1. The Leaves - last week I finally decided to tackle my outside - mainly rake the leaves and sweep the walk. I did as much as I could with the leaf bags we had, and had to leave the rest.
Isn't that plant in the bottom right corner beautiful in the fall?
Stored the table and chairs too, but that planter is too heavy to go anywhere!
We also did the side alley, but I didn't take pictures of it - it was the biggest miracle. It's a shared path, and it's super creepy and dark, and houses the garbage and air conditioner and many other things I never really touch...plus I don't really know the 3 neighbours that live in the various apartments next door
This is now what my backyard looks like today. The only thing good about falling leaves is that my house lets in so much more light in the winter!
2. Cleaning - now my house isn't so gross, and I didn't take pictures of it all, but there are the typical week-old tumbleweeds of dust and hair rolling around, the shower drain is starting to get clogged (there isn't enough Drain-O in the world to dissolve all my hair), and the windows need dusting. In particular, the outside of the front window...
3. Halloween - my brother had a Halloween/housewarming party/Jessica's birthday party last Saturday. I decided that if I actually got a costume together, I would go. Well...Saturday hit and we had to go to Value Village to drop off a whole bunch of house stuff and clothes we were donating (another procrastination - the big chair is FINALLY out of the kitchen!), so I thought I'd pop in to see some costumes. Well...those Queen's students will remember Phase 2 around Halloween - INSANELY busy and smelling like people smoking weed and old clothes...so I left. No costume. No party attendance. We were also supposed to rent scary movies, which Matt procrastinated on, but ended up watching "Scream 4" - entertaining but predictable, and "Paranormal Activity" - both # 1 and 2. Wow....so scary. I don't think I've slept well since.
The day before Halloween I freaked out because we didn't have a pumpkin or candy, so got both, but a sloppy leftover pumpkin because we had waited so long. Supposedly there are no pumpkin patches in Toronto. So Matt gutted it and decorated it and I completely forgot to take pictures. So all we had as decor was the pumpkin, some lanterns outside, and my real spider web in the window. Still had about 100 kids, and a lot of leftover candy which I have taken to work in attempt not to put myself into some sort of diabetic coma.
4. Miscellaneous Other House Chores - like the dry cleaning. And getting an oil change for my car. These are mundane tasks that I inevitably put off EVERY SINGLE TIME they are required to get done. Why? No clue. I got the oil change and tune up 1500 km later than I am supposed to (which isn't that many days, really, considering I drive about 100 km per day, but still), and that annoying "perform service" beep is finally not happening anymore every time I start my car. I asked Matt to take in the dry cleaning - this is everything since we got back from our cruise in August (3 dresses), plus some dress pants, Matt's suit, and of course, the pillowcases from the Home Sense pillows I got thinking I could wash the marks out of them and found out they were dry-clean only. So the pillows have been sitting without cases upstairs along with the cases in the "to be dry cleaned" pile for at least a month. So, finally did that, and the pillows are back in the living room!
Finally got a good picture for the big frame on the shelf in our bedroom - it's of the Trevi fountain in Rome. We wanted a black and white to go with all the others in the room, but it was so hard to make Europe pictures NOT colour since they were so incredible there - will use those pictures for the gallery wall in the dining room eventually.
And finally....still no top to the sideboard (waiting until we have some furniture to match the wood stain to), but here's it with the trim done and a bit of stuff on it.
Also, that brown wicker basket is full of leftover candy...
5. Blogging - of course. There's been lots of little things I could have posted about, which really I should save and post about separately every day this week to fill up days of blog posts. My view stats go up the day after a post, and of course steadily decline until the next post. Except lately...there has been a lot of random traffic. Some common search parameters to find me are usually the paint colours I use, "Pax Wardrobe" for our Ikea system, or something about shelving or renovations. BUT....about 20 times a month I get "science of married" as a search parameter, which can only mean someone has not saved my blog link and must search for it each time. I'm flattered, but seriously, save it to your favourites. Or even better - use Google Reader! It saves some much clicking of different blogs daily. I seriously have about 70 on my list, which works about to be about 100 posts a day to sift through (hey, Apartment Therapy usually does 40 per day of those), so Reader makes it a lot easier!
So here's the random stuff from the week. Sunday Matt and I made tapas - and I seriously helped! We made some goat cheese and red wine shiraz jelly (from President's Choice - great new line of around the world products to try) in puff pastry (more a dessert than anything), some sliced chorizo with roasted peppers, some garlicky shrimp, and "patatas bravas" which is pretty much potatoes, with a tomato-like sauce. Tapas also equals a lot of garlic, chilies, and paprika, plus olive oil, but it was all incredible!
I have been taking pictures of the pretty leaves, and made a friend in the process named George - he is grey and bushy and is always awaiting me when I step outside. He has been getting fat lately, and I commented to Matt that he has probably been finding Halloween candy and eating it. Matt scoffed at me and said he was simply fattening up for winter...well...
PS - I absolutely did NOT give him that Mars bar. Please know I do not encourage the wilderness that is my backyard. This week alone a cat tried numerous times to get into our house on Halloween!
By the way, I use Photoscape to edit my pictures - just learning how to use it!
Okay, that's it for today. Will post tomorrow on "Movember" and the weird hair that it once again growing above my husband's upper lip...only 24 days left in this month, thank goodness!