Wednesday, January 12th, 2005.Yo, yo, yo. What up wit' my Home-ies??
It's so weird to write '2005', but I do really like that number, and I hope
it's a lucky year for all of us! We've all been stuck at home, today, because
the News went on and on about this terrible Storm Watch, and since
I just drove through a really bad Snowstorm last week, it seemed like something
I would really like to avoid, so we stayed home. And wouldn't you know it? It's
gorgeous outside. (And by 'gorgeous', I mean 'not a snowstorm'!
ha,ha! Your expectation level for 'gorgeous weather' takes a serious dip down
when you live in a cold climate.... but I'll show you some pictures I took a
couple of days ago to show you what I think is 'gorgeous'!)
Hey, did I tell you that Dwight
has been talking about the Land that I so desperately want to buy (if
it's the Piece of Land I think it is, and if it has a really good
Well!). I figured there wasn't much point in going any further with my investigation
with the Land until Dwight was on board with the whole thing. Now here's a Quick
Tip: Don't Buy Property Your Significant Other Doesn't Want. It ain't worth
it, Baby! For one, you'll never hear the end of it, no matter how much time
goes by (Twenty, Thirty Years!), and whenever things go the slightest
bit wrong, the first words out their mouth are, "This never would have
happened if we hadn't moved to this house ... bought that extra 500 Acres...
bought that Swampland with the Sinkhole" Something like that! ha,ha! So
make sure you both like the place where you are going to live, or where you
plan to live in the future.
Oh, and since I will be investigating the Gallons per Minute and
the Quality of the Water in the existing Well on the Land I like, this seems
as good a time as any to talk about Wells and Gallons per Minute. I have a real
pet peeve (who ever thought you'd hear that term after you'd already written
your last High School Year Book, eh? ha,ha!) about the whole thing where some
'people' will tell Prospective Buyers that it doesn't matter how many Gallons
per Minute the Well can deliver, but in fact if matters very much. There's nothing
worse than not having enough water. It's true that you can put in a giant Cistern
to hold Water, and have fresh water shipped in one a Month, or so, depending
on your situation, but that's a difficult way to live.
It used to be that the Banks wouldn't give you a Mortgage if
you had fewer than 4 or 5 Gallons a minute, but those Rules are long gone. I
think the Banks were on the right track, though, since that's a very reasonable
amount of Water per Minute. 3 Gallons per minute is not too bad, but I don't
think I'd ever go any lower than that. We scored with the Land we're on right
now, since we found an Acreage with 'Town Water', which means it's like living
in the City but with lots of land -- a very good deal. That's why it's difficult
to make the big decision to move from here, since it's very unlikely we could
find that sweet deal, again. Ah, well. I've already started to redesign this
house, so no I'm all excited at the prospect of Building, again. There's nothing
more exciting for me than starting a New Build, so it'll be interesting to see
when we get to get going on that. As soon as the weather clears up a bit, I'm
going to call the Realtor to get her to meet us at the Land so I can walk on
it, to get a real feel for what it would be like to live there.
Oh, and have you been hooked into the new Bachelor with
Jen in New York? We weren't going to watch it in protest of that Show using
the same girl who already 'won' one man to find 25 more
men, but then the snow was really deep and it's freezing outside, so we turned
it on. And now we're hooked, again! All those men, and Jen as every bit as cute
as she was on that last Bachelor where she 'won' Andrew Firestone...and we can't
fault her for wanting to give it another try, right? It's fun to see all the
personalities (and how good looking some of them are, although Dwight, who is
a Blonde, was bitterly disappointed not to see any other Blonde men for Jen
to choose from...!), and how the men mangage themselves -- some of them using
the old 'Drink-til-you-drop' technique to woo The Bachelorette! Some nice light
entertainment, to be sure!
Tip of the Day: Just in case
you also live in a Cold Climate (it was supposed to go down to -50 Degrees Celsius
with the Windchill, last night, up here in Calgary, Alberta...), it's very important
to make sure that your Garden Hose is completely disconnected from any Outside
Valves. The Pipe could Freeze with some water in it, then it can break and you're
screwed, so you really want to avoid that. Oh, and while we're on Water issues,
today, pop into my Home
Safety Page to see where your Main Water Valve is in case you ever have
a leak and need to shut it off in a big hurry. Or if you are going on any Vacation
that takes you away from your house for more than two days. Better to be safe
than sorry! (Also, good to learn how to say 'you're sorry', in a timely manner,
should you ever be particularly bad! ha,ha,ha!)
Thanks for popping in for a wee visit! I have
to go make the Dinner, it's taken me sooo long to write this! See ya,
Baby!
Love &
Luck, Ailsa
I'll go get those new Photos..
be right back!
--
So here's the Snowy View out of our Sunroom -- pretty, eh? There
are more snowy pictures on my Landscaping
Page if you want to see a few close-ups of the Trees. I love when the sun
shines through the snow in the trees -- it looks like a million gems,
and that truly is gorgeous, if not a bit chilly! It all equals
itself out in the end! I figure you might as well find the stuff you love in
any climate you find yourself, right?
Monday, January 3rd, 2005! YaaHoo!
A Brand New Year! Come on in and get comfy -- I'll pour the Drinks and get you
a few boxes of chocolates! ha,ha! We have tons and tons of chocolates,
although a few are half-eaten -- each individual chocolate, I mean... you know
how you try a piece of chocolate and it doesn't live up to your expectations
(sounds like a Date! ya'ha,ha!), so you carefully put it back in the box in
case you're desperate enough at a later date to go back and try it again...(Yes,
that's very much like a Date!).
