May Long Going-ons

I had a glorious long weekend.  Went to a friend's for Friday night libations, shopped Saturday for long-weekend necessities (see below), went for a bike ride along the river on Sunday, and gardened Monday.

We've been looking for a patio dining table for a few weeks, but were limited by two factors. First, price.  And second, I wanted something bright and white, like on Magnum P.I. Which I've been watching on Netflix in anticipation of our trip to Maui in December (this is why we have to scrimp on the patio furniture).  Almost every outdoor scene has great white, multi-coloured and yellow furniture.  It looks 'happy' to me.  See? (all images from magnum-mania.com)

  I've scoured websites and popped into stores, but unlike the selection of white furniture apparently available in 1983, all there really is now is brown, grey, black and khaki-coloured sets.  On Saturday, I had a feeling I might find something at the Habitat for Humanity Restore.  We hadn't been before, but I was able to convince Hus to go.  Success!  We found this white table for $5!

It is a little scratched up on top.  I might give it a paint later in the summer.  We purchased these folding chairs at Canadian Tire.  So far, I am happy with them.  And such a happy green!  Not shown is a yellow patio umbrella.  I 'hacked' these Ikea soap dishes, with Hens and Chicks for a table topper....

I did some other gardening.  I planted an herb garden...

 And wanted to plant flowers, but then realized none of my other planters made the move last summer.  No worry, my next door neighbour was having a garage sale and I found some awesome '60s or '70s planters.... $1 each....

Deer!  One is perched on the stump of the overgrown fir next to the door that Hus cut down last summer.  Check out the crazy cross-eyes on this one...

Here is a picture of the front of our house...

All of this gardening was really tiring, and I was baking in the warm sunshine. So we went for cervezas and I got this free hat.  Perfect for more gardening!

Here is my gardening assistant modelling it....

Looking forward to more sunny days and cervezas this summer!

A few weeks worth of garage sale/thrift store treasures

Here are some random things I've purchased over the last few weeks.  Okay, months. 

I think I bought these vintage mini-serving forks and knives (sorry - Dinkee knives) way back in February.     

Why? Because I always fantasize about inviting people over and serving appetizers.  But, I've been too busy to do it, and we don't really have many friends here yet.  And, I loved that they had their original boxes and were only $1.99 at Value Village.

More recently, I went to the Salvation Army and found these great hard-board placemats.  

They were a little pricey at $8.99, but are brand-new and I've been looking out for some for years.  When we went to England several years ago, all the B&B's had these placemats.  So sturdy and easy to wipe off!  Now, if I could only find Linda McCartney vegetarian sausages here!  They are the best.

Last weekend our next door neighbour had a garage sale, and I snagged this '70s footstool for my retro rumpus room and bar for $5 bucks.

Her husband had added wheels to the bottom; I may take them off. I'm not sure yet.  And she threw in this 1975 Avon perfume pin! 

I'll have to find someway to incorporate it into Easter decorations next year.  That means I'll actually have to put up Easter decorations.

Where did April go?

It whizzed by and the exam period was gruelling.  And now I can look forward to a relaxing summer of full-time work and weekends off, instead of the 15+ hours a day I've been putting in in my first year of law school.

I managed to do a few other things besides studying.  I went to my first ever NHL game (and the Oilers actually won it). That was some time earlier in April when they played against the Ducks. I'm not much of a hockey fan (the tickets were given to us) so I was more interested in observing crowd behaviour etc.  And, the opening of the game brought home to me that I'm living in Oil country now, because the team skated through a derrick that was lowered from the ceiling.  Really.

 

I also celebrated my birthday.  And Hus and I celebrated our 12th anniversary.  We dashed out to dinner in the middle of my studying.  

And now that my finals are over, I made a trip to the public library to sign up and check out 'fun' non-law books!  

Last year was the library's centennial, so they threw in this bag with my membership, and check out this great library card...

And I know you want to have a closer look at some of the pictures in the Tiki book....

I could go for one of those drinks now.  It was a fun read about the origins of Tiki and the mish-mash of cultures and creativity that went into it. Not shown in the picture, is Camilla Lackberg's second to last novel, which I blew threw in two days.

My friend Moe also came for a visit, and we went to some consignment shops and to the Royal Albert Museum.  I only really have this picture to show, I took it because it was so shockingly gross....

A HUGE diorama of what happens when a mouse corpse decomposes.  

And on that cheery note, I'll bid you farewell until next time.