Outsmarting the Smart Meter

Someday I may have to explain to my granddaughter Claire why Nanny Lannie only bakes on the weekends or after seven p.m. at night. Then I can tell her about the summer in 2010 when men trundled new contraptions called Smart Meters all over our town and replaced our old ones. I can also explain that around July of 2011 those Smart Meters went into effect by the Hydro One Company to regulate our hydro usuage. Sunddenly we must relearn how and when to use our electrical power so as not to add more cost to our bills.

Some changes came quickly, some more slowly. Did I remember to unplug the toaster this morning? Are the lamps in the spare bedroom unplugged as it isn't used regularly? The vacuuming should get done on the weekends but do I really want to do it then? Weekends are for quality time with hubby.

The laundry has to wait until the weekends, a dark load one day and a white load the next. If it's an emergency then it can be done after seven p.m. but then I'm folding up laundry later in the evening. After supper is my relaxing time, time to watch a movie or read a good book. The government is playing havoc with my down time!.

If I want to bake tarts, a pie or some brownies, then I try and do it also on the weekends. Not that we need desserts but if company is coming it's nice to have a treat after supper. It hasn't been a big change to start the dishwasher after 7 p.m., I had trained myself to start it around ten p.m. and since most of the time there is only the two of us for meals, we just run it twice a week.

Jim goes around behind me turning off lights, leaving me almost sitting in the dark! I'm not used to this. I'm a person who likes light, the more the better. We go around checking all the lamps making sure we've changed the old style light bulbs for the new longer lasting ones.

I was almost having anxiety attacks when the summer B.B.Q. season ended and I knew I'd have to start cooking suppers on the "electric" stove inside! Now I knew we didn't want to wait until after 7 p.m. to start eating so could I figure out a way to do it more economically? We had so many tomatoes over the summer I froze batches of spaghetti sauce, chili and bowls of tomato/meat sauce for soup. Once thawed the reheating of the above meals could be heated in the microwave. Perhaps turning the heat up higher on the stove would start things cooking sooner so I could turn the burners off quicker.

If we want a roast or chicken done in the oven, save them for the weekend. How economical will it be to do things in the slow cooker now when some recipes take anywhere form six to eight hours to simmer? I think I'm going dizzy!

We have adapted to the new rhythm of weekend laundry, it's now become a habit. The dishwasher in the evening was already a formed habit. The baking is getting a bit more settled in my mind, perhaps Saturday mornings would work for that.

The supper meals are still a bit of a mystery as to how to avoid long oven or stove top use, perhaps we could eat out more, there's an idea! Or have a night with sandwiches, Jim loves sandwiches. (his idea).

The government has got us in it's grip this winter as we must cook inside and we need to have the furnace going, at least those of us who don't heat with wood. I'm going to get out a few months hydro bills and compare the cost to see how we are doing.

Now don't get me going on the water bills!

Reason's to Organize, Organize, Organize!!

My family, especially my two adult children would say: "mother is somewhat of a packrat"...they are dismayed by how much "stuff" I have. They don't want to be responsible for going through it all when I'm gone..Having just done this at their father's house after he passed away in March of this year, has made them much more aware of how much they don't want to do it again at my place.

With Ontario being hit with so much rain this week and I'm sure we aren't alone in this, I've decided since I can't get out for my daily walk it would be a good time to tackle some organizing..Now I bought a great book on organizing but haven't been able to organize my time enough to read the whole book! Then I rip out articles on organizing from my many magazines. My son mentioned them this week, how I have hordes of magazines. But I'm not able to throw out any gardening magazines and I really love my Country Home Magazines or my Better Homes and Gardens. But I did manage to throw out quite a few other ones..

I feel good ripping out articles I want to keep and throwing them in a box to read later..when later is going to come hasn't been determined yet..so instead of having so many stacks of magazines, I now have a nice sized cardboard box full of torn out articles..makes sense, well maybe not...

I started by carting out armfuls of papers and folders from my office/junk room and started sorting, shredding and disposing...I made new file folders and now have more folders for gardening, hundreds and hundreds of recipes I'll probably never use and a new folder for ideas for our new place in P.E.I. That was an exciting folder to start. I have a whole file full of ideas for my office there which will also be my craft room..wonder if I can keep it as tidy as the pictures look?

Another reason for organizing is yes, to get rid of a lot of clutter but also make room for things that will have to be put up high out of reach once our nine month old granddaughter decides to start walking. I have a lot of indoor plants I hope she won't pull over and fragile things I don't want broken. It's either get very organized or spend every minute entertaining her so she won't be tempted to start dumping things on the floor..I love the part where I play with her all the time..but then who will get the meal?

