Wednesday, November 12th - the affects of a few snow flakes!

 It's a chilly -3 this morning but the wind is making it feel more like -9'. I guess the good news is the ground is bare and dry. There was some concern about black ice last night due to the rain we had received earlier in the day. I was surprised to see sand trucks out on my way home from town at 8:30.

It was truly a busy weekend, but a productive one. The weather on Saturday started out not so bad, but on my way home it started snowing - the first flurries of the season. Not much was staying on the ground, but it was quite snowy driving home.

I looked out later in the evening and the ground was completely covered in a fluffy white blanket - no one mentioned anything about that! ( I think that's what caused an avalanche of phone calls to work on Tuesday, with people panicking to get their snow tires put on. It was a VERY busy day, and likely won't slow down any time soon. )

 I had picked up paint on my way home from town on Saturday afternoon, even though I'm a ways off from needing that,  and we decided to get started on Sunday morning. The plan was to try to get the panels up on the ceiling while I was home to help with them  - not that I was a huge help, but sometimes all you need is someone on the other end of the board. We had some other tasks to finish first so by the end of the afternoon, we only had 4 panels on the ceiling.

Not to worry - Monday was also a day off, for me at least. It  was pouring down with rain so we spent the day inside the garage where it was dry and toasty upstairs with the heater going. We started out fairly early and had the rest of the ceiling panels nailed in place by lunch time. There is still much to do with trim to cover the seams, but the bottom line is, it's a work shop - I'm not expecting perfection but can I get that point across??? Hopefully the wall panels will be in place by the weekend, and then maybe I can help some on Sunday.The trim on the ceiling, doors and windows will be more fiddley so may take as long as the rest of the project to date. As long as I have my stuff moved out of the house before Christmas, I'll be really happy, and so will Lloyd. I'm afraid when Meghan (2) is here over the holidays, we may never see her. She's going to think she's died and gone to crafter's heaven!

Because Lloyd had to work on Monday night, he headed upstairs to have a nap in the afternoon. I had invited the VanGaals to join us for supper so I spent the remainder of the rainy afternoon in the kitchen. Can't think of anything better!  Brenda and Bernie came over around 6:00 and we had a lovely evening, catching up with them. Brenda had been to Halifax for the weekend to visit Meghan, who was there for meetings. Brenda also got to visit her aunt, and Meg got to visit some friends. It sounds like a lovely time was had by all.  Fortunately the bit of snow was gone by Sunday so no travel was interrupted.

So not an exciting weekend but a productive one.

I got some photos from Patti. It seems that young James made dinner for the family on the weekend, all by himself.

Making the burgers from scratch

 They had little burgers ( sliders) and Caesar Salad. Dessert was caramel coffee muffins with dulce de lece ice cream drizzled in caramel sauce.  Sounds like it was quite a feast! Hopefully he'll want to practice some of his culinary skills when he's visiting over the holidays. But then they've all always loved to spend time in the kitchen when they're here. Now we'll have to take turns. 

An appreciative diner

Patti suggested that he's been watching too much Food Network. Lloyd and I caught the last two episodes of Master Chef Junior last week. I was totally blown away by these kids - 8 to 13 years old and making dishes a good many adults would not be able to master. It was truly amazing. Just goes to show what they can accomplish if we just give them a little encouragement and the opportunity. Can't wait for the holidays! I'm going to sit back and put my feet up and let the kids do the cooking (yeah, right!). It's too much fun to miss out on.