Getting Ready to Sell

Today is another snow / ice day so I have all kids home. Our morning project is to sort through Sylvia's clothes and donate the ones she outgrew / doesn't want anymore.

 

I have done tons of things like that this week. I donated many bags of useful, but not to us, items to our thrift store. I made two runs to the dump for recycling / garbage. I cleaned up part of the basement. I organized my closet. I replaced our old rusty, banged up heating vent cover with nice shiny new ones. The big thing I am still waiting for is new carpet, the guy came over yesterday to measure.

It feels good to be doing stuff again instead of just waiting waiting waiting. I guess patience isn't my biggest virtue :D

Vacation is Over!

So we had taken the house off for the winter with the plan to put it back on in the spring. I was tremendously enjoying not having the 'house has to be perfecct at all times!' stress, but on the other hand, the house was backsliding into more clutter and less 'put stuff away IMMEDIATELY'.

Until my realtor gave me a call 'There is lots of activity, what would you think about putting it on the market again?' Well, what else could I say but 'Sure, let's do it!' mostly backed by enthusiasm, but also a slight 'Do I REALLY have to do this again NOW already? Can't we wait till next month, year, decade?'

 

Over the next few days I'll be getting the house ready and it will be back on the market. Not sure who would want to buy this house in the winter (driveway from H&*&*&*), but I am willing to try, if only because no one will buy it for sure unless it's listed.

Send more house selling vibes! I'll share them with whoever else is selling their house (Hallo flowtops ^^)

More Beaver Pond Pictures

 

These are pictures from before the snow storm. I would have gone and made new ones if the temperature hadn't dropped to frigging freezing our butts off. Yesterday was under 0 F and this morning I woke up to -26 C. Brrrrrr.

 

Maybe I should have given Kate some breakfast before we went hiking so she wouldn't have had to eat the local vegetation...

 

Today was a day off from school to celebrate Martin Luther King day and we had a nice relaxed day at home. Most of our planned appointments / activities were cancelled for one reason or another, so we puttered around and did a lot of different nothings. I cleaned up a bit more of basement and garage, but not enough to actually see a difference.

 

 

 

 

 

First Snow Day of The Year!

Remember how I said yesterday we had barely any snow this winter? Well, the universe listened and sent some today...

At this point I almost had forgotten that snow usually is a NH reality, so I woke up at 6am as usual, started waking up kids who ignored me as usual. Until I realized 'Wait a minute! There was snow in the forecast. A winter storm warning. There is snow outside, even if it isn't a lot. Hmmmmm.' A quick trip the the school web site confirmed it. Our Very First Snow Day!

 

Told the kids to go back to sleep, curled up in my own bed, and slept a bit more till I had to go out anyway for a doctor's appointment. Said kid was slightly sad he didn't get to miss a few hours of school due to this doctor's visit ^^

 

Winter Sports

This year I finally managed to get Erik and Sylvia on the slopes. Erik is learning how to snowboard, Sylvia is learning how to ski.

 

Of course, it sure would help if there actually was SNOW. This is a weird winter, still no major snow storms, apart from the Halloween and the Thanksgiving ones which have long disappeared. Once in a while we have a few flurries, but that's it so far. I am both happy about it and wondering what is going on with our weather.

 

This mountain is making artificial snow, which at least keeps the lessons going, but it is a poor substitute for the real thing.

 

Sylvia came home all happy and excited from her lesson 'I was the first on in our group to fall over!!!' I am so proud of her :D Erik informed me that he was the first one to fall over too, so I clearly must be raising two prodigies ^^

Pileated Woodpecker

 

I had heard we had them in the neighborhood but today I finally saw them in our backyard! During breakfast Kate noticed one pileated woodpecker.

 

A few minutes later Erik saw the second one.

 

 

Cathédrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde

 

We loved visiting the cathedrals in Montreal. This was our second one and it was just amazing. I'll let the pictures talk for themselves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ex Beaver Pond

 

After playing on the ice, we hiked down to what used to be our beaver pond. It is more of a beaver marsh now.

 

Hiking there saw way more ice than we have in our backyard.

 

The kids had fun on the ice and the rocks and just playing around, and there were only two kids who ended up with wet feet. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to tell which kids.

 

 

We saw evidence of deer hunters. At least that is the only reason I can think of for people leaving their cans of deer urine around...

 

Tomorrow first day of school after the vacation, will be interesting to get everyone out of bed in time ^^

 

 

 

Ice Skating Rink in Our Backyard???

 

The kids have been having fun on the ice.

 

OK, maybe it is not QUITE big enough to ice skate, but it's fun anyway ^^

 

Me? I am just happy that it's early January and we don't have any snow on the ground!