Lovely Christmas

I had a lovely Christmas, lots of food and actually lovely company all three places while in Dauphin.  My sister's cats were well behaved until the last night when they started to fight mainly Blackjack picking on Toffee and again Boxing Day.  I rushed across the kitchen floor to stop them and wiped out and fell onto the raised metal join of the hardwood into the hallway on both knees and then continued to fall and smacked my sore shoulder and noggin onto the floor and started to cry as I ACHED and my knees were a burning pain.  Both cats stopped fighting and sat their with heads cocked sideways and stared at me!!!  FRUSTRATED I sure was and pissed at them!!!  It was as if they were saying "well you fell we didn't do it to you!!!"  When I called Wayne and Florence before leaving to check if they'd left already, they just laughed as they both said they can just see the cats reactions too and told me to get the icepack out and put it on the knees - which I did and it felt better!!!

They thoroughly enjoyed their vacation to Alberta and were so pleased to have me come out that they even paid me plus filled up my van before they left Saturday morning - I was shocked.  She was the one who always said I should pay them for allowing me to stay in their nice new homes with AC etc, never mind charging them.  NOW she sees why and says it was well worth it to know they both could go at the same time and know their babies were looked after the whole time and without arranging a schedule for her girlfriend and Wayne's son to take turns coming over.  This way they were more well behaved and not into so much mischief as when left alone all day long.  LOL!

Well all I can say is I'm glad my van had enough heat to be comfortable on my return trip home, but when the sun went behind me or down the temp dropped and I had to crank her to HOT and then was comfortable again.  Definitely NOT my baby of last week!!!  I was quoted $400 to start with and depending if it is a US part under the hood or a Cdn part it could be more, plus the thermostat and naturally the replacement antifreeze so for sure a $500 plus job @ CdnTire.  My mechanic was ticked and said not to do that, if there is enough heat to stay comfortable to wait till Easter and then go back to Dphn (maybe another house sitting for my sister too) and he'd work the weekend on it and replace it for lots less.  SO please pray that this baby stays somewhat comfortable for me till then!!!

So when I talked with my other sister Sylvia & Len, I was told since I had heat on the inside air circulation (can't drive with that as windows fog up horribly) to check the vents or filter as they might be plugged with leaves or even mouse nest (SHEESH - not into my vehicle too) and also to check the antifreeze (that was checked & OK) as both have happened to him before.  So hopefully this weekend I'll  check if I don't have time tomorrow night.  I'll be ticked if I froze driving to Elsie's and also Erlene's (45 min - 1 hr) there and then back and it was still COLD as it was -30C out!!!  I was COLD!!!  And that was with my parka, boots and mitts on!!!

Then it was back to work Thursday and Friday for me!!!  I survived and now I've the weekend off and Monday too!!!  Today I went over to Pat & Randy's for supper with all of them and tried a Ukrainian first for me - I made Nalysnyky (cheese rolls - crepes with cottage cheese filling) and took them over for all to try out!  They were delicious and only 3 little pieces left over!!!  Now I know I'll be making these again!  YUMMY!!!

So HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone reading this!!!

I'm going to relax and read or stitch these days away!