Sunday.... Ahhhhh..... Small children, dog, bacon, coffee... sunshine and freezing cold outside.  Perfect!  Well, except the cold. Why? It's March 16th! We are supposed to warm up now. Yesterday was great, apart from the gale force wind and the blizzarding snow at times. This is getting really, really tedious.

Erica and family arrived in time for lunch yesterday. I had started chili, organized for James to work on the kitchen cabinet (it's soooooooooooooooooooo nice), gone to my nutritionist, gone to Staples to lay a dead printer to rest and get a new one. Nothing exciting, just one that can print on both sides. Went to food store, bought far too much stuff... oh, well.  It's almost gone anyway! Picked up Jackson at 3, and he came and raised the noise level about 10 fold... not by himself, you understand, but Zoe gets totally unruly when Jackson is around. Don't know why, but they get each other in trouble constantly. Sigh.  I went to Home Desperate three different times to get supplies for James. Each time, it snowed worse than the previous time. At one point, I couldn't see the road ahead of me.  Good thing we're no longer far from the store. At one point in the afternoon, we all walked down the hill, including Acheson, who was just nutty, and E took the kids for ice cream at the place at the bottom of the hill.  They do wicked burgers and serve some of the best ice cream ever. Ice cream on a cold day. Hey, why not? 

Matt and Andrea arrived in time for dinner, so there were 10 of us, the whole family, together!  Heaven. Doesn't happen near often enough. I envy Karen, James' mum, for her ability to have her family around her all the time. Mine will be even further afield when Matt moves to the city.

Speaking of Matt, he is making an amazing dent in the morass that had become his new workplace. Apparently, there is 10 years of "stuff" to reorganize, peoples' expectations to raise and generally get the place back up to the five stars retirement home is should be.  Most of the residents are commenting on salad, fresh veggies and homemade soup. Makes you wonder what they fed them previously, doesn't it? Matt is incredibly organized, and he believes in good food. Not just open a can or a box, which so many "homes" seem to provide the residents, who are paying through the nose. He loves to cook, and he is so good at what he does. Who knew when he was an undecided teenager that he would become such a whiz in the kitchen. Not only that, but he talks to the residents! Fancy that! He actually goes out there and mingles.  No one had ever done that before. Of course, some of the staff are grumbling... they have never had direction before, obviously, and they don't like it. Too bad.  My boy is going to pull that place back up by its bootstraps, and they will all be utterly amazed.

The Manor, where he worked, also for Chartwell, for three years in Gravenhurst, has been sold, and apparently the replacement, whom Matt thought sounded a good bet, has turned out to be a dead loss. The boss is despairing. Well, I guess they should have appreciated Matt more when he was there.

So much for the moment.  The boss is going to work, the kids are replacing door handles and all is well.  TTFN