Dishes?

I found an absurd deal on porcelain dishes at Canadian Tire during the boxing week sale.

$9.99 for a set of 16 dishes, plain white. If you're keeping track, that's about $0.56 per item; and the customer reviews are all very good. Quelle bargoon!

Here's what they look like:

We picked up 4 boxes, for a total of 16 place settings*. Overkill perhaps, but we'll need them when there's a crowd visiting, and this way I'll have spares if we happen to bounce one of 'em off the kitchen floor.

Much better than these hodgepodge jobbies:

Of course, now I have more mugs than brains.

Coffee, anyone?

---

*And  no, I didn't just pick up dishes. I bought a kitchen scale, a hockey gear drying rack, yards and yards of Christmas gift wrap, some festive paper plates and napkins, and batteries. Because it was all on sale. Thank you crappy tire for emptying my wallet.

Musing

I've resumed my winter lurking on various web forums to keep abreast of the conditions on/around the lake. My old haunt (Rice Lake Today) folded so I'm getting creative. Two new boards have cropped up (Rice Lake Forum and Rice Lake Cottaging), although neither is particularly active, and there are also winter ice fishing boards to troll, such as Ice Shanty.

So far, I know that the lake is fully frozen and ATVs and snowmobiles have been out on the ice. From the ice fishing board I was able to find someone that stopped near Marvin's to check the ice thickness with a power auger, and it's 10" with 2" of snow on top.

I'm starting to wish the kids had cross-country skis!

There have been reports of people spending Christmas on the Island. I'm conflicted. It sounds heavenly, but it also sounds stupid to me; my cottage is poorly insulated *and* poorly heated, which amounts to a heaping dollop of no-thank-you-very-much.

How cool is this, though:

Island cottager building a rink out front of their property.

Truth be told, apart from some curiosity as to the condition of the flooring*, I don't have a burning need to get out there this winter. I still have some sewing projects to wrap up, some cabinet doors to paint, and some items to purchase (kitchen dishes, for instance).

C. Contemplating the cottage from the warmth of her office with a steaming cup of tea.

*I had read negative reviews about the flooring when used in non-winterized edifices that indicated it tended to shrink and the joints would separate in extreme cold. Eeeee. I honestly can't see that happening though. Those floor panels are stuck together for good. Crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I decided to take a departure from the traditional Holiday-letter-in-a-card report this year. Let's save a few trees and spread some cheer, shall we?

If this is your first visit to my cottage blog, welcome!

It's a slow time of year with not much to report about the cottage and lake. We bought the cottage in the fall of 2009 and promptly shut it up for the winter. The spring and summer of 2010 were packed full of renovations, learning, and home cottage improvements. I invite you to troll through past posts here on the blog to bring yourself up to speed about all the happenings that happened. There's a handy navigation tool over there on the right that should help you work your way through the posts.

In family news, Our red-head (names reserved to ensure web anonymity) is now 10 and in Grade 5. He has his first male teacher this year, and he's thriving. It probably helps that this is the first year since grade 2 that he hasn't had a revolving door of supply teachers all year long. His grades have noticeably improved and he's happy to go to school each day.

He absolutely loves playing hockey and is in the Atom division with the local Minor Hockey League in addition to taking Hockey Skills practices on Wednesdays. He just passed his Level 6 for swimming after repeated attempts (very thrilled), and he's taking Hip Hop dance classes on the sly at his sister's dance studio. He's embarrassed to admit it, but he's a pretty good dancer. He's still enamoured with Lego, would watch cartoons all-day everyday if I let him, and is saving his pennies to buy himself an iPod Touch. Really.

The wee princess is 8 and in Grade 3 at the same school. We just learned that her teacher since September is only a supply teacher, and she'll be getting a new one in January. (Arg! with the supply teachers already!!) Fortunately she's a very strong student and adapts quickly to change. She's still dancing up a storm. We switched to a new studio in September and it has been a great decision so far. She's getting much better instruction, longer classes, more emphasis on technique, and a great group of friends in the bargain. As with last year, she's participating in Ballet, Jazz, Tap, Hip Hop, and Acro, and for the first time she's been awarded a solo (ballet). Needless to say, I spend an inordinate amount of time and money at the dance studio. 