I'm very excited about getting my office looking so good, people will not believe it's the same room! Even I won't believe it....that is going to take a lot of doing, so many things I don't know what to do with find there way in there..I ask myself, do I need it, just want it or love it! You guessed it, I love a LOT!! I have a girlfriend who goes shopping with me and can't believe how much stuff I just LOVE..

I am not a lean and mean type of person, I see apartments and houses in magazines that look so modern and organized with everything pared down. I think I could do that, but then who am I fooling..I LOVE my books, my magazines, my collections and feel warm and fuzzy when they are near me. I pointed to a corner chair in a house in another town years ago to a friend and said: "that is MY corner"...she looked around the living-room and said: "they all look like your corners" and yes, we are still best of friends..

I'm trying each month to send a large bag of "stuff" off to the Salvation Army..once one bag leaves the house, I start another one. I have started one this week. Wish me luck, that I can tear things out of my fingers, place them in the bag and not be tempted to look through it again. I'm going through my stacks of papers and file folders again today and maybe reward myself if I do a super good job..I've been craving a Snicker's Bar for a week now!

Girlfriend's Vacation

The glorious hollyhock's are out front of the Picton Harbour Inn, in Picton. Each summer four friend's who all went to highschool together, myself included decide on a new place to visit for three days.

Part of the excitement is trying to decide where to go each summer. Most places one or more of us have already visited but perhaps not for a long time. Our first trip we stayed in Stratford, On and took in a wonderful live musical at the Shakespearean Festival. We had been going to that festival since high school as it was usually a highlight of our school year. Also my closest friend Carroll and I tried to see at least two plays a year once we were married and started our familys. Now my daughter resides there and it's only about fifteen minutes away from St. Marys where I lived for twenty odd years.

We have vacationed in Port Dover, best fish and chips ever! We visited Niagara-On-The-Lake and shopped almost non-stop for two days. We traveled north to Wiarton and to another lake district of Bobcaygeon. This year we drove to Picton, a place I've never been to before. Our rooms overlooked a calm bay with many boats of various kinds tied up at docks. We enjoyed shopping in many lovely shops, the one shopping spree where I tried to hold myself back..with moving in a few years to Prince Edward Island I'm trying to downsize and not buy too much. Plus my closets are already full of clothes that I hardly ever wear. Being a gardener, I usually wear shorts and old t-shirts all week.

We usually find grand places to eat and we spend hours talking, laughing, catching up events of the past year. It is very special to still be friends with women you grew up with in a small town, went to public and high school with and still know where they live..in this day and age of people constantly moving and losing touch, we are fortunate indeed.

Picton, in Prince Edward County has a lot going for it, lots of winery's and it would be nice to return there and go on a wine tasting tour. In Bloomfield just a few minutes away is a wonderful live theatre in a big red barn. We saw Amelia, a musical with only 3 players, but they held the stage well..

It's such fun to explore new haunts or go back to familiar places that we find haven't changed all that much..We are all in different places in our lives, but we come together and catch up just as if we'd seen each other yesterday. During the year we also email to keep on top of any newsy, interesting things going on..

Once winter's grip relaxes and spring bulbs start emerging through the warming soil, we will have to get our thinking caps on and find a new, exciting place to explore or return to a town more familiar..Once we register at the hotel, unpack and hang up our clothes, it's usually "Happy Hour", time to relax, unwind so we can start making new memories to last a liftime.

Blue Pool

We are in the midst of a heat wave here in most parts of Ontario and the humidity is draining our strength and our good humor. Well it was until I got a really good nights sleep..Plus my husband and I are very, very grateful for small mercies, our blue pool.

Our neighbours next door have a lovely, long indoor pool, complete with curving slide and steps down into the shallow end. They are getting a lot of use out of their pool these days with grandchildren and adult children coming most days after their work day. Carl, our neighbour says the water in his pool is up to 93 degrees. They love it.

Not to brag or anything, but we have a pool too..not a big, lovely inground pool but a blue rubber pool that we have to put up every year around the 24th of May and take down before the frost hits. Usually around the end of of August or middle of September as our pool loses it's heat quite quickly. Although my husband has rigged up a network of hoses which rest on top of my gardening shed so the sun can heat the water running back and forth to the pool, once the temperature starts dropping in the evenings, so does the pool temperature.

