Dec 27 - Eureka !

I now know why it takes Sandy so long when she goes to Sudbury. It isn't the time spent driving between the various "ports of call", it's the time in the stores themselves.

Take yesterday as an example. I decided to go with her because there were things that I wanted to shop for, not trusting her and vice versa. She didn't trust me to shop for vegetables etc. and I didn't trust her to pick up an inexpensive DVD player for the basement (the one down there is dead). I also wanted to pick out the meat for New Years Eve fondue.

We only hit three places -- Canadian Tire (hockey sticks etc. & DVD player), Costco (food), YIG -- Your Independent Grocer -- food.

Canadian Tire was relatively quick -- turkey baster, two hockey sticks, balls, puck, DVD player.

Costco was similarly quick, but traffic was building -- fondue meat + a variety of other foodstuffs. It turned out that per pound the beef tenderloin was cheaper than the rib steaks, so BT it will be. I forget all that we had in our cart but it turned out to be an expensive stop.

YIG (that's how it shows up in my Quicken credit card bill), took the longest. This is where Sandy, as a foodie, spent most of her time. It was like browsing in a museum except that she probably covered the store four times.

I think that her comment in Canadian Tire was most telling -- "I love this store". Many women would go crazy in an outlet mall but for Sandy it's Crappy Tire and YIG !

It was lightly raining when we left and snowing upon our return. Osprey Road was very sloppy, only about 2 inches of snow, if that, but mooshy. The temperature was still over freezing and stayed that way all day. By dinnertime it was still the same as all day -- 34F -- and then afterwards dropped to 33F ... whoo hooo. Within a half-hour or so it dropped to 23F and the freeze was on ! Right now it's 7F with still a light dusting coming down. The internet says 3F. We have a 2"-3" of snow on the ground at this point and of course satellite service is so-so.

We were back from Sudbury for a late lunch and a while later I went out with Chase and we wandered around the property, onto the ice, cleared the deck of 5mm of snow, took the 4-wheeler down to the end of the road and back ... just to get Chase outside mostly. When we came in, Chase went out again with Jeffrey, Sara and Emma. Emma got to use the swing, with Jeffrey's help of course. Snowballs flew.

This morning I'll have some snow blowing to do. I need to go into Loring to check the mail and pick up a couple of items. I expect to drill a largish hole in the ice at some point and flood the skating rink ... but before we do that we'll have to clear the snow, I think. I don't know because it was quite windy overnight and it might be mostly clear.

We had lasagne for dinner, eating well as usual. There was enough leftover for Sandy and I to have a meal once everyone is gone. That's called planning ahead. George and Geri are quite good at that with their travels in the coach, preparing ahead of time for on-the-road meals. Of course their kitchen travels with them :). I think if we ever did extensive touring like them, I'd have to have an automatically-deployable grill !

Onward ? I hope so !