Something new for her this year is tumbling class. It is intended to supplement her instruction for Acro dance class, but she's loving it and has mastered several new tricks this fall, including front and back walkovers. I don't know about you, but I'm impressed! (if the video doesn't work, try opening this page in a different browser). She too, was in Level 6 for swimming this year, but she didn't receive her badge. Many tears were shed. She's also saving her pennies, but she's saving "for college". Cutie. I'm not biased though. No sir.

My dear spouse (known around the blog here as "The Captain") is still working for AMD as a Continuation Engineer. It's been a busy and sometimes stressful year for him, but he still really enjoys his work. He grew a ridiculous mustache during November to raise awareness and funds for the fight against prostate cancer. Actually, he cheated a little and carved the mustache out of his beard, but it served its purpose; both funds and awareness were raised.
He's playing shinny hockey once a week on Tuesday nights, and then spends much of Wednesday complaining about how sore and tired he is. He doesn't find a lot of sympathy from me. During the summer he worked extremely hard on the cottage - we both did - and he learned many new and useful skills like installing a dock, installing plumbing, demolishing walls, driving a boat, installing electrical fixtures, and many many more. The sense of satisfaction and accomplishment is something you just can't buy. I know he's looking forward to kicking up his heels and enjoying the fruit of his hard work next summer.

I'm still working at Alcatel-Lucent in their customer documentation department. It has been a year of few challenges and little reward, but I continue to enjoy the benefit of working at home and have adjusted my schedule to accommodate my other job: full-time child herder. When I'm not at work, I'm running one of the kids to their many extra-curricular activities. Many of my other activities have taken a back seat to this insane schedule, but I'm going to try harder in the new year to carve out some time to have a little bit of fun. Maybe I'll start running again, rediscover my craft room, take a photography class... who knows! Certainly I'll be burning a few brain cells planning the next improvements to the cottage. Tops on my list are the ceiling in the living room/kitchen, and finishing the bathroom. Oh, to have unlimited time and unlimited budget for repairs. Maybe Santa will bring me some power tools.

I hope this missive find you and your family healthy, happy, and wise. Feel free to check in on us here on the blog from time to time. Things will likely remain quiet for a few months yet, but I hope to begin posting again in earnest in the Spring.

All the best for 2011,

Corrie

Ice and brains

Well, the lake is now frozen! That didn't take long. This photo is stolen from the new Rice Lake forum (the old one folded.) 

I wish that I had more cottage related news for you today, but I haven't much given the place a backwards glance in the last little while. Christmas snuck up on me FAST and I'm finding myself losing my mind and scrambling to get gifts, cards, and decorating out of the way in a timely fashion, all while managing my usual insane schedule of kids' activities and numerous overlapping work deadlines.Ya, sucks to be me. Don't I know it.

Thanks again for sticking around. 

Boy, I really miss the cottage.

 

Yuck

Gyehhhh....

Looking at these photos just makes me feel cold. (photos pilfered unabashedly from Rice Lake Today)

Where's that darned groundhog?! Someone drag him out of his hidey hole and make him tell me there will be 6 more weeks until spring.

Stupid groundhog.

Earthworm Jim

Today's post has absolutely nothing to do with cottages.

The. End.

It has everything to do with an extremely silly video game from 1994 that I had utterly and completely forgotten existed until I was trolling for a game to download to my SHINY new phone for the red-head as a reward for getting a perfect score on his science test.

Woo. That was a seriously convoluted sentence. I'm just going to rest here a minute.

Phew.

O.k. I'm good.

The game is called Earthworm Jim. The plot, in a seriously convoluted nutshell, is that a super suit (invented by, who else, a nefarious super genius) falls to the earth and Jim, a lowly earthworm, happens to find his way into the suit. Through the magic of science, Jim morphs into a blaster-toting super hero out to save someone from... something. It was 1994 for pete's sake. I've forgotten more significant things in that time than the plot to a video game. Like, for instance, where I put my cell phone.

