Why is it when things happen, do they always happen in three's???

Last week seemed to be a week of things going wrong.
On Wednesday night I came home from work and went up and got changed. When I came down I thought that it felt awful cold in the house, and asked Curt if he had touched the thermostat. Being as he does not know how to operate the furnace, this was not possible. I looked at the temperature it read in the house, and it was sitting at 14oC. I told Curt to go down and check things out, as I was on my way out the door. When I got home it was @ 13, so I cranked the heat up to 32 to see if the furnace would kick in. With no luck the next morning it was 10oC in the house.
Wednesday night when Curt got home from hockey the garage door wouldn't go down so he started playing around with it. He got no ware with it, except into a deeper hole. It would sound like it was going to go down, but didn't move. He come up and got me out of bed at 12:30a.m. to see if I could help him get it at least down for the night. After 45min. of fighting, all we could do is park the car in front of the garage, and take any valuable stuff into the house. I hardly got any sleep that night thinking that someone might go into the garage and clean out our freezer, take the beer, or even our bikes!!!
I called my dad the next morning, and asked him to come over and take a look at it. It look's like the plastic bearings are stripped on our garage door opener, so we have to buy a kit to replace that, and he could not fix our furnace, so he had to call a repair man...$$$$. It could have been worse though, it was only a loose wire!!! He did inform my dad when he was there though that our furnace was really old, and we need to replace it shortly, which would run us about $3500.00.........GREAT!!!!
Friday morning I took my car to get the oil changed, and when they were doing it they thought that there was something that need replaced in the engine with a price tag of about $1000.00. I got a report back in the afternoon that they just thought that I needed something flushed out, and it was only going to set me back $89.99....a savings of $910.01....thank god.
I just wonder, why when things happen can they not hit us one month at a time instead of all at once, and to boot, the month before Christmas?????????

Happy Birthday Curt!!!

Yesterday was Curt's birthday.
Mat and Jill came over for dinner...it was a luxurious meal from Zehr's...chicken wings, potato wedges, macaroni and potato salad, and cheese cake for dessert.
I had an appointment in Elmira with Laura so that she could pick out her bridesmaid dress, and get sized, so I think that I got to spend a matter of about 35 minutes with Curt on his special day. It was a dine and dash approach to a birthday dinner.
The big guy got a little spoiled this year. He turned 25 (quarter of a century) and I thought that since he spoiled me with diamonds a couple of weeks ago, it was the least that I could do to get him a good birthday gift. I got him a new pair of Steve Madden leather shoes for work and a new shirt. Lexy got him (although did not hand the cash over when it was time to pay for it) and electric razor. This is something that Curt has always wanted. He is really lazy, and does not like to shave, and usually only does it every 3-4 days. By the 3rd or the 4th day he is pretty shaggy, and some days I can not even believe that he goes to work looking like that. Maybe with the elelectric razor he will shave more often, and not complain that he has to do it.
The guys have gone to Buffalo tonight to the to the Habs/Saber's game. This has become an annual trip for the boys. These two teems always seem to meet up on the weekend after Curt's birthday, so they have made it an annual event to go down there and celebrate Curt's birthday with is beloved Habs!!! Last year everything seemed to go over well, with no arrests or charges (that we knew of) so hopefully it is a repeat of last year!!!!

Happy Birthday Mom......yesterday!

Yesterday was my mom's 4?th birthday and she got to celebrate it by having the day off work.
Since the credit union that she works for merged with another, they had to go to a training course on Remembrance Day (when they used to have it off), but get their birthdays off instead. It kind of sucks because we used to always have Remembrance Day off together and we usually went shopping, and know we will not have that day!!!
Anyways, we met for dinner last night at a restaurant in Listowel. Mom, dad, Cara, Justin, Grandma R, Grandma S, Curt and I had dinner together, and then we all went back to our house to have cake and coffee. We had ice cream cake for dessert, and my Uncle Ron and Aunt Lois come over to join us.
It was very nice for my mom to have everyone be able to get together and celebrate her big day!!!!!
Happy Birthday MOM!!!

