Basically we wanted to change the vanity, the tub surround and the lighting. We started it back in May when the fellow came to take measurements for the vanity. Then we had some work done on the ceiling as I wanted recessed lighting. That took a while. Then we waited for the specific granite tiles to come in, then it was a wait for the heated floors to come in. Then we ordered the granite countertops (which were returned once due to wrong colour). During this time, the existing tub (which we are re-installing) was living in my bedroom. Yes, right next to my side of the bed for app. 3 months! One wrong move during the night and I'd end up in it. So much to my excitement, the tub left the bedroom last Sunday (yes, hangover Sunday as it was the day after Gord's party) and returned to its rightful place. If you ever feel that your room is too small, place a large tub in the little free space you have and live like that for 3 months. Let me tell you, right now, I feel like my bedroom is the size of a football field! Which brings me to last night. The boys called me up to decide the height at which I wanted the mirror at. All seemed OK and I returned back to my dishes. Lots of hammering and lot of noise later, I hear, Oh SH*T! I'm not exactly sure what happened as no one is speaking but there was suddening a large hole in the wall above where the mirror was supposed to be. So instead of posting pictures of the before and after, I can only post a couple of the process instead with hopes of having it all complete very soon! Oh and did I mention that poor Alexia has been bathing in the kitchen this entire time. She doesn't even remember what a bathtub is for, I am sure!

The Cat is FINALLY out of the Bag!

I can FINALLY talk about what I have been up to since my last post. I just didn't know what to blog about if it wasn't what was taking up so much of my time. You see, Gordie turned 50 last week, and this past Saturday was his surprise birthday party. It was a last minute plan but I managed to pull it off. I knew that I would use this particular local caterer for the party but since I had last seen him which was some time ago, he moved into a nice locale not too far from us. His commercial kitchen was at the back with this funky art gallery kind of living room kind of room in the front. A perfect spot to hold a party for 50 or so people. You can't really tell by the photos but there is photography and art work hanging on all the walls. The room had some couches here and there and lots and lots of candles. It was beautiful! And not to mention that the food was outstanding! The platters of hors d'oeuvres just kept coming with every one tastier than the other. It turned out just as I had hoped. And the best part... when I woke up this AM, there was no mess to clean up!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GORDIE!