Christmas is done! Villages taken apart and our house looks hugely empty lol Jan 5-16

Nothing exciting happening here with us lol

We are putting our old dock gazebo up for grabs for free just to get it out of the way for Jason.  Just need someone to take it down. :) New one going up in April that is twice as big to provide more shade. This one is only 5 years old but not big enough. For Christmas for us, I bought a bigger one in the fall on a clearance sale with new chairs and fire pit. The new gazebo will have curtains to block the wind. The past couple of years it's been way too windy down there to sit in the afternoons, so the new one will make it much more pleasant. 

This is the gazebo waiting to be installed. :) All in boxes downstairs.

January 7th a picture I copied from our neighbour Debra, a little sun and a dusting of snow. One of the few days we saw some sun briefly.

With Amelia's Birthday Party over, and the help the crowd gave us taking down the beam decorations, it's time for us to tackle the villages. We have a deadline to get them out of the way by January 9th, when our new chandelier is to be installed. For the next 3 days we packed up everything we could to clear the way. The whole pack up took 6 days total to get everything packed up and put away on various shelves throughout the basement and garage. The house seems so empty now lol 

From this ...

To that ....

But before it looked like that, this was part of the packed up mess! 

It's done nothing but rain for days so a good time to pack up stuff anyways. We made enough room for the guys tomorrow to make it through to the living room with their ladder.

Thursday the guys came to install our new chandelier. They removed the ceiling fan and replaced it with the same light fixture over the dining room table. I've been finding being home in the winter, that it's really dark in the afternoon and at night, even with all the lamps on. We found we needed more light at Christmas, in the couch area, for opening presents. It was a bit challenging to read tags. :)

A very tall ladder is needed, for Nick and Ethan from Telegraph Electric. I'd mentioned to Andrew, the owner, to remember a tall ladder as he had originally put up the other chandelier over the dining room table 7 years ago. The boys arrived at 8:30 am.

Nope this ladder not tall enough! I'm not happy with this situation, neither is Nick at the top of the ladder.

We decided he needed a bigger ladder .... so the boys had to drive back to Duncan to Home Depot and rent a taller one. Geez.

This was a better choice. Even with the drive back to Duncan they were done by noon.

Ta Da! On a dimmer switch, so perfect.

By the weekend, Ray had everything stowed away, including all the lights from outside and blow ups etc. The tree didn't come down until Friday, as I'm waiting for a new ornament box to reduce the number of bins I previously used. Once here it only took 2 hours to put it all away. 

With a week of rain and warm temps the lake really rose quickly. This picture is from January 12. Look at the height of the ramp and the first piling ....

The next day, January 13 now look at the piling and the ramp! The lake rose another 18" overnight.

This is where the water is in the summer. See how much beach we have!

Next up is Ray installing my new pantry shelves that I purchased before Christmas. With a small pantry, I'm always trying to fit more in lol Thanks a bunch sweetie! Now I'm waiting for my storage containers to arrive so I can sort out the rest of the pantry.

Thursday, I spent 2 hours going through the rest of the pantry and consolidating stuff into my new pantry containers. Wow, I've quite a bit of extra room now and I can see exactly what I have on hand. Quite a few things were buried so I'd bought more lol.  Now all of the jam Jason made is visable on the hanging pantry shelves on the door, not tucked in behind.

I find winter time good months to do a cleanout of clothes, kitchen cupboards and fridges etc, as it's so ugly outside I might as well keep busy in the house.

With a week coming up of nice weather, the lake should recede a bunch. Thursday it started to slowly go down a few inches.

This week Ray ande I started going up to the Recreation Centre for exercise classes again on Wednesdays and Fridays. It forces us to get moving again. With the weather being so bad, we've not been out walking like we should.

I put the gazebo on Facebook Marketplace as none of my neighbours wanted it .... there were over 25 replies within half an hour. A guy and his wife are coming from Victoria this weekend to remove it from the dock. Another thing off my list. :) This way Jason has plenty of time to arrange with his buddy Matt to come down and install the other one.

With the weather warmer during the day, we have had quite a few foggy mornings. I guess "a lake effect". It is practically freezing in the morning at 0C (32F) and goes up to 10C (50F) in the afternoon. Nice to see the sunshine again.

Today, Jan 16th, I planted my counter Aerogarden with herbs so I can enjoy them in about a month. They are so expensive to buy and my outdoor ones don't go in until the very end of April.

Once germination occurs, in about 7-14 days, they grow really fast. I soaked seeds overnight to speed up the process, hopefully.

This morning is absolutely beautiful once the fog burned off. It stayed like this all day with no wind.

Hard to believe another couple of weeks have gone by! We are taking a mini-trip next week, stay tuned.