SOOOOOO Tired

This weekend Jill, Cara and I went to Birch Run, Michigan to do some shopping. As you can probably tell by the pile of bags we did very well!!!!
We left on Friday afternoon, shopped all day Saturday and part of the day on Sunday, and headed home Sunday afternoon.
When we crossed the border we had to go in and pay taxes on the stuff that we claimed (well, Cara and I did, Jill got shit lucky).
We got home around 8 on Sunday night and as soon as I stepped foot into my house all I could smell was the stench of vomit.
Apparently Curt had 20 of his closest friends in on Saturday night to watch the Habs/Leafs game and one of them got really drunk and threw up all over my couch cover. After he did that, he went up to our spare bed to go to sleep and got sick all over the carpet up there, as well as the mattress and sheets. Curt had attempted to clean it up, but I think that it had probably sat there for about 12 hours before he got to it, and the stench had time to seep into the carpet. I have know scrubbed the carpet with soap and water, used Lysol and scrubbed it, sprayed the shit out of it with Febreez and there is know baking soda sitting on it. I have no idea how to get the smell out of the carpet without going out and renting a carpet cleaner and cleaning the shit out of it!!!!
Here is my plea: if anyone knows how to get the stench of vomit out of carpet, please fill me in on the secret!!!!!
Between my busy weekend, trying to get some stuff booked for the wedding, and attending to a puck stained carpet, I am exhausted. Almost every night I have been in bed and asleep by 10 and yesterday morning I slept in. I have not done that for a long time, and I still feel sleep deprived.
Thank god we have nothing on this weekend so that I can try to get caught up on some well deserved R & R.

Happy Birthday Addy

Since I am going to be away this weekend, I thought that I better post my birthday wishes to my friend Laura's little girl Addy today.
Ava Adeline Leader will be 1 year old on Saturday.
Addy was over on Saturday night to celebrate Curt and my engagement, and this photo was taken then. Addy will be a big sister to twin siblings in only 5 months.
CRAZY PARENTS!!!!!!

I am exhausted....and I didn't even do anything!!

Yesterday Curt and I had to get up really early and go over to his parents house and tell them the good news. They had been away the night before, so we were not able to tell them then, and thought that we better get it done before they herd it from someone else.
I had plans to go to Jill's cottage to get the grapevine for my urn, so my mom and dad came and picked us up about 10:30. We headed to Belmore to a couple of craft stores, to the Grey Ox for their open house and then to the cottage. We loaded the back of the truck up and headed for home.
I was really tired because I did not sleep very well the night before due to my excitement, so when we got home we decided that we were going to lay our head down and have a little nap. That was soon disrupted with Curt and all of the guys coming over. Curt had invited everyone over to our house to celebrate our engagement!!!!!
Later on in the evening we decided to go to a Buck and Doe in town. We headed there around 10:30, and by 11:15 I was ready for home. Jill and I came home and left the boys to do their celebrating, and as soon as my head hit that pillow, I was out.
This morning I woke up and headed over to my mom and dad's. It was a day of lessons. I was to learn how to make my very first pie....pastry shell's and all!!!! I am to make 2 to take to our church's foul supper this week, and thought that I better do a test run before then.
My grandma Robinson, Jaycee, Cara, Justin, Mom, Dad and Curt were all my test dummies. I am happy to report that everyone loved them, and I have not got any phone calls that anyone was sick from them. I guess I am good to go for Wednesday night. I made the shell's today and they are in the freezer waiting to be filled and cooked on Tuesday. I think that it is going to be Cherry and Dutch Apple for the Atwood folks!!!

SURPRISE.........................

