Cities and Knights!

For my birthday, I bought myself Catan: Cities and Knights. I love the original game, Settlers of Catan, and decided that I would like to try one of the expansions. After some debate, I purchased the Cities and Knights expansion (it was a toss up between Cities and Knights and Traders and Barbarians, but in the end I decided to go with the first one because it seems to be the more popular with people).

So today I finally got to try it out with a couple of friends! I can't believe how different it is from the original game. There's a lot more to it, and it also seems a bit slower paced. But it was still a lot of fun. I'm not entirely sure that we were playing it correctly, (the Pirate Ship never seemed to do anything) but I did enjoy it. I can't wait to play it again (and some more of the original Settlers, as I love that game!!!!)

The Saws Have a New Home!!!!

Since around Christmas, I've been getting gas for my car from the Canadian Tire Gas Bar. This has gotten me about $1.50-$2.00 in Canadian Tire Money every time I fill up. I've been wondering what I was going to do with the money for awhile, especially now that I had almost $20 which is enough to buy something descent.

The saws that I got for Ukrainian Christmas this past year have remained in their package. I had no where to put them, so I didn't bother opening them up until recently. I first needed a tape measure, so I took the one out of the saw kit. And then the other day, my brother came downstairs looking for a hack saw. So I opened up the rest of the kit, thinking I was going to get to saw things. Sadly, I didn't, as my dad pulled his hack saw out and was out the door before mine was out. I now had the saws out of the package with nowhere to put them.

This was when I hit upon the idea of using my Canadian Tire Money to buy a tool kit especially for them! So I went to Canadian Tire earlier today with some friends and bought myself one! It had to be a bit bigger so it could fit the cross cut saw (it nearly didn't! I have to keep the cross cut saw on an angle!) Thanks to the Canadian Tire Money I had, it only cost me $0.17!

Here's the Garden!

Well, I was able to post this a lot sooner than I anticipated! There wasn't very good lighting, and it was a bit cold, so I only took a few shots. This is the entire garden. I managed to get a nice closeup of a pansy that is up on Flickr. More pictures will be forthcoming in the months ahead!

Garden Time!!!!

Yesterday and today, I went on a plant-shopping spree. I bought a few perennials (a primrose, a new red lily, a Chinese lantern and about two others), as well as my usual favourite annuals (pansies, petunias, two fuchsias and a few impatiens). So when I got home from the garden centre, I planted my garden! This year, I was able to clear out the top part of the garden (the part that my dad was originally taking care of), so I've been extremely excited about being able to buy lots more plants!

The top of the garden has been full of random plants that my dad found by the tracks for the last few years. So it's going to be a real battle fixing it up now. I'm going to leave the raspberry bushes there (but keep them near the back), the irises, and the vine that he planted, but pretty much everything else is gone! Everything's been running wild over the last few years, so I'm thinking it will take a few years before I can get it back under control again!

So anyway, the weather forecast was for rain this afternoon, but the sky looked pretty clear, so I started planting right when I got home. Of course, I failed to take into account the wicked wind, which kept blowing in massive clouds every ten minutes or so. I ended up hanging out beside a tree during a bit of hail, and getting rained on afterwards. But everything is planted, and looking good! I will be posting pictures on Flickr (possibly in a day or two, depending on the weather!)