This game is BENT. In the open screen, you use yourself as whip, launch a cow, get chewed on by a rabid junkyard dogs, get attacked by a tuba-dropping anvil-shooting motorized trash can, and blast your way through attack crows. If you stand still long enough, you scratch your butt.

Heehee! It's right up the red head's alley. Seriously, stupid silly stuff. I'm not sure he's going to get much screen time with this one; he's going to have to fight me for it.



Earthworm Jim and Earthworm Jim 2 are both available as downloads from the Wii store. If your Wii isn't busted. Like mine is. If you're lucky you can put it on your phone and never notice the outside world ever again.

The cellphone saga - update

After having unwittingly committing my cellphone to the not-so-briney deep of Rice Lake on the weekend of September 11-12, I have been without a phone all this long while.

It's killing me. KILLING. ME. I miss you, Motorola V360!

"Oh, I'll just ring the Captain to let him know we're running an errand before returning home....Oh, right. I don't have a phone."

*gnash gnash*

Recently, I told the captain, who was paralyzed with cell-phone-buying indecision*, "Just. Buy. Me. A. Frickin'. Phone. Already."

We hemmed and hawwed over the merits of buying a cheapie cheap basic bare-bones pay-as-you-go phone (essentially what I had before it went for a swim), or upgrading to a more feature-rich $mart phone. ← Dollar sign deliberate.

Do we switch carriers? Do we buy a cheap phone at Petro Canada and swap the SIM card from that phone into a second-hand or unlocked $mart phone to get a cheap data plan? Agonize, scheme, agonize, waffle, waffle.

I've really been pressed for time with the whirlwind schedule of fall activities. They have me out of the house for numerous hours on end; away from my calendar, my laptop, and my Brain. I wanted at least a decent PDA that would help me track my schedule. I didn't care about having an on-phone camera or MP3 player (I already have those, and they're better quality that what a phone would afford). I hoped to have web access, but it wasn't an imperative.

The Captain narrowed the options down to a few Nokia phones with full keyboards (yay!). Blackberry-like phones, without the Blackberry brand. They were going to cost close to $200, but if we kept them on the pay-as-you-go plan of my old phone, I could buy 20 megs of extra data access (for web features) for a 24-h period for $2 when and if I needed it.

Strangely, Rogers differentiates between Cellphones and $mart phones in their data plans, and charges $mart phones more (cellphones only have to pay $1 a day for unlimited access). Of course, this dollar discrepancy sent the Captain of Cheap into a tail spin and he had to know what the criteria were for identifying a $mart phone vs. a cellphone. *sigh* Rogers never did deliver a satisfactory answer to him. One cheeky tart at the help desk actually said "I should think that's obvious." Ooo, boy was I tempted to switch to another carrier right then and there.

Eventually the captain asked me to look at the Nokia E71:

"It's pretty," I said, "buy it."

He clapped his hand to his forehead.

"But you haven't even held it! You don't know what features it has! You can't buy a phone because it's 'pretty'."

"Yes I can," I responded. "I don't need to see it or hold it. Just buy me a frickin' phone. Whatever you get me will be fine."

Shortly thereafter I hopped on Kijiji (♥♥♥) to see if there were any E71 phones for sale, and there were! One was listed at $100, already on the Rogers' network.

Nokia E71 made in Fineland made of all medal the advertisement said.

I cringed.

"There's one for sale in Bowmanville, and I think they're not very bright." I told the captain.

He contacted them and arranged to drive over the next night to take a look at the phone. Then he cyber-stalked them to see what kind of people they are. It's scary how much information you can learn about people with a straight forward Google search. Luckily, they seemed harmless (if in dire need of a dictionary/spell checker and some better privacy settings on their Facebook profiles) and he went to Bowmanville the very next night.

