Carol's space...and I don't mean the kitchen

Happy 4th of July to all my American friends!! Not only is it a holiday in the US but it's also the day before my birthday!!lol. I did payroll this morning and had coffee with my best friend. I've got one more load of laundry to do and grocery shopping and then it's back to the cabin for the weekend. Oh, and I am VERY stiff and sore from gardening too long yesterday but it's too hot to go out there today anyway so I guess it's a good thing I did as much as I did.

My birthday party with the "girls" was fun last night. One of my friends made a Harvey Wallbanger cake.... omg, sooo good! I brought the rest home and Garths parents came over and they and Garth ate the rest so the temptation has been removed for me. This morning I met my friend downtown (2 blocks away for me,haha) to watch the Kiddies Day Parade. They were all so cute and some had really good costumes and mini floats. The best one was a little army tank. I should have taken more pictures but the batteries died in my camera and I wouldn't post pics of other peoples kids without permission anyway. We had coffee after that and then I did a bunch of weeding in my garden. Now my back is tired so I'm taking a break. My girls left Prince Rupert this morning so will be home in a few days.

Ok, I went back out to the garden and I've now pulled a wheel barrow full of California poppies, dill, and some weeds. I will regret this tomorrow... I know I'm gonna be hurtin. That's what I get for lazing about at the cabin and not keeping up with my work here,lol. 

We had a good weekend at the cabin. The weather really heated up and Monday was HOT. Yesterday there was a lot of smoke in the air from forest fires that are burning in the Northern part of the province. There are over 100 forest fires burning and some people had to be evacuated from remote areas. Matthew was here for the weekend so we saw him (and several of his friends) in between rounds of golf. When we got home last night we found that our driveway was almost done and the guys are here now working on finishing that and hopefully the sidewalks too. I worked at the paint store today and everything went well except that I had so many reports to print I overheated the printer and had to keep waiting for it to cool off. I had coffee with my best friend this morning and tonight I'm going over to another friends for my first birthday celebration of my birthday week.  

Whoa... no need for AC today! It is chilly, brrr. I finished up bill paying and GST (yuck) so I can go out to the cabin and not come back till July 1st. We bought groceries yesterday so as soon as the laundry is done I'll pack up some books and take off.

Today is the first day in 2008 that I turned on the air conditioning!! It's nice and warm so hopefully our driveway can dry out and our workers get back to laying the paving stones. I also need to get out in the garden and pull out masses of dill and poppies which are definitely taking over. Garth has left on a 2 day golf trip with friends. I had coffee with one of my friends this morning and now have to head to the store to see what needs doing there.

I had a nice relaxing week at the cabin. I read "Pillars of the Earth" and that is 973 pages so you know I didn't do much else. Our neighbors came over on Saturday night so we had some drinks with them and a nice visit. Garth did some golfing but he always had guys to go with so I didn't bother. We planted some spruce trees in the yard even though we really don't need any more trees there but these were growing beside our garage and they couldn't stay there and we hated to just throw them away. Our driveway is coming along veeeeerrry slowly. They apparently need to wait til the base dries out and it keeps raining so we're kind of on hold. There are pallets of paving stones on the street all across the driveway so I can't get the trailblazer out of the garage so will continue driving the old jeep in the meantime. I'm hoping I can have coffee with at least one of my friends this afternoon after being away for a week.   

I was dreaming if I thought I would get everything I needed to do done in one day. I cut the grass, weeded the garden, did laundry, picked a bunch of rhubarb, froze 3 packages, paid some bills and did some bookwork. Now I'm baking a rhubarb cake and cooking supper. I didn't make it to the store to do my work there so that will have to wait for tomorrow. After that I'll take off for R & R.

On Friday morning our friend was here with his crew and equipment and they tore out our concrete driveway and sidewalk. We are getting them redone with paving stones hopefully next week. The weekend went as planned. We got out to the lake on Friday afternoon and had a fun cocktail hour with 4 of our friends. Then we went to the clubhouse for a steak supper and back to the other friends cabin for a nightcap and more visiting. In the morning the guys got up and went golfing while my friend (who feels the same as me about getting up early) and I slept in til about 10:30. She made a great bacon and eggs breakfast and we visited til it was time to go to the supper after the golf tournament. We left shortly after supper and I was glad to sleep in my own comfy bed. This morning we took my brothers to the airport in Regina and then went out for breakfast with Matthew. We made a stop at Costco and tho we had just been there 10 days ago managed to find a lot of stuff that we "needed". When we got back to town we went to the hospital to visit Garth's Dad. He is doing pretty good and actually got home later in the day. I was watching a 60 Minutes about sleep deprivation and just before they got to the part about naps, I fell asleep,LOL!! Really, I did. So now I don't know if they are good or bad. If anyone stayed awake to watch it please let me know. Oh, and last night I watched the movie, The Notebook and I cried so much that my eyes were puffy this morning. The weather is supposed to be nice this week so if I get my work done I may head out to the cabin for a few days.

I went to the gym today for only the 2nd time in June... so far. The summer just gets crazy for some reason. My best friend made it over for a short coffee break. She is going out of town for meetings so we won't see each other for over a week. My Mom and brothers are coming for supper tonight so I've made a big pot of spagetti sauce. Tomorrow we're going to stay with friends at their cabin and Garth is golfing in a tournament on Saturday. We will stay for the supper but have to leave before the dance (boohoo) because we have to drive my brothers to the airport early Sunday morning. We've had still more rain but not enough to flood, everything is looking really green, even the dead patches on the lawn. My flowers are ready to burst into bloom as soon as the sun comes out again.

I forgot to mention that our drug dealers across the street got busted on Thursday night. We saw 3 police cars outside and heard on the news the next day that a bust had been made!! Yippee. It's been REALLY quiet over there ever since,hahaha.

Our birthday party last night was really fun. Lots of laughs as usual and way too much good food. I did go to the gym in the afternoon but I'm afraid the calories burned were far short of the calories consumed,lol.

I worked at the paint store this morning and got all but one issue resolved. Now I have to cook up some hummingbird food and we are going to take it out to the cabin because Garth checked and found that the feeders were all empty. There were a pair of orioles out there on the weekend so I suspect they were feeding because I know we don't have enough hummingbirds to eat that much!!