I'm thinking aout the 'Wonderful World of Dating' because that's
what I've been reading about for the entire Christmas Holiday! Now that I've
decided to become actually committed to my Marriage (it's true
that marriage often goes in stages when sometimes you feel like it's great and
sometimes, not-so-much...!), I can only live vicariously through
Characters in Books, so it's important for me now to seek out all sorts of great
things to keep me amused. Over the Break, I read the new Book,
He's Just Not That Into You -- very interesting read. I saw the Authors
on Oprah, and SHE really liked it, so I got a copy for Cara for
Christmas. I though she might be a tad too young for it, but my
thinking was that if some of the info in the Book would save her from some Dating
Disasters, then it would be worth it. Now, it turned out that Cara has a really
healthy sense of Self-Esteem (I guess I must not have, since I
think I fell into pretty much every trap they mentioned in the
Book!), so she thought it was 'obvious', but then she hasn't really had to deal
with that stuff, yet, Thank Goodness.
The deal in the Book, He's
Just Not That Into You, is that 'girls' who want to be married (I think
that's the target audience), or at least be in a reasonable, decent relationship,
ought to know about what men really think and how they go about expressing themselves.
So the funny thing is, some of my very best friends are the men they write about
being 'Not That Into You' to this very day, so I'm not so sure all the info
is bang-on. I think my Best Friend, Greg, did almost every thing in the whole
book, but we both laughed about it and moved on. And we both have
a healthy sense of Self-Esteem. Maybe because we both also had lots of options
for other people to be in the picture, so it didn't seem to be such a big deal,
and perhaps that's what allowed us to stay friends, but I think the book suggests
that women never cut any guy any slack whatsoever, and that doesn't
seem very practcal to me, since I hardly know any perfect men...
and not so many perfect women, either. Hmmmm. See the problem??
Don't get me wrong -- I really enjoyed the book -- I could hardly
put it down. I just hope that when all the 'girls' out there read it, that they
know that there are grey areas in life, and especially in any relationship.
Dating is tricky enough as it is, so adding in all these barriers really makes
it difficult. And if the woman actually did get a guy to get past
all the rules from the book, and then they got Engaged, how would they ever
make it to the Wedding Date, since there are always fights in between the Engagement
and the Wedding...and that's why I encourage Small Weddings or Eloping -- much
easier in the long run, and you can always have a big party when you get home
from the Honeymoon, right? Then you still have money to put a Down Payment on
your First Home, together, which is far better than some enormous fancy Wedding.
I'm just saying...
Dwight
just came home, so I have to go make lunch for him -- be right back! (oh the
special joys of being a Wife!)
Oh, I just made a new Astrological
Page, so swing by and have a wee look while I'm cooking! ha,ha!
Ailsa!
Heeelllloooo! I'm back! Dwight just won't go
back to work, he says he's enjoying himself too much at home... I've got him
watching Ellen,
right now, so that gives me a wee bit of time to finish this before he wants
to chat again. Chatting is very time-consuming, and a lot of fun during the
holidays, but now I want to get back to work, so he gots to go back to work!
ha,ha! And he keeps talking about how great it would be to take an early Retirement
(he's 45...), so I just pretend like I didn't hear that, and continue on with
the Laundry, or Dishes, or Cooking... all those exciting tasks that you can
never retire from. Ah, well.
The other fantastic books that I read over the Holidays were the
other two Candace Bushnell books -- Candace Bushnell is the Author of
Sex and the City (a Great Book!),
and she also wrote Trading Up (a fabulous read!) and 4Blondes,
which I'm still reading. Man, I think I'm addicted to her Work... I wonder when
someone will Produce the Movie version of Trading Up, since it would definitely
make a great Film. Maybe a Two-Part Movie, or a Movie with a Series to follow...
It's not for the weak-of-heart, or anyone who doesn't like any words that might
start with F or perhaps, 'A'... you know what I mean! It's very graphic, but
most Literature is, ain't it? The good stuff, anyway. Well, my
favorites, I suppose. It's all quietly in your own head, when you're reading,
so it's all good, right? ha,ha!
Okay, so now I really have to go... maybe I can squeeze in a quick read in
the Sunroom before Dinner... just until I'm finished 4Blondes! Lately, I've
taken to reading while Dwight is telling me some story or another, but the stories
are endless, and I need to know what's going to happen to the Characters in
my book... see how that little 'addiction' thing can creep into your life so
easily? ha,ha,ha! Well, I Hope you are having a great New Year, so far, and
that it only gets better and better with each passing day throughout the entire
year and beyond! And this is a particularly lucky year, since it's a 7 year
(2005 == 2 + 5+7 in Numerology, which I am fond
of, too! And, I'm a Seven, so it all looks very good!
Hey, you can help spread the word about my Site
-- here's a new 'Tell A Friend' that my friend James made for me.
He's been working away to teach me some new things for my website that I desperately
need to learn to make the improvements I really want. Oh, and don't feel restricted
by the whole 'Tell a Friend' thing. You don't even have to really
like someone to tell them about www.buildyourownhouse.ca!
What do I care? I'm just interested in loads and loads of people coming in for
a visit -- maybe even buying something through the Site! And who knows??? Maybe
they'll quit borrowing money from you by learning how to Manage
their own money after reading my Articles!
ha,ha! So here it is, and it's easy schmeasy to use!<
> Thank You!! Soon we'll be enormous!
(And I don't mean just because of all the Caramel Apples, neither! ha,ha,ha!)
Uh, oh... I see there's no apostrophe in the Friends Name Box --
must tell James! Rest assured ( I don't want you to lose sleep over this!),
I do know it needs and 's... we'll fix it for you! See ya'! Ailsa
- At
Home with Ailsa -- My Update Page! -
Sex
and the City
Trading
Up
4
Blondes
><
><