He came home with a spiffy new-to-me-phone!  All that it was missing was a SIM card so that it would work on Rogers' network. We were sticking with Rogers because I still had $50 of air time paid for on my old pay-as-you-go phone and we were hoping to be able to transfer the $ and not lose it forever. It's a good thing we're honest folk (if creepy cyber stalkers), because the former owner left the phone full with their old contact lists, 15-min audio recordings of their daughter screaming at a Jonas Brothers concert, you name it. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete.

The following evening the captain returned home with a new SIM card that cost exactly $0 (for once Rogers did something right! Normally they charge $10 for these.) However, we still needed to call Rogers and ask them to activate the card. After getting bounced around Rogers' automated attendant system (grr), we ended up talking with someone in their home phone department.

Uh, no.

Tried again. Got someone in the mobile department (yay!) but they didn't handle Pay-as-you-go accounts (boo!), and the Pay-as-you-go department was only open 9-5 (boo! part II). We encouraged the Mobile guy to at least activate the SIM and said we'd deal with the Pay-as-you-go team the next day. With the SIM plugged into the phone and working, I checked my phone balance, and lo - the $50 was still there! So we didn't even need to contact the PAYG people. (yay!)

Very long story short: I've got me a new phone. [insert Snoopy happy dance]

If you haven't already done so, please send me your contact info so I can plug it into my contact list. I lost all my data when the other phone sank like a stone.

Thanks for reading this tenuously cottage-related blog post.

---

* Why was it up to the captain to decide which phone to buy? Because he's CHEAP; no matter which phone I had settled on, he would find a better deal, better features, better EVERYTHING and would bemoan my inferior phone purchasing skills for weeks. Ergo: he decides, because I don't want to listen to it. I'm more than happy to ignorantly chuck money at the problem and have a cellphone the very next day. Him, not so much.

I haven't forgotten about you!

Really, I haven't. I just have no (zero, none, zip, zilch) to tell you about the cottage right now. The only moderately interesting development is that the Cottage Life fall show is on November 26-28.

 
While I'd dearly love to attend, I'm not certain we'll be able to wing it this year, as we'll be celebrating the red-head's birthday that same weekend and Dance has completely gobbled up our Saturdays. *sigh*

Can we invent an extra weekend day? We could wedge it in between Saturday and Sunday. Maybe call it Stunday? On second thought, nix that. That's a horrible name.

I hope to have some sewing projects to show, some materials purchases (think bathroom ceiling) and maybe even some bunky plans/designs in the coming weeks. If I can survive this thoroughly insane holiday season.

Don't give up on me yet!

A dirty job

You know what happens to your boat when you leave it tied up all summer in a swampy, algae-rich marina? You get a skungey boat.

skun'-dzee, adj. The state of being covered in skunge. Skunge-like.

First the captain took the pressure washer to it (borrowed from Handy Dad). No dice.

Then he picked up some marginally caustic hull cleaner/algicide. This stuff worked ticketyboo, but only when used full-strength.

It was a long afternoon spent scrubbing the boat, but it's clean as a whistle, now. If only we had some place to store it.

Lake photos

I'd like to share a few more shots of the lake with you before I slip into my winter posting schedule (i.e. not daily).

Morning calm

Gorgeous view!

The view in the marina

Diamonds on the water

As seen from the boat.

Good Bye, Hodge Podge Lodge! See you in the Spring!

The final day

This past weekend, the Captain, Handy Dad, and the red-head took one more trip out to the lodge to remove the final section of dock, close the curtain I left open (whoops), and take the boat out of the water. The princess and I were stuck at home for hours of dance practices (as we will be until May, sharp.)

First, they got That Damned Boat ™ out of the water and onto the boat trailer. (No photos. This is what happens when you leave the Captain in charge. No photos!)
Then, they took the pontoon over to the island and they loaded it up with all manner of crap intended for the dump or return to the Despot. Good bye, crap!

Next, they docked over at our nice neighbours' place, The Doug Store, so that they could remove the final bits of our dock.

Then they ate some hot soup. It was chilly.

Lastly, they set off for shore where they took a load to the dump (good bye, crap!), took some returns to the Despot (haha evil despot! Give me back some of my money!!) and ultimate brought That Damned Boat ™ back home.