We got engaged!!!!!!
for the details, click on the link
www.theknot.com
and then in you have to type in either of our names (first and last) in the find couple's wedding page area.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Christmas is my most favorite time of the year.
As soon as Halloween is over, all hell breaks loose around our house, and the many, many tote boxes of Christmas decorations get brought up from the basement and begin to get emptied.
On Wednesday night I went down and sorted through all of the decorations downstairs, and made a very large pile of stuff for Curt to take upstairs. I took down off the fall decorations and did the dusting in preparation for the Christmas stuff to be brought out.
Last night the fun began. It was the perfect night to get into the Christmas spirit with all of the snow falling. I got home from work, had dinner, and got to it. It was a big night for my television shows, but I managed to watch/listen to them as I got all my stuff out.
I am happy to report that all totes are emptied, except the one with the lites and the garland in it (those will be emptied this weekend), the tree is up, but not decorated (that will be getting done tonight), and everything is in its place (well, it will be by the Sunday night).
For those of you that are on the countdown........here is something that my mom sent me today, knowing that I would really enjoy it!!!!!
http://home.valornet.com/sabruf2/countchr.html

What a RIP

Last November mom took me up to the Grey Ox, which is this place in Lucknow where you can make your own gapevine trees, twig furniture, ect.
We went one nice Saturday morning and made a grapevine tree for me as part of my Christmas present. She had been up there the week before for their Open House, and while she was up there she enrolled us for the class. There was also this set of urns that caught her eyes, but she did not know what she would do with them. The lady had them filled with greenery for Christmas. From the time that she had been there for the open house, until the next weekend when we went to make the trees, she had also enrolled us in this class with a lady to teach us how to put together Christmas greenery in an arrangement.
She pondered about getting the urns to do our arrangements with, and finally decided on it and ordered them when we were up there doing my grapevine tree.
I was working in Wingham last year, so she sent me up to get them one day on my lunch hour. When I got up there all they were was this metal frame with no grapevine on it what so ever. I knew what my mom had paid for them, and thought that it was pretty expensive for just the metal frame of the urn. I talked to the lady about it, and she said that is all that my mom had paid for, and it would be another $75.00 for her to put this little bit of grapevine on them. WOW....$75.00 to go to the bush, get a little bit of grapevine, and wined it around the urns. I didn't even have to consider the thought of paying for her to complete the urns, I loaded them up, and took them home.
When I dropped my mom's off at her house, I told her that we could go to the bush and get our own grapevine and wined it around the earns for that price.
This is the weekend. Tomorrow morning Jill, mom and I are heading up the the Grey Ox for their open house, and then we are heading up to Jill's cottage because they have a bush across from it that has a whole bunch of grapevine in it.
After we get them done I will have to let you know weather it was worth the $75.00 for her to do it, or weather I made the right, cheap decision.

The Ghosts and Goblin's Where OUT!!!!

Last night it was Halloween, and we were ready.
Monday night Destiny and I made up popcorn balls and special candy bags with some of the good candy for all of my trick-r-treater's that I know, and I pulled all the reject candy (the stuff that we don't like) from the boxes, and threw it into a bowl for all the other kids.
We did not take a count of the kids that we had around, but I can pretty much guess it to be in the high 20's. Last year we had 45-50, so our numbers were way down. Everyone else that I have talked to about it said that they did not have near as many kids as in years past either. I thought that will a P.A. Day for the kids today, and the night being so nice that we would have more then last year, but I guess my anticipation was wrong.
Lexy and I both dressed the part...her in her pumpkin costume, and me and my pumpkin pj's.
We only had a few kids that came around that we knew:
Cloe:

Hayleigh & Emily:

Paige & Destiny (sorry...no pics)

The best Goblin that showed up on our door step was this short bald guy that was all by himself with a garbage bag over his head. He came to the door, and Curt answered it. We kind of felt sorry for this kid, as he was out all by himself, in a pretty pathetic costum, so we filled his bag with candy and sent him on his way............I hope that you didn't get a tummy ach from all of the candy Harrison!!!!!!!!!!!

All that is left is to put the candy away in the cupboard because to me...out of sit, out of mind, and by the time I remember it is up there, Curt will have it all ate.

Tonight on the agenda: Halloween decorations away, Christmas decorations out!!!!!!!