the view from here

Could it get any snowier?  I think this in the snowiest winter we've had yet since moving south.

Thoughts of flowers and springtime have been put on hold.  But my little decorative snowmen have been banished to a box in the basement.  All except the one Allison made - it deserves its place on the mantle shelf for a while longer. 

I picked up a samll pot of bulbs this week, and my goal is to take care of them well enough that they will live to bloom.  The hope of some cheery colour on my windowsill may be enough to remind me to water them occasionally.

Keeping track of our finances on a spreadsheet has got me paying closer attention to our expenses.  It really makes me think twice before throwing something in the shopping cart since every dollar has to be accounted for.  I'm having a little competition with myself to see how much I can trim down the bill without compromising the quality of our food.
 

We've gotten used to our mega grocery bill, but seeing the numbers totalled up at the end of January got me doing a little math.  Have you ever figured out what it costs to feed one person for a week?  Or what your meals cost on average?  Knowing our costs made me curious about what other people spend.  I discovered that according to the stats, we spend a little less than half of what the average Canadian household spends per person for food. Wowzer! And we even have the added expense of speical diets. I guess it really does pay to buy on sale, cook from scratch and eat at home.  It helps, too, that we are able grow a garden and raise a few chickens for both meat and eggs.

This week a few of us have come down with a bug - fevers, coughs and runny noses.  This is really the first sickness that we've had this winter, which is amazing considering all the colds and flus that have been going around.  There's been lots of napping and tea sipping and, yes, a little whining going on.  But as they say, this too shall pass.

Until next time,