Monday, September 18, 2017

Resurfacing


I took a little unexpected blogging break there but everything is fine here.  I have just spent the last 10 days trying to improve my mental health and not get so involved in total world chaos via the media. 

I bought two gigantic pots of mums for either side of our garage ($12 per pot at Costco) which immediately increased the happiness factor. Mums are so hardy and they look absolutely beautiful.  These will likely last until November as we don't usually get any frosts until then. 


The weather has finally changed here, no more steaming hot days.  We have even got a bit of rain which is still a blessing after our long extremely hot dry summer.  No more AC on and no heat either, that lovely time of year when temperatures are nice and moderate.  Our leaves are falling off trees, not because of frost but because of lack of water and the fact they know fall is coming.  I've taken lots of walks, read, cooked and baked taking full advantage of the cool-off.  


I found this cute little clay owl that someone lovingly made for their Mom (it says I love you Mom on the back).  On the sides are tiny little crooked lines to represent wings.  It has an opening at the top which I think is for toothpicks.  As I keep it on the window sill overlooking my kitchen sink it currently lives with all the tomatoes that are still ripening.  He makes me happy and my cash outlay was a whopping 10 cents.  I have a menagerie of other creatures that live on the ledge with him that I will share one day, all found for pennies at the thrift store as well.

banana pinneapple spice muffins for yesterday's brunch


Our business is booming again, always full throttle at this time of year.  Hubby worked all weekend but as I was waiting on him to write a presentation that I will produce I went with Mom garage saling on Saturday.  There are three kinds of garage sales. Those that think their stuff is worth retail prices, those that really have nothing to sell (or even donate for that matter) and those that just want to move the stuff at decent prices.  We only found garage sales of the first two types.  I bought 4 books and Mom bought one, we spent a whopping $2 total.

Saturday night hubby and I went to Ribfest which is a fundraiser for an organization he used to belong to.  That is the primary reason we went.  We came home $85 lighter out of pocket and determined that hubby's ribs might possibly be much better than he thinks they are, something that we have been telling him that all along.  I am not sure we will go again but it was nice to get out of the house together.  Next time I would rather just make a cash donation.

Yesterday I cleaned the entire house from top to bottom and cooked a meal for two days so that no cooking needs to be done today.  I was preparing for what I know is going to be a very non-stop week for both of us work-wise.  I am glad my new fit bit shows calories burned as housework is hard work but short on steps.  After the entire cleaning I was only at 4000 steps so ended up going on the treadmill to make up the rest of my 10,000.  It was a stormy windy rainy day so walking Buddy was out of the question as he was busy taking long warm naps.  He hates rain and hates wind even more so he just enjoyed a nice quiet day.  Housework can be challenging to accomplish weekdays due to hubby's internet conferencing so usually I just do it in bits and pieces at the end of the day or on weekends when he is not trying to talk to clients.

Last month I downgraded our cable, shaved off $30 per month.  I would get rid of it altogether but hubby disagrees so for now we still have basic cable plus the news channels and Netflix.  We both watch far more Netflix than anything.  We don't have Hulu in Canada as access is blocked (there are illegal workarounds) so are kind of limited as to what we can watch at low prices.  We both enjoy the news channels but this weekend I had had enough and instead turned everything off and just read instead.  The only Netflix watching was while on the treadmill (watching Hinterland, a BBC series).

Tomorrow I have my annual dentist appointment and tooth cleaning.  I love it how dentists came up with a plan to bill more by telling people they need to have their teeth cleaned twice a year.  When I was a kid it was only once a year.  People's teeth have gotten much better since then, so I still only go once a year unless I have an issue.  They are trying to do maximum billings on people's benefit plans but as we pay as we go I stop them when they even try and book another appointment six months down the road.  Anyway, I fully expect to be out of there $300 later but the money is saved in a health account so I will charge it to the credit card to accumulate points then pay it off immediately.  My next move is going to get my eyes checked as I know they have changed and I need new glasses.   The current glasses I wear are six years old, purchased right before I quit my job and moved to Vancouver Island on a work benefit plan.  No one on the planet needs new glasses every year either unless your eyes are changing that much - then you have far more serious issues at hand.

And that has been life here at the island pad, just trying to keep all the company balls in the air and living the good life at the same time.  Have a great week everyone!

22 comments:

  1. Watching the news every day has got to be the most depressing thing you can do in life. No wonder you were feeling stressed.

    Canadian and American dentists are crooks. I'm convinced they have no interest in your dental health... it is strictly a business. In fact, my accountant did a lot of work for dentists and he says they actually have courses that dentists take on how to maximize their patient billable hours, improve chair turnover rates, and increase dental hygiene production. It would have to be a dental emergency for me to go to one of these shysters up here.

    We get our teeth cleaning done in Mexico (by the dentist herself) for $16 CAD. And if she looks and says they don't need cleaning, she doesn't charge a dime (or a peso)

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    1. If we spent more time in Mexico I would go that route. The only thing that is more expensive teeth wise is if you need to have dental work done on your dog. A cleaning for Buddy is $600! Forget that, he get's his teeth brushed every other day as poodles are notorious for bad teeth. They are nice and healthy plus we inspect them all the time so no chance of issues.