This is our second blue pool, we purchased one from Sears when we first moved here nine years ago but the rubber ring around the top started losing air after five or six years and that was the end of that one. We purchased our second one the following summer, the same size and same make. It is fifteen feet across and we absolutely love it. We have found it's all we need in our small yard to cool us off when these heat spells hit. Many friends and family members have made good use of it during family reunions here.

It is our ticket to survival when the temperatures hit thirty and higher with humidity making us melt. This week I've been in on average three to four times a day and can feel my blood pressure going lower once I've been in a few seconds. The first thing my husband does on coming home from work each evening is change and dive into the pool. (one is not supposed to dive in these pools, but he manages a very shallow dive over the side!). The temperature is around 84 degrees now and we find it almost too warm.

We feel this pool is our life-saver on hot days when the radio and television announcers warn people to stay out of the sun, don't do any heavy work and drink lots and lots of fluids. It's like getting permission to laze around the house, read a book outside in between trips into the pool. That in itself is an exercise as I must find my sunglasses, a hat and a t-shirt to wear. I'm very protective of my back and getting sunburned there as my father died of melanoma cancer.

Also more years back than I care to remember my doctor told me as we age our skin gets thinner so since he knew I gardened all the time, he adviced me to wear long sleeved shirts while gardening. It was a pain trying to find thin, long-sleeved shirts but I managed. Now I only have to slather on suntan lotion on about two inches of skin between the rolled up cuffs on the shirts and the spot where my gardening gloves stop.

As we hear our neighbours grandchildren squeal with delight while swimming or playing next door, we have felt envious at times, we are after all human but we are more than pleased and grateful for our little blue pool. I longed for a pool for many, many years and even now after having two of them, somedays I can hardly believe I'm so lucky. As I lounge around in our little blue pool or do exercises that I learned several years back in aquafit classes in our town pool, I am ever so thankful and grateful that our yard contains our little treasure.

In the scheme of things it's not all that pretty or long or deep and every year it requires a lot of work to be set up and then emptied and cleaned before going back into it's box and getting stored away over the winter. They cannot be left outside in our winters. But we are rather attached to our little blue pool and since we are having another scorching day, I'm going outside to climb in....

Nature

NATURE

Nature

Heals me

Seals me

Fills in the cracks

Left by everyday living.

Nature

Draws me in

To it's warmth and sunshine

Which is the balm

My heart is searching for.

Nature

Without it, my soul

Would be empty,

More lonely,

Not fulfilled.

Nature

The Hand Shake of Mother Earth

by Liane Good

Claire

As Claire's father is an avid fisherman, I like to label the above picture: "the fish was this big Nanny, honest!" My husband Jim and I love having our granddaughter Claire come for a visit. She is now four months old. Her parents are doing a marvelous job of raising her, she is a happy, healthy little girl.

Claire's parents live only an hour away so we can see each other quite regularly, of course we have to share her with lots of other people too. My husband is usually the one to take the pictures when Claire comes for a visit but he is often in the pictures too, just beaming with delight at holding his first grandchild.

We are anticipating the day we can show Claire the fish pond and watch her run around our yard asking: "what's that Nanny, what does that do?" and even getting into our vegetable garden like her mother likes to do and pick fresh peas and beans to eat.

Claire loves to smile now and it only takes her mother's voice to bring on a huge grin, what a wonderful bonding is taking place between mother and daughter. Daddy is very helpful in taking care of his daughter too, he is looking forward someday to taking her fishing. Perhaps we can all go together and catch the "big one"...

Our neighbors next door have three grandchildren so have all the baby items and toys that one can imagine..We are able to borrow whatever we need when Claire visits so now have the use of a handy playpen. Now they make them with two levels, the higher level being a changing table, that sure is helpful.

We hope to get asked to babysit from time to time, hoping we remember what it was like when our own children were small babies. We find it hard to go shopping without dashing into the baby department to find a cute outfit for Claire. And I was able to persuade my husband to build a swing for her out in P.E.I., although it's much too big for her now.

We know there will be many changes ahead as Claire grows from month to month and year to year but we know we'll enjoy each and every moment we are blessed to spend with her. We wonder what her first word will be, when will her first tooth come in and how will her laughter sound?

As we treasure our times with her, holding her, rocking her to sleep and taking another hundred snapshots of our "little princess" we will look forward to the future when our little girl will run up to us with stories to tell and sit on our lap while we read books to her. "Once upon a time their was a little girl named Claire, who is much loved by her Nanny Lannie and Grandpa Jim...."