*sniff* buh-bye lodge!

This is so depressing

I can't tell you how depressing this is. Closing up the cottage for the winter. I miss my weekend refuge! I miss the water.
The beds are stripped. The mattresses and linens are bagged up to keep the mousies/dust at bay.

The boat is loaded to overflowing. (Good thing Handy Dad took a bunch of our junk in his boat when he left before us or we would've definitely needed two trips to get it all across.)

The water is shut off and the lines are disconnected. The power is off. The cupboards are empty. The docks are out and the pedal boat is stashed away.

Goodbye Hodge Podge Lodge!

 Now, somehow, we have to figure out how to cram all of this stuff into the CR-V for the trip home.

I guess we just start with something and go from there.*

*we actually did get it all to fit, and no-one had to ride home on the roof.

Out, out damned dock!

We're really nearing the end of cottage season now. During Thanksgiving weekend the gentlemen set about removing one of our two docks. Since Handy Dad's was easiest to disassemble, they opted to leave that one for a later, colder visit.

This time they removed our dock. First the deck boards came out, then the captain donned his dapper hip waders and dismantled the dock sections in the water. He didn't find my phone, but I don't think he was looking particularly hard.

As they disassembled each section, the three men lugged the heavy, waterlogged dock sections to shore where they were stashed in all available nooks and crannies. Uncle B repeatedly got clonked in the head  in the process, but he was kind enough not to complain about it within earshot.

They also decided to remove one section of Handy Dad's dock (the part in the deepest water) to make it a bit easier for them to remove it when the come back later.

It's weird with one dock out of the water. The cottage looks nekkid.

365 days

It's hard to believe that one year ago today we paid our first visit to the lodge.

Although it was run-down, over-grown, and had suffered from years of neglect and disuse, I remember thinking to myself: "I can really see us here". When we  learned that another couple beat us to the punch and put an offer in on the place. our hopes were dashed. When that deal fell through and the cottage was ours for the taking, it was fate.

We knew then that it was going to take quite a bit of work to spruce the place up - although we maybe didn't realize just how much work it was going to be.  Holy smokes. Was it really that bad!?

After a long summer and a LOT of work, the interior of the cottage is mostly complete.

Next year we can focus on finishing touches inside, and start to tackle some of the outside projects like sprucing up the deck, reclaiming the gardens, possibly putting in a veggie patch, hanging a hammock... the list grows with each passing day.

With the lodge closed up for the season, I can think and scheme and dream and plan for the next 6 months. [rubs hands together schemily]

If we get even half the help that we had this year, we'll be in very good shape.

It was awesome to have everyone roll up their sleeves and pitch in.

And some of them did some really crappy jobs, like cutting the grass in the blistering heat, or scrubbing the plastic soffit "ceiling".

No matter the job, every little bit helped.

 And some might even have been having fun (the nerve!)

Some jobs were definitely bigger than others.

 And others, while small, were still immensely useful.

Without a legion of devoted friends and family, the lodge as we know it today would not exist.

So Cheers to you! Here's to another 365 with friends and family at the Lodge.

Vanity, part III: the vanity strikes back

While the captain was losing his mind trying to bore a hole into a shower tile, I decided to be productive and get a bit more trim installed in the bathroom.

Here's the half-wall by the sink:

I put the trim around the cap at the top of the wall and filled the crevices with my secret weapon (ALEX caulk). It's ready now for a coat of white paint.

I also installed the trim along the floor in front of the vanity. As always, it's good from far, but far from good. At least it looks better than exposed 2x4s.

I put some trim around the door frames, too.

I did manage to get grout on a few tiles this weekend and ran some silicone caulk to seal it up.
(thanks to Nicole the cat herder for her donated grout. I think we used a whole tablespoonful. I'm very pleased I didn't have to buy a whole box for that.)

I still need to put some trim on the walls surrounding the toity, and around the window. That one will require some creativity as the window casing isn't flush with the wall.

Another project for next year.