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  2. I am glad your business is booming, but understand who that clips into any time you have for other things. Since I do not monetize my blog it is secondary in my life and anything in the 3-D world that needs my attentions or satisfies some personal itch that needs scratching always takes precedent over a blog.
    Love the owl and at 10 cents it might be the best score I have ever seen,

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    1. I love the owl too, saw him one day and didn't buy him, the next time I was at that thrift he was still there but this time for 10 cents instead of 50 cents. He called out to me lol

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  3. I like your idea of buying mums, yours are very cheery. Can you get Britbox and Acorn TV in Canada? I get them in the US, and they offer British tv at low prices ($8 and $5 a month). I stopped cable which saves me $70 a month.

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    1. Hi Terra! I can't get Britbox but can get acorn and am going to check it out - thanks for the suggestion, I love British TV

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  4. Always good to take a break from it all. We also only do the the dental cleaning once per year as we are not part of any plans. We do get our eyes checked at least every two years and for me often annually. I noticed while in Venice that I had trouble reading reading the tiny print on maps. I Came home and fond I had a change in my eyes. All I did was get new lenses in the same frames.

    I have been on a save money kick these last few weeks, hope to find time soon to post about it.

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    1. Always good to save money! Mom tried to get new lenses in old glasses and they refused to do it, not sure why. I am going to try costco this time. I would order them online but have heard good and bad things about that, might if the price was stupidly low though

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  5. Good to see a post from you! Glad all is well! It's still hot in Texas! Happy we have AC and happy it's not in the triple digits!

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    1. Plus you get to decorate for fall! Those mums made me think of you somehow, would be perfect at your house with all your decorations.

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  6. Glad to see you back! I take mental health breaks quite often myself. :-) We get our teeth cleaned 2x/year, but it's covered by our dental insurance, so is free to us. I'm not convinced the kids do a very thorough job, despite many, many reminders, so they probably need it the most!

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    1. I hear you...probably best for the kids, you are right

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  7. God to see you posting! It's good to have a break sometimes.
    I love your little owl and your lovely Mums. The description of the yard sales sound very much like our car boots (of which I've only been to one this year). Nothing makes me more annoyed than asking the price, being told something insane and that "They go for a bomb on eBay"....eBay it yourself then!!
    Hinterland is ace, it does make Wales look a lot bleaker than the reality though.
    Good luck at the dentist. xxx

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    1. There was one woman where most of her items were over $50. One mirror was $175 which is above retail. My Mom said "does she think her stuff is worth more than everyone elses?" I bet she had 95% of the stuff left by the end of the sale

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  8. We don't have cable. We have a digital antenna for local channels and news and a Roku through which we can access many free channels, but we also pay for Hulu and Amazon Prime. We only pay for internet service which is $80 a month. Lately though there hasn't been much on, so we watch a lot of YouTube stuff.
    As for dentists, I can tell you that we have spent more on the dentist than almost any other service. We are currently in debt because of dental bills and we have two dental insurance policies. :-(

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    1. There are only 2 critical channels, BNN (Canadian business news network which hubby watches all the time) and CNN that we would like. Unfortunately our cable is such that you have to have a certain level to get those 2. At least I've gotten it down a wee bit though. There are caps here as to how much you can charge for dental work but it still can be bloody expensive.

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  9. I am in benefits administration and can tell you that I also think dental insurance is over-rated -- unless you know you're going to need a crown or root canal. Even then, only half is covered. I am waiting to see if my dentist is going to bill me for an orbital x-ray that they should not have done when I went in for a broken tooth. They insisted I was due for one. I then afterwards realized they counted the years wrong. Vision insurance is not worth it either. Pay for an exam and get your frames on-line! I am going to sign up for fewer benefits this year and put my $$$ in savings vehicles. Did you know that the major optical company owns most of the plans and sells most of the retail products at a huge mark-up. Either way they make money (it's Luxotica). The online companies are rebels and we need to support them.

    Sorry to be so long-winded!

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    1. My hubby had come across that fact about the optical company owning most of the plans and retail products. In Canada usually our benefit plans through work you have no say at all what you get or don't get but then again the company usually pays 100% of the cost versus the employee. I've worked out the cost of us buying Blue Cross benefits for extra medical, dental and vision but the monthly fee is quite a bit higher than our actual hard costs so we are sticking with paying out of pocket. Hubby has far more health related issues than I so it balances out between the two of us.

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  10. Glad you're back; although I've been gone, too, so didn't know you had taken a break. I recently read an article where dentists admitted that the twice a year cleaning was a random and bogus rule. My last dentist in California pushed for cleanings every 4 months and his hygienists were trained to tell everyone how bad their teeth were and they could even come in more often. I also get overwhelmed with the news.

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    1. I've gone ahead and prebooked a visit for next September, no earlier. I only needed 2 units of scaling(15 mins each) so that tells you biannual is not needed. The last cleaning I had was in 2015 as had crown and root canal in 2016 so skipped the cleaning part. I think someone needs to come out with an electronic device that automatically shuts the tv screen to black when anything relating to trump comes on. I could probably watch the news without wanting to throw up then

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  11. it is nice to have blooming business. The weather is hot in Toronto. Enjoying the weather as much as I can. But the air conditioner is on throughout the night.

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    1. I wonder how long Ontario will have that hot weather for....it is snowing in some parts of Canada already like Edmonton

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