Renovation P.E.I. in May 2011

My husband, brother-in-law Dave and myself have just returned from our first of many renovation projects in P.E.I. We left May 7th and returned to Muskoka Sunday May 29th. Going down and back we drove straight through with the two men taking turns driving. We arrived at Confederation Bridge rather tired but once we drove into the parking lot of the Cambridge Hall which was holding a Mother's Day breakfast we perked up. We were seated quickly and had fabulous choices on the menu. After a huge, delicious breakfast and numerous cups of coffee we were ready to explore our property and farmhouse.

We purchased our retirement home last November knowing we would have to work long and hard to restore the house and buildings. First priority was the farmhouse. It took four of us a whole week, as now hubby's brother was added to the mix, to completely gut the house. We had not considered removing the brick chimney outside and inside the house but with so much rain that week Dave noticed it was leaking. It was so cold for most of our 3 weeks on the island I wasn't out of my red winter coat very often.

Hubby climbed a ladder one very cold windy day and started knocking down the brick chimney outside. Thankfully he was tied off to the front deck railings. I was too scared to watch at first but as the morning wore on, managed to take a few pictures of Jim on the roof. I was so relieved when his feet hit terra firma again.

Before long our first dumpster at the house since November was full. It was fun watching the old dumpster loaded and taken away and a new one let off. It was dropped beside the house this time, instead of out front, in order to drop debris from the second storey windows. This worked well. Frank, my brother-n-law who lives on the island had emailed me to say it would be all hard work, no time off to go beachcombing! (I think he was kidding!) But it was very hard work and long, long days. I could easily get a job on the island pulling out nails..I'm well qualified. (my right wrist still isn't healed).

I would make breakfast for Jim and Dave, do laundry most mornings, then get picked up by one of them and work eight to ten hours at the farmhouse. Most mornings we got up at six a.m., started at seven and quit around five or five-thirty p.m. I forgot six a.m. Atlantic time is five a.m. back home! By the time we all ate scrumptious meals at my sister-in-laws house each night, had our tea and put our feet up, I was too exhausted to talk much. I was known to fall asleep in my chair and hubby passed out on the couch more than once..If only we were twenty years younger!!

We accomplished a lot, tore out all the dry wall in a two storey house, tore down a brick chimney outside and inside the house. Insulated the attic by blowing it in, insulated all the upstairs and downstairs with pink bats, covered some walls with plastic and two of the men did a lot of the wiring. We got in a new 200 amp. service plus a new hydro pole out front which was exciting to watch, althought they didn't put it where I'd have liked it to be..some choices were out of our hands.

We watched the farmer down the road dig up our fields so he can plant potatoes this year. I love the red soil, it just touches my soul. I discovered two wonderful rhubarb patches behind my little barn. Caron, my sister-in-law helped me clean out my little double barn one afternoon since the dumpster was still there. We also cleaned out hubby's barn and garage. Two discoveries which surprised us, coal in a corner of my barn and wooden eave troughs on the house..

I trimmed apple trees and hauled so many branches to the burn pile. Frank brought up his chain saw one day and trimmed the two Willows, Chestnut tree etc. He will be cutting our grass while we are gone and needs to get close to the trees without getting knocked out! We did run out of time to do the burning however and I had gotten a permit. the same day I paid our taxes for the first time.. Hubby and his brother cut the grass twice and to put my stamp on the place, I planted a dozen pansies around the hydrangea bush.

Jim made a swing for our granddaughter Claire and the three men made two new barn doors. I'm sure I'm forgetting some of the work we accomplished but it was amazing what we labored at. I made morning snacks each day for our break and a huge jug of tea. It was very welcome on such cold days. We began to think the sun did not shine on the island..

I ran out of jobs once the wiring started so did manage a trip into Charlottetown, two days beachcombing and a morning trip with Dave so he could sketch a lighthouse. We traveled one day to the East End of the island, climbed to the top of the lighthouse there, another bitterly cold, windy day. Thankfully the Tea Room was open and once outside again saw a lovely red fox. We saw at least three while there.

Caron, whose 93 year old mother has been visiting for several months joined us on a trip to see the Lavender at the Five Sister's Lavender Farm at Kelly's Cross. Back home I can now enjoy Lavender/Vanilla Tea and Lavender Jelly. Last Monday during my shopping spree buying annuals for my window boxes I gave in and bought four more lavender plants..Where they will go nobody knows!

The sun did shine several times which brought out the black flies, such is life. The three weeks went by in a blur and next thing I knew we were packing up to go home. I usually cry when I leave the island, as it's like leaving "home", where my heart resides but this time I kept myself under control. I knew next year I'd be back for more work, more fun, more laughter and more reno projects. And the year after that and the year after that until I can stay there for weeks at a time in our own restored Cranberry Cottage.